Well, I've had the ES for about 10 days or so now.. here is my take so far.

This board cannot compare to an arranger for live play ( solo ..duet etc ), but I would gladly bring it with me when playing in a regular band( as my first choice 0f course ) .

The sounds are superb for me. Maybe one could argue that there are better acoustic pianio sounds out there, and I would not disagree, but I like them just fine. The electrics are excellent though.. really nice classic sounds.. Rhodes , wurlis, clavis, etc ..plus some modern eps that I really like.

The biggest improvement for me vs the "classic" Motif are the organs. The B3 and C3 are my two favorite organs and the ES might be the closest thing I've heard other than the great B3 software emulation made by Native Instruments.

The acoustic guitars, sepecially the mega voices, when played with the arps, might fool a few seasoned ears in a mix. The electrics are very good too, and they give me much to compliment those great clean strat imitations in my PA80.

The sweet flute is well.. sweet. There are many nice preset synth pads, leads, and combis, , and nice string ensembles as well.

The Pattern sequencer really seems like it will be able to help me build up stuff pretty quickly, and I'm moving away from my software sequencers a little, although these are still a lot better if I need to edit.

The arps give so many tasty musical phrases ( many sound very natural ) , that it makes it simple to build patterns or "styles" that sound pretty realistic. the mega guitar and bass sounds work well with the arps, and the remix function allows for so many variations that it seems impossible to run out of ideas.

I think that those of us who use arrangers more as studio / composition tools might like this board a lot. It's really a great board that compliments my PA80. There are some similarities, but there are many differences as well. One main difference is that I am not locked into set patterns. I always liked this about Jammer Pro, but the musical phrases in jammer just don't compare to the Motif's arps and patterns. I wish my arranger had a function that would allow me to isntanttly mix the variation 3 drums with the variation 4 bass, the var 2 bass line with the var 4 fill..etc... Of course, on the PA80 and Yamaha arrangers, you can morph and mix style parts, but it is a lot quicker and easier to do on the Motif, with a lot more options ( so many phrases ) on top of it, and the remix function changes the structure of a pattern and allows for a lot of variation.

The biggest plus.. I don't see the note drop offs much any more. The expanded polyphony really helps here.

Often as I even look at this board I think.."What a great value for the money spent". After diving into it, even the OS doesn't bother me any more

This one is definitely a keeper .. at least until the next version..

AJ

[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 10-19-2003).]

SO true , so true, the guitars blow me away

Any decent Sax patches?

How are the Brasses?

Al

There are some very nice trombone and mute trumpet type sounds Al. The brass patches are pretty good overall, and the saxes are very decent, but maybe not quite as good as the "sweet" or "cool" types on the Tyros. I really haven't paid that much attention to them anyway because I prefer to use the ones from the VL150 acoustic modeling plug in. of course these are my subjective ears.. it's on display at "Alto" Al.. go check it out if you have time... Their prices are always right on this stuff too.

AJ

Thanks AJ, I was in Alto late Sept and they'd still not received their initial shipment of ESs. I'm sure they won't have a VL150 board loaded in anything to try.

Thanks for the info!
Al

Al,

They have them now. Got mine there. I'll post some MP3 demo's as soon as I get a chance.. of both the regular sounds and some of the plug in boards..

AJ

I pretty much agree with you AJ. It's interesting about the Sweet! and Live! voices missing from the Motif ES... I think some of those sounds from my 9000 Pro, like the alto sax, are better than than their counterparts on my Motif ES. OTOH the Oboe and Violins/Cellos sounds on the Mo ES are the best I've ever heard. There are sounds on the Motif ES without any counterpart on any other synth made, such as one my favs "Criminal" which is an incredible MegaVoice acoustic guitar with a guitar-strum arp layered over a synth-vocal patch which modulates from "aaah" to "oooh". Instant Enya!

I've ordered my PLG150-PF piano expansion card for my Mo ES because I am one of those that dislikes the new triple-strike acoustic piano on the Mo ES (I find I'm not alone on that). Another interesting feature missing is the Mo has no XG presets (!). There is a dedicated GM button but no XG... really strange for Yamaha to do that after so many years of pushing XG over GM but I guess they had to bow to GM's dominance. I now have a library of XG midi files and programs for editing XG plus I often edit my songs for XG for live use, so now I've ordered the PLG100-XG expansion card also for the Mo ES (didn't want to have to do that but no choice really). I'm also going to install my PLG150-DR card in the MO becase it still has the best drum samples IMHO. That'll use all of the Mo expansion ports and when everything is installed I'll have a total Mo ES polyphony of 256 notes.

The Motif ES includes a CD-ROM that has many Sweet! and Live! (Live! or Cool! but I think they're Live!) If I remember correctly there are no Cool! voices but either way one of the categories from the Sweet! Live! and Cool! voices is not included on the CD. And I think the one category missing is the Cool! voices but don't quote me on that.

Jim, if you have the CD-ROM that was included in the 'Box' you can load those voices onto the Motif ES by way of SM Card (you need a Smart Reader too) or by way of a Flash or also called 'Thumb' Drive. Load the Voices you want on the SM Card or Thumb Drive then by way of the USB port on the Motif ES you then can load the Voices into the Motif ES. Once into the ES you can Demo the different Voices, save the ones you like, and then create an Auto-Load file on the ES on boot up which will load the various voices you saved automatically. The Manual explains (not very comprehensively though) how to do this. Also there may be a step by step how-to procedure by now on the Motifator.com site on how to create an Auto Load file for the Mo' ES. There are many, many other type Voices included on the CD-OM too.

Best regards,
Mike

Thanks Mike - I haven't tried using the CD voices yet or the autoload function. Too many things to play with and I have music projects due! Oh well, gotta make time...

When comparing keyboard to keyboard some sax sounds might sound better than others. When compared to a real sax, the sax sounds on any keyboard suck.

Piano, guitar, strings and even some trumpet and trombone sounds surprise me. I played in a full size concert and marching band which for the time was very good. We were in National contest for high school bands. I've play with quite a few very good New Orleans dixieland and rock&roll trumpet and trombone players in New Orleans. If you've every played with decent sax players, you'll agree the sax sounds suck.
Boo

What are you saying, Boo?

Uh Oh,

One of the primary reasons I was considering the MO ES was for the supposed outstanding triple strike piano. I wanted a MO ES 8 for the keyboard action for practicing and conditioning. I've played the Fantom-S 88 and the P250 and both of those have outstanding Key action and Piano patches that would suit me fine.

Now I'm skeptical about the ES, I'm going to have to go play that puppy and find if it's to my liking.

Keep the reviews coming....
Al

Al: definitely play the Motif ES before buying if the piano sound is a major feature. Some people rave over the Mo ES piano so it's a very subjective thing. I'm highly critical over the upper midrange sounds which I think are thin and lack overtones, but others differ. As to the action of the Motif ES 8 - it's the best I've ever felt. I haven't heard anyone complain about the Motif ES 8 action yet.

As to the sax sounds - it's true, I've played with many sax players and I've never heard a keyboard emulation of a saxaphone that does the sax justice.

Al, Pro is right. Try it for yourself and see. I happen to be one of those that likes the Motif Piano sound, but if I didn't, I'd just go get the Piano plug in board and avoid the Fantom at all costs. The electric piano sounds / organs and guitar emulations in the Fantom do not please me at all.

I'm glad that I like the Motif's piano voices anyway, because I want the third expansion slot to go to a different plug in. It will probably be the drums or the DX7 emulator.. not sure yet. I have xg voices in my SY100xg software sound module, and unless polyphony really becomes an issue again, I don't want to waste a plug in slot for XG voices, many of which I don't really want to use anyway. The VL150 and AN150 modeling boards are in the ES to stay, which leaves me with only one slot to fill.

Yep, very hard to emulate a good sax sound. Aside from having the real thing, the VL150 plug in with a breathe controller does it about as well as anything else I've ever heard, including those Yamaha sweet voices. It's a whole separate skill to learn to incorporate the breathe control with what you are playing.

AJ