The invention relates to a direct drive for a cylinder of a converting machine, in particular a printing press or coating machine that converts sheet-type printed materials. The aim of the invention is to develop a direct drive for a cylinder of the afore-mentioned type in such a way that the required lateral corrections are significantly reduced. To this end, the direct drive includes a rotor (14) that is detachably mounted on the end of the cylinder (6, 10) and a stator (15) that is concentric with the rotor and is detachably fixed to the side frame (13). A register motor (16), which is fixed to the frame, is coupled to gearing (17, 18) and this gearing (17, 18) is coupled to a helical gear or screw drive (19, 2, 21, 22), which is in turn coupled to the cylinder (6, 10) by means of an axial/rotative coupling (23, 24).