I hope I don't put anybody to sleep during their reading of this. Just want to share some boring tidbits with you all to keep you up to date and share some changes in Keyboard products I made after careful consideration. I'll lay it out for you right up front and then explain my decision[s] to you. I returned the Motif ES7 and bought a Tyros. Whew!!!! I said that easy enough, huh!

After careful deliberation I choose to return the Motif ES7 and the reason I did is pretty straight forward. - Because even though the Motif ES7 has some puesdo Arranger functions it's still not an Arranger by any means. It had great sounds, expandability, Sampling; among other advanced features. But there were a few things that just weren't there that I needed in a Keyboard. A lot of it had to do with the Sequencer when trying to Mix a song. A simple thing like knowing and seeing which Voice was playing on what Track at any given moment in realtime when Mixing and Mastering a song. It was like trying to do something in the dark with no flashlight or other source of light at your disposal. Flying blind comes to mind. Very disheartening to say the least. And if you changed Voices within a Mix from the default Voices and you happen to rewind the song back to the beginning all the Voices changed back to the defaults so you lost all your custom voices within the Mix and had to start from square one and once again re-enter them. Granted, I only had the Board about 2 weeks so that feature may have been in there but if it was it was hidden pretty well because I never found it. Again, the Motif ES is not for the faint of heart. I got rid of my first Mo' "Classic" because of OS bugs and SIMM incompatabilities. I was hoping that the Navigation and Layout of the Operating System interfacce would be easier and more User friendly but IMO it's as difficult as ever to learn and use. So that was another reason I returned it. The LCD screen even though it is angled which helps some, still is too 'small' and because of it awkward to navigate around the different functions. But the main thing was I missed having was the Arranger functions that I've come to know and love. Also, the Motif ES; -which is considered a 'Synth Workstation' Keyboard, did not have a very crucial feature on it which other competing Workstations, eg., Korg Triton, have. The feature I'm talking about is "Loop Cross Fade", which basically 'smooths' a part of a song into another part, (in use with the Sampling Sequencer) ie., "transitioning", which makes for a natural "flowing" between parts with no abrupt discordant sounds through and during the process. Many people were complaining to Yamaha about the absence of Loop Cross Fade on the Motif ES and that it was an essential feature to have in a 'quote': "Synth Workstation". Yamaha balked at the idea of providing Looped Cross Fade through an OS update even though there were 'many' people who were pleading with Yamaha to do so. So that kinda made me start wondering about just how much is Yamaha willing to provide for their customers needs and wishes and to satisfy them and support the Motif ES series Keyboard. If their balking now when the paint is not even dry so to speak, what will it be like a year from now?

So I bought the Tyros instead. I now have my beloved Arranger features, and even though I am fully aware of the Tyros limitations, ie., No expandability, no Sampling, etc.; I still think I made a good choice. I still have 128 note Polyphony like the Motif ES had, I have Aftertouch, I have superb Voices just like the Motif ES has. And even though I now have just 61 Keys as apposed to the Motif ES7's 76 Keys, I do have the Octave Switch which is a plus. And the biggest thing I have with the Tyros that the Motif ES doesn't have is a 'Huge' LCD screen! That big, beautiful, color LCD screen is exquisite!!! The scrolling Lyrics are absolutely fantastic. The image is very 'crisp' and clear. My hat goes off to Yamaha for designing such a great LCD screen for the Tyros. PS: I already upgraded the OS to the latest 1.20 version. Now I know what that Floppy Disk holder on the right side of the Tyros is for!!! I updated via Floppy Disk and of course we know that there are 14 disks total for the Update process. Well, some disks when you buy them are 'housed' in a small "carton" (container), eg., "when purchasing a bundled 25 disks, etc. I just put all 14 disks "in order" inside that little carton holder and placed it right on top of the Tyros's Floppy Disk holder. Updating was a breeze! Piece of cake!!

Now all's I have to do is hope and pray that Yamaha doesn't drop the ball in regards to supporting the Tyros and it's customers who own and cherish them - (The Tyros I mean!!, not necessarily Yamaha Music Division!) Although when you come to think about it - WE, ie., YOU and ME really DO own Yamaha. Without us -their customers - they wouldn't even exist. How's that for a 'deep' thought?

Best regards,
Mike