Yamaha Motif

[x factor music]

Anyone seen this thing yet? Very impressive specs...was wondering about price and release date, etc...Thanks!

[Steve44]

It's a Yammy triton! I don't understand why everyone's so excited about it.. it doesn't sport any features that the EX5 series didn't have.. and the name is horrible. It's good that they're putting in a line above the S-80 series, but this one just doesn't look like a winner. I think the triton will still kick its butt.

[Steven Denike]

It's great that manufacturers are incorporating more of the features that they could sell separately into one unit . . . the incorporation of the mLAN card and being able to integrate the keyboard with the recording program could really save a lot of time, as well as the money for a separate hardware interface . . . It does make me wonder how they'll market this product, though - as studio gear, as a keyboard, as a sampler, - as with anything, they'll have to help people niche it . . .

 

If anybody attended the MusicMesse, I would love to hear about how 'developed' this product is - the pictures on their website appeared to be a mock-up or prototype, if they weren't just 'digital creations' from a graphics program.

 

Once we know how much this is priced at, I'm sure we'll find out if this is an 'industry leader' or 'follower' . . .

[guestuserguestuser.com]

Originally posted by Steve44:

It's a Yammy triton! I don't understand why everyone's so excited about it.. it doesn't sport any features that the EX5 series didn't have.. and the name is horrible. It's good that they're putting in a line above the S-80 series, but this one just doesn't look like a winner. I think the triton will still kick its butt.

 

I completely disagree you, based on the press release info (http://www.yamahasynth.com/pro/motif/index.html). I don't understand how you can say what you say without having seen or heard the unit.

 

It might be Yamaha's response to the Triton but so what? Look at the great specs: 85MB of on-board ROM!! Sampler is expandable to 64MB of RAM, and can read AKAI and Yamaha sampler disks. Triton can import AKAI samples, but I recall that it did not do it very well. The EX5 had nowhere near that much wave ROM.

 

I just don't see what's not to like about this thing, based on the press release, and that's all we've got to go on. But with 85 MB of wave ROM, it promises to sound better than the S80, which only has 24MB of wave ROM, and better than the Triton, which has 32MB of wave ROM. The EX5 had a mere 16MB of wave ROM. I'll have to play Motif and see what it sounds like, and how much it sells for. But based on what I've seen, I'll bet they have no problem selling lots of these. I can hardly wait to try it out, and the name doesn't bother me. You might even ask what Triton has that this doesn't? Ok, touch-screen interface. That's a nice feature, but it's not the be-all and end-all. I owned a Triton for a while and sold it, I thought they didn't take good enough advantage of that interface, and that they failed with the user interface in general in several areas. That's just my opinion.

 

 

 

This message has been edited by guestuser@guestuser.com on 03-11-2001 at 11:26 PM

[Dave Bryce]

http://cwm.ragesofsanity.com/s/net7/explodier_-_smilie.gif

 

D'oh!

 

I was at the Messe...the Motif was the one thing that I didn't get to see...they're in a different hall than the other folks, and I never made it there.

 

I do agree that Motif is one seriously awful name, though. No idea what they were thinking on that one...gonna cost 'em sales fer sure...

 

dB

[guestuserguestuser.com]

Originally posted by Dave Bryce:

I do agree that Motif is one seriously awful name, though.

dB[/b]

 

What bothers you about the name? Motif means a theme in a work of art.

[x factor music]

i agree you're missing a lot if you pass this off as a Yamaha Triton. looks to me like a workhorse....go to the website and check out the specs. like "guest user" says, 85 MB is a TON of sounds, along with resampling, standard scsi, optical I/O, instant sample keymapping, and an intuitive sampling interface, one that is linear and more like computer based sequencing/sampling than before. of course, this thing has yet to see the light of day, and may cost $3K for the 61 key version, but i think it's a big mistake to write this thing off.

 

as far as the name goes....."Motif" doesn't exactly roll off the tongue like Karma or Triton.

[dansouth]

Originally posted by Dave Bryce:

I do agree that Motif is one seriously awful name, though.

 

Why???? A motif is a building block of a melody - didn't you take any theory classes? I can't think of a BETTER name for a synthesizer, a machine that serves as a building block of sound.

 

Karma, now THAT'S a loser name!

 

Props to Yamaha for filling this beast with TONS of ROM. Now if only Kurzweil would get the hint.

 

Selling a Triton because you don't like the user interface is like selling a Porsche because you don't like the color. Did this guy actually DRIVE the thing? I agree that it's occasionally confusing as to whether you press the screen or a button for a given function, but it's hardly a showstopper. I just played a new tune for a colleague, and he said "Damn! How did you get those DRUM sounds?" -> Triton

[Dave Bryce]

What bothers you about the name? Motif means a theme in a work of art.

 

Or music. Or literature. I'm familiar with the word.

 

I think that it's too artsy for a synthesizer. It's just a bit highbrow for my taste, that's all. I prefer pretentious names like Andromeda.

 

YMMV.

 

dB

[guestuserguestuser.com]

Originally posted by dansouth@yahoo.com:

Selling a Triton because you don't like the user interface is like selling a Porsche because you don't like the color. Did this guy actually DRIVE the thing? I agree that it's occasionally confusing as to whether you press the screen or a button for a given function, but it's hardly a showstopper. I just played a new tune for a colleague, and he said "Damn! How did you get those DRUM sounds?" -> Triton

 

Yes, of course I drove it, and of course I really like the sound of it, that's why I bought it in the first place. In fact, I kept the piano and "studio essentials" expansion roms, the SCSI board, and the MOSS board, and I plan to put them in a Triton rack eventually. It was just the user interface, in general, that started to bother me after a while. Particularly for performing with. I think in a studio it makes sense. The touch screen interface is too finicky for live work, IMHO. I don't like the fact that every time you change banks, the current patch also changes. I don't like the fact that in Combi's, there's no way to control how each part responds to controller 11. I don't like that fact that in spite of the super graphicsl interface, most values are still displayed as numbers. In the Moss programming interface for instance, there is the potential for some very user-rewarding graphics, but none are to be found. I could go on and on. Like I said, I just think that the user interface was not realized as well as it could have been. I still want to get a Triton rack, though.

[Steve44]

Sounds like you'd be better off with OASYS...

 

And please, let's not have another ROM size debate. Just because Memory is dirt cheap nowadays doesn't mean you should throw in tons of crappy samples in a sloppy fashion and forget what sound design is. Not that that's what the Yamaha 9000 Pro or Motif do, but they sure give out that vibe.

 

What I hate about the name is that it lacks personality. It doesn't say, this is one killer synth that is going to knock you into tomorrow. It says, this synth is only a piece of the puzzle, it's not really that important, it's just a building block.

 

The reason why I'm not impressed with Motif is that it's a workstation by a company that has never really made good workstations. It's hard to say "It's a big improvement over the EX5" because it's not: It lacks the ribbon, it lacks the built in VL/AN technology, it has less polyphony, it just has a bunch of ROM and a supposedly "innovative" sampling section. Furthermore, I think it's ugly. The Dark Grey band that's off-center is aesthetically disturbing, and it makes the LCD look unproportionally small, and the silver panel seems to look pretty cheap. Admittedly, the Triton's aluminum-look is cheap, however it has style whereas the Yammy just looks like a copycat.

 

Oh and one more thing: 4 knobs, 4 sliders = not enough damnit! Even if they're arranged in virtual banks.. There's so much empty panel space on that instrument.. why didn't they just add more knobs? More knobs always equals more appeal!!

[guestuserguestuser.com]

Originally posted by Steve44:

And please, let's not have another ROM size debate. Just because Memory is dirt cheap nowadays doesn't mean you should throw in tons of crappy samples in a sloppy fashion and forget what sound design is. Not that that's what the Yamaha 9000 Pro or Motif do, but they sure give out that vibe.

 

Where do you come up with this stuff? Just because it has tons of ROM, it "gives off a vibe of throwing in tons of crappy samples". ??? Can't you at least listen to it first before slagging it?

 

What I hate about the name is that it lacks personality. It doesn't say, this is one killer synth that is going to knock you into tomorrow. It says, this synth is only a piece of the puzzle, it's not really that important, it's just a building block.

 

Again, you seem to be in too much of a hurry to slag it. I think it's unfair to slag so vehemently when you haven't even seen one.

[t.cowanusa.net]

So the sampler is expandable to 64MB of RAM. Why are Keyboard manufacturers about 5 years behind the curve in terms of memory? My laptop has 356 and I believe it expands to 512. 64 might be good for a keyboard, but that's not much memory. Musicians are being overcharged for technology.

[Jeff Klopmeyer]

So how much are these things? I went to the site they have for them, and daaaaaammmmnnn, at least the spec is pretty impressive.

 

I know why dB doesn't like the name. Rather passive and wimpy. But I, for one, wouldn't let that stop me from buying the synth.

 

So, check 'em out at www.yamahasynth.com if you want.

 

- Jeff

[joegerardi]

Jeff:

This is on the SonicState site:

US$ list prices are:

Motif 6 $2250

Motif 7 $2800

Motif 8 $3300

 

The whole article is here:

http://www.sonicstate.com/news/shownews.cfm?newsid=349

[Steven Denike]

Good thing it's more affordable than their 9000 Pro and PSR 9000 - I was very impressed with that unit's specs, depressed by the price, but INSULTED by the keyboard - I've been looking for a keyboard for a studio, but THAT wasn't it - now, perhaps, the MOTIF can fit the bill - hard to believe that Yamaha builds the keyboards for the Karma (as per the aforementioned SonicState site 'birdie' news - thanks for the link!)

Also, try

 

http://messe.harmony-central.com/Musikmesse01/Content/Yamaha/PR/MOTIF.html

 

if you want a brief rundown on its features...

 

I thought the name was a tip of the hat to license plates - like on The Lone Gunmen, the overenthusiastic guy with the blind football team and the license plate reading 'MODIV8' - Motif8 - Motivate!

 

Apparently, although Yamaha nixed the spec, there was originally supposed to be a built in projector that would launch displays of your old piano teacher whipping you across the knuckles when you slacked off on your practicing or started slouching at the bench . . . not that Patricia ever did that to me, per se, . . . (I love my piano teacher)

[dansouth]

Originally posted by guestuser@guestuser.com:

Yes, of course I drove it, and of course I really like the sound of it, that's why I bought it in the first place. In fact, I kept the piano and "studio essentials" expansion roms, the SCSI board, and the MOSS board, and I plan to put them in a Triton rack eventually. It was just the user interface, in general, that started to bother me after a while. Particularly for performing with. I think in a studio it makes sense. The touch screen interface is too finicky for live work, IMHO. I don't like the fact that every time you change banks, the current patch also changes. I don't like the fact that in Combi's, there's no way to control how each part responds to controller 11. I don't like that fact that in spite of the super graphicsl interface, most values are still displayed as numbers. In the Moss programming interface for instance, there is the potential for some very user-rewarding graphics, but none are to be found. I could go on and on. Like I said, I just think that the user interface was not realized as well as it could have been. I still want to get a Triton rack, though.

 

I hear ya. I think the Triton's only weakness is as a controller. It's not a BAD controller, but I prefer my ancient K2000VP keyboard. The fact that I can't switch octaves quickly and easily on the Triton is my biggest pet peave. The Kurz is just to easy to use as a controller, I'm spoiled.

 

Did you like the expansion boards? I like Pianos, but thought Studio Essentials was lame. The Vintage board has excellent waveforms but crappy programming. If you're willing to roll up your sleeves, you can program some really nice stuff with those waveforms. A filter sweep over those Moog waveforms sounds REALLY authentic. They must have spent a lot of time and effort sampling vintage axes, because those raw waveforms are killer.

 

The Triton Rack is awesome, and the price was recently lowered, too. How do you like the MOSS board?

[quale]

Is the Yamaha Motif available yet? How are the piano sounds?

[Steve44]

It's not going to be available until June or July.

[Steve44]

It's not going to be available until June or July.

[Guest]

How could octave switching be any easier than on Triton? You have several choices 1. the assignable switch above the ribbon or 2. on the screen which can be controlled a. on the screen b. on the up & down cursors to the left of the screen or c. on the dial.

 

As for live performance, you can fly on this baby. Now I had an O1/W in my rig for years so that might be a help. But, the Triton is a great live machine when you get to know it. Being able to tweak a 7 band eq on the touch screen on the fly is cool not to mention having full real time control of the effects right in your face. I don't even have to think about what I'm doing on it anymore.

 

But, then again, if you know a k2000 like the back of your hand then the Kurz habit would be as hard to break as the Korg habit.

[Rod S]

I'm bringing up the old thread since I just saw it at GC (concord, CA), so it's for sale. Didn't get a chance to play with it though, I saw it as i was leaving the store http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/frown.gif

 

I think they were going for 1799 for the motif 6.

 

Rod

[Stephen Fortner]

I'm going to L.A. to look at one next week. Will report. I'm hoping they spent a healthy chunk of that 85MB of wave ROM on solid piano, Rhodes, and other meat-n-potatoes sounds. Quality over quantity.

[jlahib.no]

sound demos of the motifs:

 

www.procom.no/lyddemoer.htm#motif

[Botch.]

I thought the Triton was Korg's response to the EX-5! This is starting to sound like the Middle East...

[jlahib.no]

what was the yamaha s03 a response to again?

[Steven Denike]

Most of that 85 MB (that is, 85 MB BEFORE Yamaha's proprietary compression scheme - like every other manufacturer, they don't tell you the size AFTER) is the acoustic piano waveform - more than half of it for a single instrument sample.

 

I can't remember the URL for the voice chart etc, but you may download the manual from

 

www2.yamaha.co.jp/manual/pdf/emi/pdfe/synth/MOTIFE1.pdf

 

if you have Acrobat reader. Note that it ships with three CDs, if you wish to load your own combination of 'proprietarily compressed' voices to replace the current ones.

 

Too bad the USB cable only carries MIDI (both for/from the instrument, and for/from the sequencer to use the remote controls) and not the audio itself - if they hadn't been pushing mLAN, they could have included at least two stereo digital audio mixes on the same USB cord . . . it's not as though this is 24-bit, 96 kHz or anything . . . as far as I know, TC Electronics' Fireworx (from SEVERAL YEARS AGO!) is the only hardware box that will serve as a 24-bit, 96 kHz synth.

 

Please correct me if there are any out there - I know the Kurzweil PCM2 is 24 bit (44.1 kHz? Not sure) - but what else? No wonder soft synths are popular! Not built to a 20 year old spec (PCM/CD)

[Steve44]

I just saw a Motif6 in Sam Ash the other day, and will therefore take back my "it's a Yammy Triton" comment. This is a very powerful board, with some exceedingly professional features. However, I don't like it.. but that's not for reasons I've said before on this thread. Here are my impressions:

 

The SmartMedia slot and the USB port are welcome additions to a keyboard - no longer will you have to wait forever for SCSI sample loading. (I'm pretty sure that the USB port can be used for shuttling samples from a computer, but correct me if I'm wrong.)

 

The Motif's sampler is much more powerful than the Triton's. It can do loop stuff including realtime stretching, but its real strength is the ability to load Akai and Yamaha A series CDRom's. I know the Triton can read Akai format, but it only gets wave data, no voicing data, i.e. it's for loading Akai format loops. The Motif will load full voice data, though it remains to be seen how well.

 

Having dedicated track mute buttons is really helpful - you can introduce breaks in your arrangement just by swiping your finger across a row of keys to wipe out half the instruments.

 

There are some excellent Rhodes and Wurlitzer pianos in this thing, as well as pianos and guitars.

 

However, the rest of the categories seem quite weak. Most of the sounds I found were identical to the kinds that I know from my MU100R XG module. The string sounds and the orchestral winds don't have much to them, and I didn't like the synth sounds really at all. I spent a good half hour auditioning presets through its category search feature, and was surprised at how few sounds I found. It's possible that I was missing something, but in its single sound mode I couldn't find more than 15-20 sounds per category (16 categories).

 

The demo sounded amazing, with screaming guitars and excellent sounding distortion, but then I went to check out its effects section and the effects were exactly the same as on my MU100, that is to say, old. The Amp sim effects are pretty dumb sounding in comparison to the current crop of such gear, and I couldn't find any cool looking effects like the Triton has, such as the Decimator and the Piano harp resonator.

 

But my biggest gripe about the board is that the knobs feel disgusting. They are heavily center-detented, which means if you want to make a smooth cutoff filter sweep, you're going to have a little bump in the middle. Having both knobs and faders is a great thing, however the faders aren't implemented to do much other than control volumes of various layers. The faders should have the same destination controls as the knobs do.

 

The Motif is certainly a very powerful box, but there was enough about it that didn't impress me that I am overall not interested.

[Stephen Fortner]

I just auditioned the Motif-6 at a Guitar Center in Oxnard, about an hour north of L.A., CA. The folks there were nice enough to let me take it into the high-end room where they keep the ProTools n stuff, and I was able to A/B it with a Triton. Both went stereo into a Panasonic DA-7 mixer and were matched for volume before being heard through Mackie HR-824 speakers.

 

I spent about an hour carefully dialing up similar sounds from the Motif and Triton, and playing sustained notes in all ranges. I didn't address any of the sequencing or sampling features, as my main concern was sound quality. For all sounds, I made it a point to bypass all effects so I could hear the unaffected quality of the waveROM. Here's my highly subjective $0.02...

 

PIANO: Motif was vastly superior, even to the Triton's "Pianos and Classic Keyboards" expansion card. Phasing and loop points in the lower range were less noticeable on the Motif. The highest notes played on the Korg were merely OK, but after playing the Motif you really noticed the Korg's aliasing and bright, unnatural quality. That's not to say the Motif sound isn't bright overall: it certainly has the same edge as a S-80 or CS-6x. A Kurzweil is much flatter by comparison. The Motif's piano sounds (especially "Power Grand" and "Jazz Grand") subjectively seemed to have a bit more beef and naturalness than my S-80, too.

 

ELECTRIC PIANO: Motif blew Triton away here too. All the EP sounds I liked from my S-80 appear to have been improved upon, though there's not a sound-for-sound correspondence. Notable were "Vintage 74" and "Sweetness." The former was kind of a dirty sound, and when I turned the insert and master effects off, sounded simply like the Stage 73 that sits in my living room. You could hear the tines, but they didn't have that terrible exaggeration that many Rhodes samples do, especially in the high end where they were appropriately dark. Right on the money.

"Sweetness" was the classic Michael McDonald Fagen sound, and again, didn't lose beef with the FX killed. The closest thing I found on the Triton was the "Steely Keys" combi, which sounded like it belonged in Celine Dion's band. For ROM-based sounds, the Motif's Rhodeses kill anything out there. To get better you'd have to go with a high-MB RAM sample or Emagic's EVP-88, which is still in a different league.

 

ORGAN: Let's talk about Hammond organ, because that's all we care about, right? The Motif's Hammond sounds are good enough that I'd consider ditching my VK-7 for quickie gigs. The S-80's were passable, but the one time I did this I vowed never to do so again. Not so with the Motif. Again, the patches seem to contain plenty of genuine sonic information. And they got the accel and decel of the rotary effect down. I wasn't sure if I could hear this occurring separately for the virtual "low" and "high" rotors, though. On patches with Hammond percussion, they got the single-triggering right, too. Many allow fader control over "drawbars" like Kurz's KB-3 mode, though in a couple cases I had to cycle the fader through it's full travel before it "woke up"... not good if you're the kind of Hammond player who likes to effect subtle changes as the song goes on. Overall, these are damn good for sample-based B3 sounds, as good or better than those in the Emu B-3 module, and definitely ahead of the Triton.

 

STRINGS: The two boards were closer on this category. On solo acoustic string patches, the Motif had more pronounced bowing. Sometimes this was really beautiul, but for the most part it was hard to get around if you wanted to play legato. The Triton was a little more playable on this score. Once you got past the attack phase of the envelope, I thought the Motif had a LITTLE more realism going on... this is very subjective, but it seemed to me the Korg leaned heavily on the effects to mask that tile-bathroom quality samples often have. Aliasing in higher ranges was worse on the Triton. I was NOT impressed with the Motif's orchestral demo song "Symphonia." Everything had that wheezing accordian quality. The demo on my 10-year-old K2000 sounds better.

 

BRASS: I'm often called on to play tight, stacked brass riffs a la EWF or TOP. The Motif brass sounds fared better here, with more uniformity of attack between the extremes of the keyboard. Overall the Yamaha sounds were brighter, sometimes verging on harshness. I've heard it said that Triton sounds behave really well with regard to sitting in a mix etc. Again turning to the kill-the-FX test, I think this is because there isn't that much information there to begin with.

 

ANALOG SOUNDS: Didn't spend a lot of time here, or else I would have missed a studio date. Overall, the Yammy offered more of a selection of the sort of analog sounds I like, but they were too bright. Didn't find a lot to compare to on the Korg, which lacked both the MOSS card and any sort of PCM card devoted to analog synths. Most of the "synthesizer" style sounds I auditioned were either shimmery pads with lots of internal motion (in the O1/W tradition), or very geared towards hip-hop. Synth bass sounds on both boards were good. Both put out plenty of low end.

 

OVERALL IMPRESSIONS. Based on sound quality alone, I just preferred the Yamaha Motif. Also bang for buck is an issue: GC's prices, sans tax, are $1799 for the 5-octave Motif-6. A 5-octave Triton, by comparison, is $2399. The Motif, like it's brethren the S-80 and CS-6x, has an in-your-face quality that will often need to be tamed in a mix but is just the ticket for gigging in a pop, rock, or dance band. The Triton's sounds, by contrast, seem much more produced, as though somebody has already layered them into a good mix and you just happen to have all the other tracks muted. Under closer scrutiny, though, the Motif has more sonic integrity. YMMV.

[dansouth]

Knob dentente issue - couldn't your filter sweeps be controlled by an alternate controller: ribbon, breath, pressure? Can't the knobs and sliders be modified from their default destinations?

 

Price comparison: Does the Motif come with sample RAM like the Triton?

 

Other: How many expansion boards will it hold, and of what type? Any mLAN options on the horizon?

 

I got the idea from these discussions that you can load samples from a PC of Mac via USB - correct? Or do you need a dedicated drive (USB)?

 

Thanks for the reports, guys!