Thanks Mike. I've seen most of that before too. I know what the sales hype says, but the board just didn't seem to have much real "soul" for me.. Just the way I felt about it's predecessor too. I don't know if you understand exactly what I mean, but I suspect if you play keys a lot that you do. 64 poly just won't cut it either. Terry knows well that I love to tweak and I don't mind working for some better sounds, but ya gotta give me stuff that I like right outta the box too. Fantom on a large scale just isn't doing that for me. Motif does do it for me and so apparantly will the TS2. I sample some stuff and I work with some external samples, but that isn't my primary reason for buying a w/s. I'd rather do the detailed sampling on a dedicated sampler.

I wanted to love the original Fantom too, and I kept telling myself that if it added sampling, user arps..etc, that it would be a board that I'd want. The truth is though, unless I could dig some better sounds out of it in a hurry ( or more accurately sounds that please my ear ) , it just doesn;t interest me.

I know what you mean about the expansion cards. The Motif does it too with the add on XG card. If I understand right though, the additional 64 notes allotted when the XG card is plugged in can be used only with the XG voices themselves. Ummm.. no thanks Yamaha.. I just don't like many of the xg voices / samples as much as I do the internal ones.

Terry,

Exactly. I can't really give a fair comparison yet on TS2 vs Motif, but I'll surely spend more time with the TS2. One of the first things I wanna try the next time I play it is to see how easily I can make the notes drop out. It is very easy to do on the Motif ( unfortunately ) when for example, I emulate an acoustic guitar with some sustain.
Also I can't get overly excited about this PAX or whatever they want to call it. Not just yet anyway and not just on specs and sales hype alone... I will judge after I see and play one. Maybe for me it will be the greatest thing since sliced bread, or maybe it won't. The best analogy I can use is that the PA80 has been for me what the G1000 has been for Fran or the I30 has for Boo. Maybe the next person doesn't like it at all, but to me it matters little because it feels like a near perfect fit in my hands. The PA X would have to blow me away ..and hey .. maybe it will and then again maybe not.. we'll see....

AJ

[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 06-28-2003).]