The Motif series (along with other yamaha instruments) it does great with orchestrial sounds. In return the synths, ambient and other sounds well, kinda suck. If you plan on doing heavy piano and not much exsperimenting with straightforward sequencing it may be right for you. If you dont need that much wave rom, look into the original Motif, 85 rom instead of the 120 (i think) of the ES. The original is basically the same thing, you can research the differences and added stuff on the ES. It will save you around 800 if not more for the used earlier version. However as you know the screen is very disapointing with the Motif's. Its small, but easily navigational. I dont believe the Motif series is exspanable.

The Triton Extreme is really cool. Packed with huge amounts of wave rom (165). Unlike Yamahas the Triton is great with synths and other ambient or electronica sounds. They still do good orchestrial sounds, but they could be better. One thing I hate about Korgs is the keys! They have the worst key feel of any board ive felt, the are weak, and compress with no effort, almost making velocity useless. However they are built solidly. From personal opinion I rather dislike the OS, its rather confusing, kind of hard to exsplain, its best for you to try one out.

I know you have your eyes set on these boards but id strongly reccomend the Fantom-X series. I have a Fantom-S on the way myself Everything that the others fail in the Fantom surpasses. The Key-feel is fantastic, synth and pad sounds are unsurpassed, highly acclaimed studio accoustic grand, incredible OS, color screen 128 mb wave rom (exspandable to 640!!!) and exspandable sampling memory. Im only basing this little review on the times ive spent playing with it at GC, i will be able to provide more insight when I get mine.

Good luck with whatever you choose I hope I was able to help ya. With any of these fantastic boards you wont be disapointed! Im way jealious you get the opportunity to get one of these suckers

Phil

[This message has been edited by Pennywizz6 (edited 03-25-2005).]