Craig,
Thanks.. I am glad to hear that, because it would represent an improvement over past Yamaha arrangers I've played, but I would still want to hear it for myself to believe it, as these are among the most important sounds to me.
The organ sounds on the Motif ES are good, but many are not great although a couple of the B3-C3 sounds are very nice. Some of the more modern digital synth sounds are excellent on the ES, but many of the analogue emulations on it are thin to my ears, and while that isn't unusual on a digital synth, my PA80 does a better job than the ES for those sounds. Either way they are both digital, and you can work only within the framework of the samples they give you. I like the ability to cook up analog sounds from scratch, but my guess is that no arranger will likely ever have that again ( I think back to when the 9000 series accepted the PLG series plug ins )
Noone does a good enough Oberheim for me. Because of the complex filtering schemes used in the OB boards, I tend to doubt it's possible at all in the digital realm. Right now even in the software realm, analogue modeling and all, it just isn't there, although from what I saw at KVR, I believe finally an Oberheim emulation is about ready to surface. A lot of folks have the nailed the "Jump" sound pretty well, but there are other OB sounds like those that Kerry Livgren from Kansas or Dennis De Young from Styx used that I've yet to hear anyone emulate properly.
I had a shot at buying an OB12 recently and it sounded really sweet, ..like an Oberheim does to me, but, like so many of the older analog boards, it had some issues, and I would have regretted purchasing it if I couldn't have gotten it restored to full function.
AJ
[This message has been edited by Bluezplayer (edited 06-04-2006).]
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AJ