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#71295 - 06/10/05 01:24 PM S90 v. S80 v. S08 v. Motif
boetsch1 Offline
Junior Member

Registered: 06/10/05
Posts: 3
I am new to keyboards and I'm looking to buy something that will allow me to create background music for movies and strip/remix mp3's and music files. I am a knowlegable computer guy with piano lessons under my belt, and I want to be able to take a popular song and remix it with a variety of voices, in addition to creating original music. I like the S90 in that is has a large voice library and that I can also hook it up to my computer and sequence without having to use an expensive onboard module. It seems I can get the S80 or S08 on eBay for a lot less than an S90 new. And the Motif seems like too much for my needs. Anyone have any recs for which synth I should get for my needs? I've considered the Korg Triton, also, but I understand the Yamahas offer more. Any sequencer software packages you can recommend would be great too!

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#71296 - 06/10/05 03:55 PM Re: S90 v. S80 v. S08 v. Motif
lowfrequencyoscillator Offline
Member

Registered: 01/20/05
Posts: 49
Loc: atlanta , Georgia , USA
Get which ever one you can at the lowest cost . They are all the same with the same sound sets and and effects . Their are only minor differences in the number of sounds and sequencing ( if it has it ) .
_________________________
http://
www.joshuacurry.com/
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#71297 - 06/13/05 10:55 AM Re: S90 v. S80 v. S08 v. Motif
RW Offline
Member

Registered: 01/30/01
Posts: 344
Loc: NJ, USA
Here's some info that might be helpful, from my experience at least:

The S80 is the oldest of the following
S80
S90
S08
Mo8
MoES8

Between the S08, S80 and S90, none have an onboard recordable sequencer. All have a playback only sequencer. The Motifs have recordable sequencers.

The S80 , S08 and S90 all have different sound engines. All have different effects processors.

The key feel of the S08, S90 and Mo8 and MoES8 are all the same balanced hammer action.

The S80 has a different key feel. It's balanced and hammer action but it is a different and in my opinion, lighter action. I prefer a heavy action.

I've own an S80 (but only for a short period of time). I own an S90 and have had it about 2 years now. I also own a Mofif ES7, and have had that for almost a year now.

The S80, S08, S90 and Mo8 and MoES8 can all be hooked up to a computer. Personally a use a Midiman 2x2 midi interface but I believe all the boards you mentioned have a USB, except maybe the S08 (I'm not sure).

The S80 is discontinued, maybe the S08 too. The Mo8 is discontinued also. The S90 and MoEs's all come with SQ01 sequencing software. The S90 , when using as a sound source for midi sequences only has 2 insert efects, but the Mo ES's have 8 insert effects.

They are all different.

The S80, S90 and Mo's are also pretty good controllers, but I don't think the S08 is as good at controlling. Nor is the S08 expandable.

the S80, S90 and Mo's (all Mo's) are expandable with Yamaha's Plug in cards. Yamaha's cards are much better than just simply adding new voice libraries. They are actually synth engines in their own right adding poly and effects to your board. Grant this added poly and effects are for the card only, but atleast they don't steal form the mother board ya know? The DX plug is excellent. It's like adding a Yamaha DX7 to your board. Again, you can not expand an S08.

The sounds in the S80 are very good and the sounds in the S08 are good. The sounds in the S90 and Mo's are better.

It's a tough call. The Mo's are called workstations and the others are performance synths. The workstations are better at creating/developing music, because they have sampling and onboard sequencing. They also have more polyphony too.


Not to steer you away from Yamaha, because I love Yamaha. (I sold old my Roland stuff and am stricly a Yamaha user now. I love the Motif/S90 sound. To me it's the best. The organs are the most usable "out of the box" organs available in a synth to me. The Mo ES organs rock! Outside of B3 clones, only Kurzwiel, to me, comes close)....

If you don't plan to gig, and you don't need a heavy feel, perhaps something like a Trinto LE would do ya?

Do you need 88 weighted kays? Alot of money can be saved if you went with a 61 key workstation, or even a 76 key w/s.

I also had an Roland XP-80 which was very good to create with. If you're patient you could probably get a mint cond. used one for 800 , maybe as low as 700.

Anyway, best wishes to ya.
Bob
<><

PS, what do you mean about stripping MP3's and a keyboard? I don't know where they fit in together.

[This message has been edited by RW (edited 06-13-2005).]

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#71298 - 06/13/05 12:24 PM Re: S90 v. S80 v. S08 v. Motif
boetsch1 Offline
Junior Member

Registered: 06/10/05
Posts: 3
Thanks, Bob, this is the exactly the kind of info I was looking for.

By "stripping" MP3's, I mean taking a popular song, say, for example, like an instrumental piece by Enya, and being able to isolate the vocals and add my own music and beats, like a club remix or something. People are doing this all the time with popular songs...they get recalibrated to fit a club genre and are all the rave at clubs and so forth.

Where the keyboard comes in...well...I want a vast library of voices and beats. And the software, well...I'm looking for something that can dissect a music file like an MP3 so I can isolate certain tracks and then add and create my own. From what I understand, the S90 has the largest library of voices, etc. And I also learned that I don't need an onboard sequencer if I can MIDI the keyboard to a PC with some sort of recording studio software like Cakewalk or similar.

What I'm essentially trying to do is what recording artist Moby has done. Are you familiar with his work? He takes old music and reinvents it with modern instruments and beats while preserving the original essence of the song. I am very new to this technology but I am a fast learner, and the help I've gotten from places like Sam Ash Music has been horrible. This is very much a crossover area between true musical artists and techno geeks, and they often don't speak the same language. I'm a little of both, but a master of neither.

As far as 88 keys vs 61, I can get away with 61 but I want the best sounding equipment for the money. I think the Motif is overkill with the recordable sequencer and stuff since I can probably do a much better job with a software package on my PC. But please explain if you have a differing opinion.

Some of the things you've written about baffle me because I don't understand the lingo yet...poly, engines, effects processors, insert effects, controlling....???

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#71299 - 06/14/05 11:08 AM Re: S90 v. S80 v. S08 v. Motif
RW Offline
Member

Registered: 01/30/01
Posts: 344
Loc: NJ, USA
hi boetsch1
I have a better idea now of what you want to do. I mentioned poly before. This may be a critical area for you depending on how you will create the tracks. poly is short for polyphony which means the number of voice elements the synth can produce at any given point in time. If you are going to create several midi tracks in you PC sequencer, then play them back from the PC and at the same time plan to record the audio produced by the synth you may run out of polyphony. If you plan to create several audio tracks individually, polyphony may not be an issue but then you'll need to make sure you PC is fast enough to handle several audio tracks at once.

I do not record audio with a PC because it's just too much for me. I use a Yamaha AW16G which is a stand-alone hard disk recorder. I can't be dealing with interfaces and memory and latency and all that stuff. but that is just a personel choice. Just about every other recording musician I know of uses PC's (macs really) and Protools and digidesign's stuff. I just don't have the knack for that.

Any way back to poly. Lets say you have a "64 voice" synth. Usually many patches are made up of two or three, sometimes one or four voice elements. And generally the best sounds use 4 voices. Let's say your best piano sound is using 4 voice elements. when you hit just one key, while your playing that note, your using 4 voices of polyphony. Hit a three not chord and all of a sudden you're using 12 voices of polyphony. Try a three note bass chord and a four note chord with your right hand (7 notes total) and your now using 28 voices of polyphony. Generall 64 voice synth is fine if your playing in patch mode or voice mode... (just one sound at a time). But if you want to layer two patches (sounds) like the best piano and strings patches. if both use 4 voices, once you layer them, now one key uses 8 notes of polyphony. So now a 7 note chord is using 56 voices of polyphony. Again. not too bad. Some older synths are like 32 voices or 28 voices and older analog synths may be as low as 6 or 8 total.

But with all that said. If you have a Midi sequence using several sounds, some layered, some playing long sustained chords, your midi sequence will eat up all the synths polyphony and you'll hear notes just drop out.

But as I said also, if you'll be recording to audio, polyphony is not a concern but disk space and processor speed is.

Today's professional workstations almost all have at least 128 polyphony now.

So there's more for you to consider. Ya know a few years back the Roland XP-30 was maybe the best bang for the buck. It has a huge library of sounds. Is a 61 key keyboard. Is not really expensive. The sounds may not be as fresh as the sounds in today's synths but still it's engine (the JV engine is a good one). 64 voice poly i believe. That may be the cheapest way to get a large libray of sounds. Also there are sound modules that have huge libraries.

You may find with experience though even if you have a synth with a 1000 patches (sounds) you may really only tend to use less than 50 or so. It's fun to have a-ga-zillion sounds though, but it's not easy to use them all.


As far as software to strip mp3s , I have no experience with that. sounds cool though.

I know a Motif Es6 isn't cheap, but it would handle your application well.

It also sounds as though you might want to be able to produce drum patterns/loops. Not all synths can do this. The Motif ES's can. Something you might want to keep in mind when shopping and hunting around.

I would just like to say to you to be patient too,. The more you learn the more equipt you'll be to make the right decision. Hopefully you but the right board the first time and not have to go through a few boards before you finally get what you need.

Peace
Best wishes
Bob
<><

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#71300 - 06/14/05 01:02 PM Re: S90 v. S80 v. S08 v. Motif
boetsch1 Offline
Junior Member

Registered: 06/10/05
Posts: 3
Thanks, Bob! That was great. -Andrew

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#71301 - 06/15/05 07:46 AM Re: S90 v. S80 v. S08 v. Motif
RW Offline
Member

Registered: 01/30/01
Posts: 344
Loc: NJ, USA
Hi Andrew,
A little about effects and insert effects. from my limited knowledge anyway.

A synth generall operates in one of two modes 1)called voice or patch mode or single mode and 2) performance or multi mode. I'll use the terms single and multi for conversation sake.

In single mode the keyboard only plays one sound at a time. In multi mode, all 16 parts would be available. You would put it in multi mode to playback a MIDI sequence if the midi sequence has more than 1 part and most do.

Most synths have an effects processor built in. You can bring up say an organ patch and apply maybe reverb, chorus and a rotation effect (to emulate a leslie). Usually a keyboard lets you choose a rebverb, a chorus, and one of a number of other effects such as rotation, flanger, delay, etc... Often you are limited to just these three possibilities.

Now in multi mode it gets more complex because lets say you are using 8 sounds;
piano
organ
e. guitar
harpsicord
strings
drums
flute
bells

Usually you can control reverb and chorus of the entire sound set as one big unit and set each individuals chorus and reverb "sends" to control which part has lots and which parts of little. But lets say you want a distortion on the guitar and rotation on the organ and delay on the flute and flanger on the harpsicord. Well then you'll need 4 insert effects. Some synths only allow 2 insert effects. Any insert effect such as distortion is available to all parts (generally). So it's not that only one part can be effected by the insert. The motif allows for 8 insert effects in multi mode. That's a pretty good amount. I don't know what others (Triton, Fantom) offer and exactly how each one is limited.

To be honest, I've not fully put my motif to it's paces in this area either. I mainly use my MoEs7 and S90 in single mode live.

This post to to give you an idea of what effects and insert effects are. Please check with the dealers to get the correct information of each synth you check out.

Controlling... I'll try to touch on this a little too.

Controlling is really the synths ability to control other synths when you hook them up with MIDI cables in the master/slave set-up.

Some keyboards produce no sound at all and you would need a "sound module". These are called controllers. Midi out of the keyboard to midi in of the sound module and the sound module is the slave and the keyboard is the master. Whatever the keyboard tells the slave to do, it should do. Some keyboards have many things it can tell the module to do some have very little. These "things" are midi messages. Notes played on the keyboard are actually midi messages.

Just about all keyboards have a midi out. Some have 2,3, or 4 midi outs so the messages can be sent to more then just one module or PC for that matter. Some have buttons to turn on and off each midi out port. Some can send messages like program change to switch sounds on the module, some can't. Some do this easily with the tap of one button, some do this rather cumbersomely and are therefore not good for live situations.

It can get more complex that this but hopefully you understand the concept. Some keyboards are great controllers some are lousy at it. Some are made for the soul purpose of being a controller and are great at controlling. The Roland A-90 and A-70 are a great controllers. The S90 and Motifs are very good controllers. The Roland XP-80 and XP-60 are also very good controllers.

Bob
<><



[This message has been edited by RW (edited 06-15-2005).]

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#71302 - 07/07/05 04:01 PM Re: S90 v. S80 v. S08 v. Motif
babylon Offline
Member

Registered: 03/25/05
Posts: 63
Loc: Saline, Mi.
I find the prospect of MP3 stripping very intriguing. Please keep us updated on the how to do this.

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