I have never played the Motif myself, but one friend of mine told me that almost all the sounds are the same on both keyboards. Another friend said that there are differences in sounds. This friend told me that the Motif has better grand piano sound than the Tyros, but all the other sounds are the same with PRO9000. So what is the truth?

I would like to try the Motif myself and I asked our dealer if he is going to have a demo model in the shop, but he said that it is not worth having any, because no one is interrested of buying one. He told me that at the moment he is selling mostly Korg Tritons and a few Roland Fantoms.

Micco

Your dealer isn't quite accuarate about the sale of the Motif... Maybe (he) himself is not selling a great number of Motifs... The Motif is quite popular. As far as the Tyros having the same sounds, that's partially true. The Motif has sounds that were taken from the 9000 Pro which are sounds like the sweet voices.. As far as the synth sounds go, I don't think Yamahah has included these sounds on the Tyros. If you can find one to try I suggest you listen to the synth sounds on the Motif. Don't get me wrong because the Tyros sounds great, but both keyboards I guess have their good and bad sounds. If you want a good run down on the Motif check with Bluezplayer. He uses this board.

Squeak

Hello,
The Motif sounds are truly unbelievably phatt. The Motif acoustic piano is incredible. The guitar strums, picks, etc. are a great Motif feature, along with the pads, wow...I could go on and on...The Motif sounds will blow you away. (And I just purchased a PSR9000 - I'll never grow up
My 2 cents worth.
Zuki

I don't have a Tyros but I do have the Motif and PSR2000 to compare against. I find that a lot of the sounds are close between the Tyros and 2k, with the Tyros having more and in some cases some improvement vs the 2k. Sounds are so subjective.. but here goes...

I like the ones on my Motif a lot. I've added the plug in AN150 analog modeling board and VL150 acoustic modeling board. There aren't really any comparable sounds on the 2k to match those. As far as stock sounds, I like the Pianos and drums better on the Motif. The Motif does a very nice Rhodes emulation. I like electric and acoustic guitar sounds a lot better on the Motif, along with the bass sounds. After that the gap is narrower. The preset organs.. Don't care a lot for either but an edge to the 2k. 2k maybe had an edge on the sax sounds and trumpets, until I added the VL150 to the Motif.. Of course even before I added the AN150 plugin, for synth pads and leads I was able to do a lot more with the detailed editing of the Motif vs the limited editing available on the 2k. Again all this is subjective to my tastes and really means little in the real world I guess. The thing that really set the Motif apart from the average arranger are the assignable knobs and the sliders, plus the voice editing capabilites and plug in options ( although the 9k series has the last one )I love the key feel too. Of course the big thing missing from the Motif is the arranger function. If ya gotta have it, then all the other bells and whistles don't matter much.

I demoed the Motif vs the Triton and the Fantom. These were not easy or obvious choices by any means, but I made the Motif my choice with the thought that for me, the Triton was a bit weaker in the overall acoustic instrument sounds, and the Fantom lacked a few capabilties ( programmable user arps and sampling ), and was maybe overall sounds in general were not quite as well represented for my tastes and uses. I guess the first two reasons have been addressed is the new Fantom S, and perhaps the choice would have been more difficult had I compared the Motif against it.

For what it's worth, my dealer seems to think that the Triton series and Motif are both good sellers, while the Fantom series were lagging behind. How the dealer / salesmen feel about the boards themselves probably contributes to that a lot and may not be truly indicative of what another dealer / store sells.

To put it another way, excluding my need for an arranger for live play, of the three boards I have ( Motif, PA80 and PSR2000 ), if I could only keep one, I would not think twice about it. The Motif would stay, though I really like my PA80 and PSR2k.

AJ

I've owned the Motif and now the Tyros.
IMO
The Motif a bit stonger on the Grand Piano, synth sounds and electric guitars. Drums harder edge. Very few sweet sounds .

The Tyros stronger on the acoustic sounds, guitars etc and has many more mellower sounds like the sweet and live sounds.

I think little doubt that the Motif is more geared towards the dance/techno genre, the Tyros to the mellower genres.
Terry

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jam on,
Terry http://imjazzed.homestead.com/Index.html



[This message has been edited by trtjazz (edited 05-24-2003).]

I own a music store and I sell the Tyros, Motif, Triton and Fantom keyboards. Many of the sweet sounds are in the Motif. Sweet Flute, Romantic Trumpet are direct comparisons to the Tyros and PSR2000 sounds. There are others as well. Here's my take after reading some of the different opinions on this subject.
Many years ago, Korg, with their M1, showed the music industry they could do really good acoustic sounds using samples, while Yamaha stayed with their FM digital technology which did fine electric pianos, organs, decent horns, but didn't really do great Pianos, Strings and Guitars. Roland followed with their sampling technology in the JV and XP series synths which highlighted acoustic instruments, and they continued with expansion boards covering all types of Genres. Yamaha moved into the sampling world, but in most players opinions, were still stronger in the synth type sounds(analog filtered sounds) and weaker in the acoustic area of sounds. It was not until the S80 keyboard came out that many die hard Korg and Roland players started listening to Yamaha's again. Many top players touring with major bands,continued to choose Yamaha SY's and EX's, but more were buying Korg Trinity and then Triton keyboards, and that is what you saw on stage. When Yamaha introduced the Motif, they again retained a strong hold on the market of musicians who liked having great Piano's, Guitars, Horns and Strings and still were able to give you that great Synth power the older series were known for. Korg has had a firm hold on the Hip Hop market as well as the more traditional music market and now Yamaha has shown they can do the same. So, what's Roland doing? The Fantom has done well, but it seems that more of my customers buy Roland XV modules more then they buy keyboards. The Motif, like the Triton, can also sample anything you would like, and until the just released Fantom S came out with it's sampling capabilities, the Roland hasn't done quite as well as the Motif and the Triton. You will find that salesman in the music stores will probably go to whichever they are more comfortable showing you. All three are great boards. The buyer that usually buys the Tyros is looking for more "preset" sounds and features, where as the motif,triton or fantom buyer thinks they want to "tweek" more things.
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California

[This message has been edited by George Kaye (edited 05-24-2003).]