I'm currently A Motif-ES owner. I used to own the Fantom-S which has a similar operating system to the Fantom-X and I also had the experience of owning the Triton Classic too. After trying all three of them live and home and even using their internal sequencer each, here is what I found.

**Easy of use when you get them out of the box.

Triton classic.
Fantom-S.
MOTIF-ES.

**BUT here is the key to what I've been looking for, Fastest workstation to work with once you learn how to use it. Here is how it ranks

Motif-ES
Triton classic
Fantom-S

The reason I ranked the Motif-es first was because even though it has a smaller screen than others, all the necessary buttons to use are actually layered infront of you VS haveing those buttons in menus.

It is also a lot faster to sequence on the motif than the others. The other cool thing about the motif compared to the others is that when you sequence using the internal sequencer and sounds, The Motif's sounds don't really need the internal effects in order to sound good. and you have the reverb and the chorus right infront of you in the sequencer for each sound. The triton's sounds and the fantom x/s's sound do need the effects in order to sound good when you using the internal sequencer. and you only have 3 INS effects with the fantom-s/x and 5 with the triton. The Motif-es has 8 ins effects which I don't use really sometimes when sequencing.

Fastest keyboard to use during live situation. here is how it ranks.

Motif-ES
Triton
Fantom-s/x

In a way the motif takes three buttons (steps) to be pressed inorder to select a sound. same for the triton, however the Fantom doesn't operate the same way as the motif and the triton do, So you have to with the fantoms to scroll and go through sounds in order to get the sound you want. The reason I ranked the motif-es first before the supposedly "touch screen=easy" triton was because when you select sounds in the motif, you are actually pressing real buttons so it's hard to miss and you can press it as hard as you can, The triton has it's touch screen for the secound and third step in order to select a sound and sometimes it doesn't click(touch) or you miss it sometimes because touch screens are sometimes not as fast as you are. Touch screens are not (IMHO) as reliable as real buttons.

This is My 2 cents from using all three in those three different citations. I thought you should know.





[This message has been edited by vic83 (edited 03-28-2005).]