OK, I know this is off topic in an arranger forum, but I gotta ramble about the Motif a little anyway. I love playing the Motif like no other board I've ever owned or played on. The key feel is a good bit stiffer than the PSR series. At first I didn't like it all that much, but now that I'm used to it, the PA80 ( which has little stiffer key feel than say the PSR2000 ) feels too loose in comparison. I actually find that I can be a lot more expressive playing rythyms on the Motif and just having a stiffer key feel has helped me to improve my rythym playing. I've even gotten used to playing quick solos on it, though I still prefer the PA80 action for that.

I have a couple of dislikes with the board, mainly the polyphony ( 64 notes ) which is easy to use up when playing with a lot of sustain. The OS is a bit complex, but once you learn it, ( it took me a good bit of time), it is laid out pretty logically. Sampling is a bit cumbersome and you have to add Simms to reach the 64 mb memory level. I wish they'd go "modern" and allow for Dimms, but I believe in dedicated sampling boards / software for sampling anyway, so I won't knock a workstation or arranger for lacking top sampling features. There isn't much else I dislike. A few of the acoustic instruments could have been a little better ( the sax / horn family comes to mind ), but by and large most of the other instruments sound very good to outstanding. The guitars are so much better than the ones on the PA80. Ditto the pianos and electrics. The strings are very good. The sweet flute rivals the one on the 9000. Then there are the synth sounds. Superb, what else can I say ? The sounds were already so good, then I added the AN 150 ( analog modeling board ) and it completely displaces the notion I had that Yamaha can't match the Triton for synth sounds. For me, patch / synth editing is more logical and easier to do too than on the PA80 or any of the other Korg boards I've ever played. I was never a big dance / techno player ( I dabble a little ), but this thing makes me wanna do more of it.

Then there are the 4 sliders and 4 knobs. They are fully programmable. I love being able to adjust paramteres on the fly. This work well on the synth instruments, but also for making subtle changes that enhance and make emulating a guitar or other acoustic instrument sound a bit more realistic as well. Access to the raw samples and good sound edit features are important functions for me. The Motif is excellent for this, as is my PA80. The PSR's always fell a little short for me in this area. I know it may seem weird but one of the things that made me like the ( gulp ) Casio MZ2000 was excellent sound edit features. ) It appears that the VA76 and also the Ketron boards might possibly fall a little short for my likes as well.

It's not an arranger, but the pattern chain feature and the arps are cool too. I use the arps sometims in a way similar to an arranger, but instead one track at a time. User arps, done properly, work very well. I've been able to make some cool ones, including my own live play and by using phrases from the PA80 and other styles. I wish Yamaha could come up with a module that would allow for some of the PSR / arranger functions, or an arranger that had some of the Motif functions and the sliders / knobs as well. I know there will never be a perfect board for me, but a hybrid of the 9000 or Tyros, with most of the Motif features, ( with styles to rival the PA80's for realism, but with 4 fills instead of 2 ) would probably be as good as it gets in todays world. No matter what though, the Motif is a keeper, quite possibly for my lifetime. I didn't like my M1 nearly as much, but I kept IT for 10 years.

AJ