Well fellow SZ members, and other on-'lurkers', I took the plunge a few days ago and purchased a "new" on the market Workstation. Having been let down by the general situation of the Arranger market and what it has to offer I decided to get a full blown Synth Workstation instead. I kept my PSR 2000 and will use it for small venues when not playing with my Band. So which one did I get? Well after carefully deliberating about different Workstations on the market I believe I made a wise choice. And that choice is the Motif ES7 Synth Workstation. But it is so much more than a Synth as most of you already know. The Acoustical sounds on the Motif ES7 are beyond compare IMO and the ES has a completely new Orchestral library of Voices. They've improved the Brass Voices substantially over the original Motif. It has a newly sampled triple layered Stereo Grand Piano voice that was taken from the Yamaha CFIII piano plus with the included CDROM there are additional Grand Piano voices such as the Power Grand from the original Motif and one that is from the S700 Yamaha Grand which is the same one in the Yamaha S90. Here is a list of improvements they made to the original Motif.
1.128 Note Polyphony
2.175 MB Wave Rom
3.768 Preset Voices, 356 User Voices, Unlimited Song Voices
4.New Three layer Yamaha grand piano sample
5.Guitar and Bass Mega Voices – MegaVoice arps to go with them
6.Completely new Orchestral Sound Library
7.New Ethnic instruments and Arabic Tuning Presets
8.New Filter algorithms with super fast EGs for more analog sounding filters
9.New Common LFO features like LFO phase on each element
10.8 Parts with Dual Large Insert effects in Song/Pattern Mix
11.16 Parts with individual three band EQs in Song/Pattern Mix
12.New Reverb and Chorus (Vintage Phasor and Flanger) Algorithms
13.Mastering effects including Multi Band compressors and DJ style effects
14.5 Band Master EQ storable per Voice, Performance, Song or Pattern
15.1700 Arpeggios with real time selection of 5 different arps in every mode
16.Arpeggios have chord recognition, track switching and fixed shift modes for more accurate replay of input data
17.686 Drum phrases with lots of different styles
18.Real Time Loop Remix – The coolest feature from the RS7000
19.Double the sequencer memory
20.DIMM sample RAM support – up to 512 MB
21. USB Hosting for storage to USB devices
22.New 16 channel mLAN interface option
23.Ribbon Controller
24. New larger knobs and sliders
25.4 Direct Access buttons for knob function selection
26.Voice Editing in Song and Pattern Mode while Sequence is playing
27. Song Voices (store your edits right along with the song)
28.64 Pattern Chains (one for each Pattern)
29.Internal/external Switch for the Sequencer Tracks
30. 10 different click sounds to choose from
31. Sample pre count for count in for ISS sampling
32.A/D input can have insert effects
33.Sampling with Insert effects
34.Confirm Mode in Sampling
35.Next Mode (for automatic sampling of audio libraries )
36.Auto Trim Calculations by Tempo or Measure
37. 32 Mix Templates
38. Remote supports Mackie Control protocol
39. Remote supports Logic Control protocol
40. Supports Digital Performer
41.Sampling directly into Drum Kits
42.Multi Part editor for Mix mode
43.CDROM with over 150 MB of new sounds including Motif piano, S90 piano, Sweet voices and many more
44.Monophonic Legato Mode.
45. Real time knob control of arpeggio Play FX – Swing, Gate, Unit Multiply and Velocity
46. 256 four track User Arpeggios. These can be loaded in or created directly from Song or Pattern mode
47. USER LFO editing implemented from front panel
48. “Key-on” start function in Pattern mode
49. New ‘SAMPLE VOICE’ File type. Load single User Song samples or User Pattern samples from within an ALL file type
50. Quick Access to EFFECTS from main Voice/Performance screen
51. Angled screen for easier viewing
52. All four Parts of a Performance can recall their Voice mode Insertion Effects
53. 1 pair of analog A/D inputs plus 4 Audio In pairs possible with mLAN expansion.
In addition, the Polyphony can be increased even further with the PLG expansion boards. And there is also a PLG Vocal Harmony expansion board that gives you Vocal Harmony capability when using a Mic plugged into the Motif ES.
Also the Motif ES is getting closer to the ideal of an Arranger because it includes some Arranger type functions.
There are other mind blowing features that for the sake of time I won't share here.
My creative juices are already starting to flow!!! I can hardly wait until that phone call comes in and I can go and pick that puppy up!
Oh, btw, the Motif ES doesn't have internal speakers but that is okay because I will be using it with my Band and if need be I could hook up my Yamaha MSP5's to the Motif ES and have near field montoring when playing Live if I want plus the fact that our Band uses JBL Stage Monitors too. And for smaller venues apart from my Band I will use my trusty PSR 2000 which as everybody knows has internal speakers. Plus on smaller venues I would use my MSP5's and if necessary my Pioneer HPM-100's along with my Mackie 1202 VLZ Pro Mixer, etc.
Just wanted to share my new "arrival" to the family with everybody.
Best regards,
Mike
[This message has been edited by Idatrod (edited 09-02-2003).]
I just received my Motif ES DVD in the Mail today and I sat down right away to watch it. It was really fascinating to watch Athan Billias go through all the functions and features explaining the in's and out's of how to use the Motif ES. He played several of the sounds on the ES while explaining different features and I have to say they sounded fantastic. The Arps (there are 1700 of them) really sound good IMO and of course they now have the ability to recognize Chords. And you can even create your own Arps too. And the Mega Voices can and are used with the Arps also. 
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