I thought my local instrument dealer was gonna fall off his chair when I suggested that I was considering replacing my Motif ES with a Tyros 2, but when I explained to him what my total setup is, and that I wanted an all in one rig for live OMB play, he understood and agreed that it's probably a good move.

Workstations are fine "all in oners", but there isn't a single sound or feature that I can't replicate and do better with what's in my laptop than I can in my Motif, with the possible exception of the Reed and Wind instrument sounds of the VL150 plug in, which is actually a piece of add on equipment. In any event, my old Windows ME computer houses my SYXG-100 plug in, and the included VL soft module is an exact match in sounds to the VL150 plug in.

FL Studio is many more times powerful and much more flexible than the "Groove Factory" and step sequencer in the ES. Sampling is at best a hassle in the ES, and simple yet better in even a few freeware apps I've tried. The AN150 analog modeling board that I added to the ES has nice analog sounds, but anything more than very basic editing ( ADSR ) requires a computer anyway, and I have at least a dozen softsynths that I like better.

It's not about software vs hardware. Someone who uses specialty hardware modules would probably say the same things. The point for me is that, workstations are the equivalent of jacks of all trades, but masters of none. They'll work fine for today's loop and sample orientated music, but I wonder how many pure keyboardists use them as their main axe.

AJ


[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 12-09-2005).]