Ok please bare in mind here that i have never laid hands on a synth before as I have always used arrangers (Casio / Technics / Yamaha) and I currently own a Tyros 2.

The motif is so small compared to the T2. - has the exact same key feel, the buttons and casing are all better quality tho.

there was a Yamaha MM 6, a Roland Juno D and G right next to it and quite frankly they look and feel like toys compared to it. the keys on them were like my OLD casio keyboards. the knobs and sliders looked like u could simply brake them off so easily.

anyways the motif XS - WHAT A SOUND!!! I was in the store for about 2 hours on this board and all i can say is everything about this board is spot on. I couldn't and still cant believe how good the drums were.

it looks like It is not going to be a complete replacement to my T2 so I am going keep the T2 and add an XS 6. guess i cant complain there having the best of both worlds in my bedroom hehe

External appearance: again like i said before. the XS 6 is so small even thinner than the PSR 3000. it just looks 'quality' all over...

to the voices - i had a listen to as many voices as possible. the acoustic guitars (expanded artic) - they sound EXACTLY the same as the T2, but they work differently. for example with the nylon guitar, u have to press the button on the far left hand side in order to get a slide or a harmonic sound while hitting a key. but one thing i couldn't get (maybe it doesn't have it or I need more time) - when u play an SA voice on the T2 in legato mode, the voice changes... i couldn't get this to happen on the XS... maybe something i was doing wrong? the guy in the shop had no idea since the board only arrived last week in the country.

I just cant get over how live and real everything sounds. As soon as u press an arp or a drum beat, its as though u turned on a CD or something.

There is a Violin voice on there that blew me away as well, completely different to the Sweet Violin on the T2. it was so much more realistic. same with the electric guitars, the Grand Piano again is amazing. and guess what? there are lots of different piano voices to choose from lol

i spent most of the time listening to doof doof / trance arps and sounds and all i can say is i cant wait to have this board in my bedroom (2 weeks to go before i have the funds). using knobs and sliders just makes your world a whole lot easier and the music so much more interesting!!

the RRP of the XS 6 here is $4500.00 AUD which is a little over $3700.00 US.

The guy in shop offered me a price of $3500.00 AUD (~$2900.00 US).

just for reference the T2 is still $4500.00 AUD brand new.

i will be going into the shop again next Saturday to have another go on it as i have some research to do this week.

I will most likely be purchasing it in 2 weeks time

Nick

If you need to know what one of these can do, just listen to this: http://files.keyfax.com/MP3s/motifator2.0/xs/Demo_Funkalicious.mp3

If this doesn't get your juices flowing, no keyboard will! (IMO, YMMV, yada yada yada...)

Hi Nick.

You'll be more than happy with the new Motif.
I've played on one for many hours at my local store. The drums are far better than the T2, the sounds are just as good and the synth stuff, wow. The Fantom rack unit is also very good, but this Yamaha just ooses class

I had the older motif sounds in my S90ES and I'm still thinking about getting the 76 note version of this new one, but then again I've promised to stick to the T2 upstairs and the piano downstairs, you lose too much money part exchanging and swapping (ask Donny hehe) and I'm happy with T2, Kawai piano and VST plug ins for the time being.

Keep us all posted how you get on.

Nick what are you using the Yammie for?

Live work? Studio?

As some sort of arranger, or playing with SMF's?

Composing only?

I'm curious...

Mainly for live play and studio work.

I make alot of backing tracks for singers / performers as well as guitar / piano students' exams n stuff...

I want to play in clubs n parties as well...

i have done a few small gigs but want to get into it more often. I have a mate who manages a local club in Sydney and as soon as i am ready i can start playin there. so that will be a big help...

Craig....ya gotta lose money to make money

Nick , will you be able to use the XS as an arranger on a gig? Do you think it is versatile enough to keep things interesting by itself?

Being use to your Tyros2, I think you may miss the quick access to a style with Intros , fills and endings...

Think it through, and make sure the arpeggiator will suffice as an arranger..I have my doubts , overall..

I wanted to add, I tried to use a Roland Piano with session player[a limited style player]..and found it didn't do the job a great arranger could do..

Fran,

when i play using the arranger mode on the T2 i never use intros and endings... its a constant mix, one song mixes into another. I feel stupid standing there listening to an intro looking at the audience just waiting for the variation to kick in.

besides with an arranger having 4 variations, most of the time (im talking about 95%) i only use two of the variations in a style max per song. so having 5 arps i found even better because u can make one arp your fill lin and another one the ending...

the sequencing is far more advanced on the synth and the editing blows anything away that i have seen on any arranger.

Just using the knobs / sliders to use frequency cutting / eq / reverb / etc etc realtime makes the patterns completely dynamic and gives a far better feel than just playing the same loops over n over on an arranger. in the 2 hours i was there, i tried alot of songs i play on my T2 and just by turning knobs and sliders believe me they sounded sooo much more interesting...

I play more modern dance / trance / Latin and Rock So a Synth is definitely more a tuned for my style of music.

I have found in my personal experience that more older players tend to use Arrangers and the younger generation use Synths.

anyways thanks for your concern Fran but i have definitely made my decision. I cant wait to own this board!

Nick

Nick an average gig[4 hours] is about 60 tunes..Will you be able to handle that with the XS? What about request?

I see you spending a lot of time setting things up..Allow the time before booking your extra gigs..

Fran, it's fairly obvious you haven't been to a rave, lately

Modern dance clubs don't do separate songs, everything sort of flows together, tunes (or at least beats) can go on for hours, almost! Trance and techno musics kind of self-explain themselves (at least, trance!). The whole idea is to keep a hypnotic beat going while other elements swirl around and change within the beat. It's about as far from a traditional 'gig' as you can possibly get, and needs musical tools that are definitely different from traditional arrangers.

Unfortunately, VERY few arranger manufacturers are willing to add the really simple changes to their OS's that WOULD make them usable for modern musics (and vastly increase their sales!), so workstations still prevail in this world. Shame, really, as there are MANY things about arranger operation that WOULD be great for trance, techno and hiphop production. But while they are still being aimed squarely at the older crowd (and attrition will gradually reduce that market), they will continue to languish, slowly.

Not good for us, not good for the arranger divisions. Sooner or later, some kind of convergence HAS to happen, or workstations with limited arranger functions will gradually take over (although, by then it will probably be a laptop and a controller!)

By then we wont be around

Diki just hit the nail on the head. THANK YOU

i have had so many different arrangers and they do have some cool dance styles ans features but when it comes to wanting to play over 30 mins of dance /trance, they start all sounding extremely repetitive and the same... because of the limitation to the on board synth lead / Bass / drum voices and editing...

Nick

Well the only thing I'm worried about is the Polyphony.

128 sounds good, until you realise that (from what I've read) the wonderful voices this Yammie has are often the result of up to 6 (!) different sounds to make one of it's (admittedly great) "super sounds" if you will.

I am (relatively) young, but even when I do Top 40 gigs, I don't have the need to do 30 minutes of Trance (as Nick obviously does - more power to him though!) as we just do the Radio Edits of songs (sometimes remixes) and I often mix them (beat matching where I can) into the next song.

I'm tempted with this particular Yammie (I really am) I'm just not sure it could cope with our style, which is using SMFs with sampled loops and lots of live playing (sustain pedal and all).

IF your situation is different Nick, and you WON'T be doing many "traditional" gigs (make sure of that by the way the future could change for you) then I say :

Do it!

I'll be going down to my local to have a look at this board myself....

I see what u are saying about the poly, but still.. think about it. 128 voices... i don't reccon it will ever even go past 80-100 max and that would have to be something extremely busy sounding...

Firstly, the polyphony issue. Most of the XS's voices, although they may use up to six or more elements, they usually use them in a switching manner, rather than a layer (although there ARE some that layer heavily). Velocity switches, legato switches, pedal and panel switches... Many of them only use one or two elements at a time, no worse than any 128 note arranger. The demos and built in performances seem to be drop-out free, from what I've heard so far (about six hours total in the store).

And secondly, about using loops with SMFs... I have heard at motifator, that the XS's sampler loads up over 10X faster than the ES's. THAT'S got to be a huge improvement for anyone that doesn't want to take hours to load up the entire 512MB of RAM with loops before a gig, or wants to add more loops between songs... If you are using a laptop for your loops, it might make it unnecessary, and integrate the loops into the whole arpeggiator/groove player engine INSIDE the XS...

[This message has been edited by Diki (edited 07-02-2007).]

hey nick, have fun with that xs 6..sadly the 7 wont be in oz for another 5 weeks according to my dealer, so i will have to wait to try it out...who knows i might even trade up from the sd1+ to get the xs7..
cheers
dennis
PS do you live in sydney, or just buy there? i am on far south coast NSW..

I live near Parramatta in Sydney Dennis. far south coast - would u mean Wollongong way?

the shop I go to in Parra has an XS 6 and 8 on display. never new the 7 was that far away..?

Nick you might want to go to the motifator site and look at this discussion on polyphony and the concerns some owners of the motif ES and XS have had
http://www.motifator.com/forums/showflat.php?Cat=1,2,4&Board=MotifXS&Number=342691&page=2&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=&fpart=1

hey nick, nah, south of Bega which is about 3 hours south of the gong...it was disappointing to find the 7 was delayed, i got rid of my s90es because of the weight, and the xs7 would have done well...its (the delay in arrival) the reason i opted for the sd1+ ...i am still on the lookout though, for a motif ES rack...the yammies have a GREAT soundset!!
cheers
dennis

Woah!

Just had a read of that whole thread.

Looks like there HAS been Poly problems regarding some heavy piano part and a relatively simple sequence.

Notes dropping off AND the keyboard actually "stuttering" (their words not mine) so maybe there is simply an OS update that will fix the problem...