Yamaha has a new synth workstation ready, but has put it on hold to see what Roland and Korg come up with as their current Motif range is still very competitive.

They released the CP1 stagepiano as an answer to Rolands V-synth... and so is their strategy changed from 3 year product cycles to wayting on the others and then reacting to that with a superior product.

The New Motif Workstation should be heavilly virtuall technology based. Same level as the CP-1.

The CP-1 blew the MOtif away with its piano sounds, and even the roland V-piano sounded blass compared to this new Yamaha Arranger keyboard beast ..

It might come very close to Ivory II... and adds a superb keyfeel to the package.

If the new Motif comes close to this with all of their sounds, its a stellar improvement.


So basically i guess we are wayting on ROland, as Korg recently upgraded their M3. While being the best looking workstation it seems like the Fantom G was the big looser of the last few years...

But then Roland is concentrating on everything else but the keys department.

well Yamaha knew there would be one of these 2 producing a workstation anytime soon...

So it could be Korg that is creating something new.. Stephen Kay not finishing the KArma project yet for openlabs could indicate he is doing some heavy work on KARMA 3 that would be required for the next Korg workstation too.

So with this impasse all innovation have left the hardware workstation scene, while this is exactly what this scene is wayting on...



So since they don't see instuments as Open LAbs and Lionstracs as true contenders yet, Yamaha is sitting there and wayting.....



Roland flat out admitted that their hardware key instruments where currently their lowest priority as they could make much more money in other parts of the industry, and thats where their research people where spending their time.