Yamaha Steinberg USB Driver and Sonar

I don't have a montage, but from the product description, the USB connection appears to be a convenience, and it carries both audio and midi. They claim it's USB class compliant, so you shouldn't need any drivers at all.
 
As far as multiple parts, not sure what you're getting at, unless it's like traditional Yamaha romplers where you can assign (1 or more) 'parts' to a midi channel, which lets you have more than one voice to a channel. The only way to do the assignments was from the front panel, sysx,  or a custom editor. It might be the Steinberg driver does some extra proprietary stuff above and beyond the normal class compliance.
 
The alternative is a midi interface, midi cables, an audio interface, audio cables and so on.

SuperG
I don't have a montage, but from the product description, the USB connection appears to be a convenience, and it carries both audio and midi. They claim it's USB class compliant, so you shouldn't need any drivers at all.

 
From the Yamaha site:
 
"In order to use the Montage's 32 audio bus outputs you wil need the Yamaha Steinberg USB driver for your computer type and operating system. This is a special low latency ASIO driver that will handle both MIDI and audio communication. You can use your favorite DAW...."
 

SuperGAs far as multiple parts, not sure what you're getting at, unless it's like traditional Yamaha romplers where you can assign (1 or more) 'parts' to a midi channel, which lets you have more than one voice to a channel. The only way to do the assignments was from the front panel, sysx,  or a custom editor. It might be the Steinberg driver does some extra proprietary stuff above and beyond the normal class compliance.... 
 

Once again from the Yamaha site:
"The Montage is capable OS streaming 32 Audio bus outputs to your computer when you are using the Yamaha Steinberg USB driver v1.9.9. ...
 
...To be clear, it is not the track that has the output assignment, it's actually more flexible than that... It is the PART that has the OUTPUT assignment. Each of Montage's 16 synth Parts plus the AD Input Part can be routed to any of the 32 audio bus outputs. They are configured as Main L&R, plus 30 assignable outputs. The 30 assignable outputs can be configured as odd/even stereo pairs (USB1/2, USB3/4, USB5/6.... USB29/30) or an assignable can be set as a single individual output (USB1, USB2, USB3... USB30), as necessary to accomplish your audio recording requirements...
...So on a Windows PC you will need to switch to using the Montage as your audio interface. Fortunately, Cubase and Montage support "hot swapping" of ASIO drivers, which means you will not have to power down, nor will you have to reboot Cubase to switch drivers."
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So basically if you want the 32 Audio Channels you have to use the Montage as the audio interface and if your using Sonar you have to shut down the computer and switch back (change cables, etc) to your normal audio interface when your down recording the Montage and restart the computer. Cubase users don't have to do this as Yamaha takes care of it's own.
 
This is a big pain. It also has this big "Super Knob" (I assume no relation! :-), that allows you to morph between different sounds while your playing. I am looking at workarounds since I don't think it's worth it to have to change the set up everytime you want to use the Montage.
 
I love sounds. The Piano sound blows away any of my Roland Synths and Kontakt Softsynths I have. Sorry for the long post.
 
Walt
 

WallyG
So basically if you want the 32 Audio Channels you have to use the Montage as the audio interface and if your using Sonar you have to shut down the computer and switch back (change cables, etc) to your normal audio interface when your down recording the Montage and restart the computer. Cubase users don't have to do this as Yamaha takes care of it's own.

Must be something special about the driver, usually SONAR would not need to be shutdown to swap interfaces using ASIO drivers. All that should be necessary is deselecting both input and output audio interface settings in Preferences to select another interface.

I tried that driver and USB hookup to Sonar with my MOX6.  I did not like it at all, so I just use midi cables now and I like that much better.  There is a downside of course: no individual audio tracks in Sonar...but I have individual midi tracks which I can then make audio tracks out of.  The USB driver required some special kind of setup in sonar as well as making that output change in the MOX.  Way too involved for me, unfortunately.  but if you do get it working, and end up liking it, I may revisit it again...

 
I get it, 16 parts, 16 midi channels, 16 stereo audio channels. It's 32 if interpreted as mono, albeit mono channels being a rather less-used, unusual notion USB-wise. Just a little confusion on my part, my mental distinction between midi parts and audio channels.
 
I can't comment on running multiple ASIO interfaces simultaneously in Sonar. Anybody know anything about that? Is it even possible?
 
You should be able to hot-plug USB though, no need to shut down the computer. Sonar will complain about ports disappearing, but that's normal.
 
 
 
 

Yamaha because they are  Stienberg and Cubase put work into writing good drivers. I used the ASIO driver that came with our Yamaha mixer in WDM mode along side my Tascam us1641 without issues. Of course you can't use ASIO with 2 interfaces.  
This was just straight multi track recording only. I don't trust WDM mode for overdubs. The loop back test shows tracks are recorded out of sync in WDM mode but not ASIO with the Tascam. 
 
But I also had no problem switching interfaces in ASIO. Best to restart Sonar but often it just asks me.