More on the Yammy Motif XF

[elwoodblues1969]

I decided to start another thread on the Motif XF,as I feel that this keyboard deserves some special attention.

I have been so entrenched in my research of the XF,that I have been too distracted to think much about writing music.I have spent a lot of time on Yamaha's Motifator website(a superb resource for Yamaha products be the way) and mainly what I read about on the forum there,are infinite complaints about how disappointed many people are,saying that there is a very marginal difference between the XS & the new XF.
While this is true in many respects,the bulk of the complaints are regarding the lack of features,such as no multiple synth engines,no ability to host VST's in the same manner that a traditional PC would,not a large enough screen and so on.

People need to realize that Yamaha cannot make their version of the Korg Oasys,while also keep the price tag the same as the Motif XS.
With the Motif XF,Yamaha has managed to offer not only a 128MB of flash RAM,but the option of adding an additional 2 GB of RAM.Yamaha has also offered a customizable display,twice the factory ROM,an additional 500MB of sounds that will be available as a free download and get this.....a full version of Steinberg Cubase AI5 is included...that's a $500 value,FOR FREE!

Many people overlook this juicy little fact also,the refinement of the XF's new sound engine,takes all of the sounds of the Motif line to a whole new level,as amply demonstrated in this YouTube demo.......


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2EGQ6puV_YA


The single most important thing that people need to realize about the Motif XF,is that Yamaha has offered all of these extras and improvements,without increasing the price beyond the original selling price of the old XF...that's amazing!

I do of course,sympathize with XS users,because they are stuck with the burden of spending 15 minutes,just to load an extra 512MB of sounds into their XS,every time they power up!
As things are now with my Korg M3 and the Xpansion set that came with my M3,I spend more time powering up my M3,then I do launching my computer DAW...which is why I refuse to by any 3rd party sounds for my M3.

I suppose though,that if I already had an XS,I would most likely sell it for the XF-which would not be such a bad thing,because the XS still has plenty of value to it,especially since Yamaha also offers sound expansions for the XS as well.


-Elwood

[impablomations]

Never been a Yamaha fan too much, apart from the pianos.  Always been a Korg man, like yourself, but the vids I've seen on youtube do make it look like it is one nice piece of kit.

One thing strikes me though, instead of having to spend 15mins loading your extra sounds every time you turn it on, why don't they just ship it with a flashable ROM as well as RAM, so the sounds stay even after power down, or until you replace the soundset with something else?  Can't see it affecting the price greatly, if at all.

[elwoodblues1969]

Currently,the Kurzweil PC3K and the Motif XF,are the only models and companies,offering flash RAM.It seems that flash RAM is a new technology(or at least it is in the workstation instrument realm) and like all new & exclusive features such as this,are expensive.

Perhaps in the next 5 years or so,flash RAM will be so common,that it will be readily available and a bit cheaper.As for the situation with the Yamaha Motif series...well...the flash RAM option for the Motif XF is the XF's largest selling point,so retro compatibility to accommodate the previous Motif XS users is a mute point.

Yamaha is however,offering the XS users memory expansion options,but just not flash...which is of course,better than Yamaha abandoning it's XS users altogether.

Incidentally,I have been researching the Motif series over it's 10 year span and actually,I have found the old ES series of the Motifs to be equally useful as the Korg workstations,but for different reasons.

In terms of their acoustical articulations-particularly with the bass sounds,they have some nuances that Korg never had and still doesn't(except for the Oasys) and I am very impressed by this.

Also....a lot of Korg fans claim that the Motif series synth sounds don't measure up to that of Korg's(which in some aspects are true),but the Motif line has their own unique spin of synth sounds and they're quite good.

I have owned nothing but Korg workstations and to be honest,I've grown quite dull towards Korg's redundant nature with their particular sound and I yearn for something different.

I think that once I get the Motif XF,I suspect that I won't be using my Korg M3 as much...but then again,I still have yet to buy the Radias expansion synth engine for the M3,so at least the M3 still has that option to keep things interesting.

Apart from that though,I'm not hopeful of Korg releasing their next flagship workstation anytime soon and with all of the little idiotic toys Korg has been releasing,I predict that it may be a couple more years before we see anything really interesting from them.


-Thom

[elwoodblues1969]

By the way....the 1GB flash RAM board options for the XF are $300 a piece,so not only is that a cash cow for their XF line,but also a price tag that won't appeal to XS users(even if it were an option for the XS as well).

Yeah it would have been nice if Yamaha had at least offered 512MB of flash RAM-but alas,Yamaha decided to also offer a 512MB flash RAM board as a optional add on,as well.

Very pricey stuff indeed,but I paid $120 for my Korg M3 memory expansion,and it wasn't flash!



-Thom

[rharv]

They could easily make it so it accepts DIMM and a regular flash drive; why do they do stuff like this??

$$

My last synth has 1 gig Compact Flash and 512 DIMM added.. both of which are so common I had them laying around here so it is now fully loaded for free! (I even had the classic analogue synth SRX card already)

That said, it does take 5 minutes to boot now with all those samples and sounds .. and audio recordings.. I should USB some of the data to the laptop and see if it boots faster.

[elwoodblues1969]

Yeah....I'm pretty disgusted with the whole DIMM extortion thing and if I were to by the Motif XF 61-key & add 2 gigs of flash RAM,then I'd be looking at a $3,000 investment....not worthwhile.

I think that if Yamaha makes a scaled down version of the XS-like they did with the ES to the MO6,I'd probably go that route.


-Thom