How long until Yamaha releases another top of the line keyboard? Perhaps another Motif series?? What do you all think will be happenin on the market for the next couple years?

Re: PREDICTIONS? Next Best Yamaha Keyboard..?

Nothing of importance will be happening in the keyboard industry for the next 1.5 years.  At Summer NAMM 05, Yamaha may release an S100 to replace the S90.  They are Motifs without the seqencer, and like the the S90, the S100 will have more sounds and another type of piano thingee.  Then everyone here will say their Motif ES’s are a POS because it no longer has the best piano sounds they EVER heard in a SYNTH.  Others will cry for a PLG Piano thingee for two years, but by then no one will care.  History will repeat itself on this site.  Only the posters will have changed.

At Winter NAMM 2006 Yamaha will release its’ next generation of Motif.  Prolly a Motif ES Studio or ESII.  It may have a decent size screen.  It may even be touchview, but I doubt it.  No matter, though, Roland and especially Korg are so far ahead of Yamaha in touchview technololgy and better OS systems that Yamaha won’t be able to catch up.  The other reason Yamaha can’t catch up with competitors is because of their ignorant Design Team.  They just don’t get it.  They don’t really understand keyboard estetics or ergonomics that make synths a joy to use and operate.  If you don’t believe it, read the thread on ‘broken keys’.  Yamaha has been putting out the same poor action type of keyboards for over 20 years!  Yamaha can put out any kinda POS and people will cry, ‘yes, but it’s all about the sound’, and spend years trying to figure out every nuance of their older Yamaha synth.

When Yamaha’s flagship is introduced at NAMM 06 it will take another four to six months or more for full production and delivery to buyers.  That is 1.5 years from now.  You heard it here first.

Re: PREDICTIONS? Next Best Yamaha Keyboard..?

Interface is not that bad, but could be better. I never understand the need for a performance mode, pattern mode, master mode...The manual could be better

Honestly, all these modes could have been integrated into just a combi, and combis could have been combined to create songs like on the Triton…

The power documents and manuals and DVD have all been used for these modes. Yet its still fuzzy until you re-refer those guides...this makes things less creative workflow wise and puts some stress on the technical nerves…

But again, its all a matter of getting used to. Right now, I am much better off than I was a month ago...its a matter of time. For married people with kids and busy work schedules, you have to give atleast a year to master the Motif ES fully…

The SQ01 makes things a lot easier than directly editing/recording from the ES…

Re: PREDICTIONS? Next Best Yamaha Keyboard..?

This thread is about predictions.  Please keep on topic.

Re: PREDICTIONS? Next Best Yamaha Keyboard..?

I addressed the interface issue only because Nostradamis brought it up. This can be a suggestion for the next Yamaha workstation…

even if a new Yamaha workstation is released, i doubt I will be getting it, because at that point the price will be high, and I would have by then spent so much time on the ES7 I won’t want to buy the new workstation even though it may be tempting

Re: PREDICTIONS? Next Best Yamaha Keyboard..?

Gotta be the Mo Nandrelone

Yes, the motif on far more than steroids.

Unlimited polyphony
Performances available on every midi channel in a song
HD recorder section built in for when you get bored with the stunning sound quality of its brand new Gb Rom engine, and of course every part of the surface not covered by buttons or faders is actually a screen. And a touch screen at that.

Available in 6 versions, all with a brand new long lasting keybed design
You can have
A single manual semi weighted Mo Nan 6 or 7
A single manual fully weighted Mo nan 7 or 8
A single manual Mo nan org with a waterfall type keybed
A dual manual Weighted Mo nan 7 with a Mo nan org on top.

Yammy feel pleased that this will offer their customers the top quality sounds at the best price.

Prices will start at £$1500 and rise to $£4000 for the top of the range board.

“Hey, look mummy, there’s a flying piggie over there”

/forums/images/icons/smile.gif alt= /forums/images/icons/smile.gif alt= /forums/images/icons/smile.gif alt=

Cheers

Re: PREDICTIONS? Next Best Yamaha Keyboard..?

OT but I have to say it.

Yamaha keybeds are the best you are going to get.

The conductive paint keyboards (Fatar, Roland) suck and that applies to both the spongy feel as well as the reliability.  “Semi-weighted” my butt.  And don’t ever spill a drop of water on them.  I’ll buy a used 20 year old KX76 knowing the keys will still work.  You won’t’ find “conductive paint & rubber” actions with consistant velocities across the keyboard after 3 years.

And don’t get me started on the Roland U-220 type keys.  The tab that retains the key is so small the lightest gliss will break it.



Ernie

Re: PREDICTIONS? Next Best Yamaha Keyboard..?

Next best synth..


It is not going to be from Yamaha, I can predict that…

Re: PREDICTIONS? Next Best Yamaha Keyboard..?

Seems to me the synth industry is running out of things to do.

The whole ROMpler thing is so mature the only thing left to do is continue to increase the amount of ROM to hold bigger/better samples.  Samplers have converged with ROMplers, add on boards allow multiple synth engines in one board.  With the Oasys including all of the above then adding a true HD audio recorder that seems to me the end of the line for workstation evolution.

A more interesting question is whether the reurgence of interest in analog synthesis will cause some sort of new analog/digital hybrids to emerge. 

Re: PREDICTIONS? Next Best Yamaha Keyboard..?

You forgot a bigger touchview screen.  Seriously, though, the industry has run out of ideas and features, that’s why Korg’s Oaysis has a hard disk recorder in it and big color touchview screen.  Who the hell needs a built in recorder?  Almost everyone uses a computer.  Ditto with sequencer.  Who needs it?  Well over half the people who buy an Oaysis will be flushing money down the toilet paying for a hard disck recorder and sequencer.  Many won’t even use the sampler.

Re: PREDICTIONS? Next Best Yamaha Keyboard..?

I disagree.

The fight is on to bring Pro-tools type flexibility onto a keyboard workstation.

the concept of workstation is to be able to produce music in its completest forms. THese are now becoming true workstations.

Essentially they are PCs in a keyboard shaped box. Capable of running whatever programs you want along with any VSTis you need and so on.

People on the look out for a pro-tools system might begin to start taking notice.

Cheers

Re: PREDICTIONS? Next Best Yamaha Keyboard..?

Yammy bought the Cubase gang, so I’d look for a more seamless integration between synth and computer, perhaps with a smarter console arrangement. Maybe a compromise between the ES and Oaysis. They’d be stupid not to exploit that merger.

Don’t know why, but I don’t see a future for touchscreen except with low-end boards for amateurs and kids. What with flat panel display prices falling and a mature ROMpler industry already here, the smart money is on keeping price down by avoiding sequencer circuitry and interface complications. Everyone has a computer or will have by Yam’s next release.

Any hardware sequencer trying to emulate Sonar or Cubase is shooting at a moving target, the perpetual catch-up game, and they’re so far behind already it’s pitiful.

My take, anyway.

Dan

Re: PREDICTIONS? Next Best Yamaha Keyboard..?

But Dan,

that’s the beauty of an open ended setup like the Neko synth - it is built around a PC and has a clever OS which limits your exposure to windows.

THese new platforms are NOT hardware synths - they are PCs with a synth keyboard built in - as upgradeable and expandable (maybe more-so) as any other PC.

I think Yammy and Steinberg’s merger will mean that we see something aimed at this sector and with a much greater exploitation of Mlan.

But the main thing is that people don’t necessarily want to take their valuable laptops with them to a gig and with all the wires and connections risk failure in mid gig - an all-in-one box solution offers a realistic way of having the best of every world.

I could conceive of such a piece of kit not costing much more than a current top end workstation. (at least for an entry level model)

Cheers

Re: PREDICTIONS? Next Best Yamaha Keyboard..?

All true, but a PC is a PC is a crappy, unstable system with a keyboard built in is a POS.  Yawn.

Re: PREDICTIONS? Next Best Yamaha Keyboard..?

I agree with the previous post. Even though Openlabs claims that their Neko is very reliable, I was always skeptical and will always be skeptical of windows or even Mac OS for live performance. So far, there is not a single computer manufacturer that can meet the reliability standard of a hardware brand. Simply put, its Ford trying to catchup with Toyota...it will take forever!

Re: PREDICTIONS? Next Best Yamaha Keyboard..?

Open labs claim that their Neko is very reliable.

They have obviously road tested it in the same way that a hardware synth would be road tested.

Yammy would not release a product onto the market that they felt was not sufficiently reliable to the task. This is one reason I recall that they have given for not utilising large screens - they indicate that those large screens are just not sufficiently reliable long term.

Regarding an OS - often problems arise on a PC because of so many different brands of mother board, sound card, HD, CD/DVD drives and so on and whilst all are built to a spec, they don’t always talk well to each other. A poor illustration might be - I have a qualification in the French language - I have reached a spec point - but I still feel totally unable to communicate in French (this might say more about education than my linguistic abilities, but I hope you see the point) Macs are far more reliable because their parts are sourced by a single manufacturer. A PC need not be unreliable. However - if you did have a PC based synth you would be crazy to load all of a Windows operating system, and you might be crazy to have direct internet access on it and the less complex a system is, the more likely it is to work without breaking down.

I really do think that softsynths have opened the door for the future of music making. I also think that most people don’t want to have to fuss with configuring them and so on. The reason digital synths and ROMplers have sold so well is that with their memories you dial up a number and a sound comes out - easy. No mess, no fuss. A vsti keyboard system needs to be developed to operate in a similar way.

Anyway, nuff said, except to say there are other OS other than Windows - BeOS is often mentioned as an ideal OS for music making . . . (more than that I know not)

Cheers