I have seen the new Korg M3(Oasys LE=+Radias)and the new offerings from Roland and I must say that in my eyes and ears (The demos I’ve heard) Yamaha has done it again.I must commend Yamaha for this great instrument and Keyfax for this great forum.The new look and features are great! Keep up the good work in 2007..

Re: Motif xs=Best new workstation !

The Korg M3 is just a rompler with 256Mb of PCM rom, 5 insert effects, per part EQ. It can be expanded using Radias board and custom Korg’s module to 320Mb ram memory (read it’ll be more expensive than a common dimm). It has Karma2 onboard and somewhat improved sequencer over vanilla Triton. The polyphony is still only 120 voices however it’s a new kind of an engine than in Tritons.

To compare Motif XS has 355Mb of PCM rom, 8 insert dual effects, per part EQ, up to 1GB of ram memory (using common dimm modules) with much improved loading speeds, a new quad arp, improved synth engine (new LSI chip and double elements per voice), a vocoder, a new better reverb, a new suite of VCM effects.

XS looks pretty competitive, isn’t it? And consider that expansion for M3 will cost extra money (Radias and memory). I don’t see XS being crushed in any way like some crybaby had been predicting in this forum.

Re: Motif xs=Best new workstation !!!!

Yeah..I don’t think Yamaha has really nothing to worry about..bring on the XS. That Korg M3 might be a good workstation but it won’t blow the XS away by any means!!!This M3 workstation is ugly to me, it would look strange in the studio & who would want to use it live. The M3 looks like the control panel of the USS Enterprise starship,it also looks as if it was made to be a Korg arranger & someone cut out the speakers out of the ends.  I do mostly r&b,hip hop, and rap.  I already use Cubase & mlan..so I guess it’s the XS for me!!!!  I don’t know what the hip-hop/rap or live community will think of the Korg M3,I still think the XS will sound great against & will outsell this thing.  All I can say is..if the new Korg M3 cost more than the XS..it WILL loose market share!!!  I also can’t wait to see what the hell Openlabs is doing with their all-new 2007 Generation 3 Nekos!!!  /forums/images/icons/cool.gif alt= /forums/images/icons/cool.gif alt= /forums/images/icons/cool.gif alt=

Re: Motif xs=Best new workstation !

What I liked about M3:

1. The name. It’s time to go back to those letter+digit combinations. The days of “full names” (Motif, Triton, Fantom) are numbered IMHO /forums/images/icons/smile.gif alt=
2. Very sleek looks.
3. “Modular” concept - you can unplug the module and use it as standalone (I don’t like how it’s done visually though). Back in the early days of ES someone at this very forum suggested a modular design for an imaginary Motif EX.
4. SoundFont compatibility - very nice touch (for me at least)
5. NO CD-burner - because it spites foley!
6. Phat Fu_ken filters - gotta love’em.

Superficially it appears very fresh, which can’t be said about the XS - but, heck, Korg had to finally change the design after 351 rehashes of Triton /forums/images/icons/smile.gif alt=

Re: Motif xs=Best new workstation !

Hey! where’s Foley when you need him? wow- look at what is going to wipe yamaha off the market....or we haven’t seen it yet- Looks good, looks fresh as Jote stated, lots of new stuff; spotted the firewire available for all models (unlike XS)...but HECK!! theres no way i would buy that OVER a motif XS. I’d buy one along with an XS...but if there’s one keyboard to buy; sorry korg- Did i hear you mention you added the best of OASYS’ soundset? O no! not the triton in my face again!! ...in a different manifestation. Well, as i said earlier this Korg for me; depending on what it sounds like (has the features), will be a second new keyboard for me later on, after i have acquired the XS. Korg is on par with XS in tech/features and still struggling to meet motif ES (based on where the sound comes from). 

Where did you guys hear demos or saw videos from? i need to hear this

Re: Motif xs=Best new workstation !

You have demos here:

[url=http://www.yamaha-europe.com/yamaha_europe/download/mp3/10_musical_instruments/synthesizer/synthesizer/MOTIF_XS_6_7_8/index.php?country=spain]http://www.yamaha-europe.com/yamaha_europe/download/mp3/10_musical_instruments/synthesizer/synthesizer/MOTIF_XS_6_7_8/index.php?country=spain [/url]

Re: Motif xs=Best new workstation !

I meant for the Korg, sorry. If anyone has heard/seen.

Re: Motif xs=Best new workstation !

[url=http://www.karma-lab.com/m3/m3_demos.html]http://www.karma-lab.com/m3/m3_demos.html [/url]

Re: Motif xs=Best new workstation !

That korg M3 made me smile (in a good way) with that organ sound and those cool features. I really hope that the Motif XS has organ sounds like that.

Re: Motif xs=Best new workstation !

Did you guys notice that the piano sound on the Korg M3 sound almost like the motif’s piano sound? Their piano sounds are getting better, but not good enough.

Now I hope the motif xs organ, sound like the korg M3.

Re: Motif xs=Best new workstation !

Poster: danoan522
Subject: Re: Motif xs=Best new workstation !
Hey! where’s Foley when you need him? wow- look at what is going to wipe yamaha off the market....

Perhaps he got so excited in this scheme of dominating Yamaha so much with ku_fen “thing” he just collapsed of straining himself too much?  Yet after making so much of poo about multisynthesis stuff the M3 ended being just an another rompler with ability to host a Radias board inside. It’s not exectly Oasys by any means - it’d rather an interesting and competitive product from Korg.

or we haven’t seen it yet- Looks good, looks fresh as Jote stated, lots of new stuff; spotted the firewire available for all models (unlike XS)...but HECK!! theres no way i would buy that OVER a motif XS. I’d buy one along with an XS...but if there’s one keyboard to buy; sorry korg- Did i hear you mention you added the best of OASYS’ soundset? O no! not the triton in my face again!! ...in a different manifestation. Well, as i said earlier this Korg for me; depending on what it sounds like (has the features), will be a second new keyboard for me later on, after i have acquired the XS. Korg is on par with XS in tech/features and still struggling to meet motif ES (based on where the sound comes from).

I’d like to the 88 keys bed host. If it will not be too bulky then I will consider it just for sake of easier portability.

Where did you guys hear demos or saw videos from? i need to hear this

[url=http://www.karma-lab.com/m3/m3_demos.html]http://www.karma-lab.com/m3/m3_demos.html [/url]

Re: Motif xs=Best new workstation !

The Karma-Lab Demo for the M3 - the whole section -is really top notch. It took a lot of time and money to put all that together. It pains me to see that such an extensive demonstration is up for Korg and Yamaha does not even have a single “audio-only” demo up on their site yet.

This needs to be taken care of fast....and Yamaha absolutely needs something as deep and refined as the Korg demo.

The M3 looks great - but soooooo fu_ken complicated. When foley gets out of the institution and if he can afford an M3, he will not have time to post here anymore.

I’d like one...but it is just tooooo much on the learning curve side....I’d end up throwing the thing through a window.

Re: Motif xs=Best new workstation !

Hey guys.  Long time yamaha user and new to the motifator.  At first i was skeptical about the new xs but after much deliberation and listening to the demos and of course seeing the M3 i think the xs may be my choice for my new work horse.  I am glad to be on the motifator and look forward to playing the xs.

Re: Motif xs=Best new workstation !

The Karma-Lab Demo for the M3 - the whole section -is really top notch. It took a lot of time and money to put all that together. It pains me to see that such an extensive demonstration is up for Korg and Yamaha does not even have a single “audio-only” demo up on their site yet.

Ditto - and what they put on Motifator (XS ROM demos) cries “Kill me!” - “Xcellent Session” and “Memory of the King” (aka “Orchestral") seem to completely lack the much trumpeted XA technology (which, in turn, you can hear on the very same ROM demos on Yamaha Europe!)

Re: Motif xs=Best new workstation !

I agree. The main difference to me is that the Korg demo sounds mostly “live”, whereas the Yamaha demos sound like back-catalogue MIDI files replayed through the XS engine. There is also more warmth to the Korg demo, but it sounds more compressed than the Yamaha demo (making the latter sound deeper and fuller), so I think we have to be conscious of typical artefacts of MP3 compression.

I wasn’t going to bother listening to these demos before the show, but figured it would give me some perspective and help me to hone in on certain things if I do get a chance to try either one in person. It is difficult to judge how things sound at NAMM due to all the guitar heroes four hundred aisles over :-).

Re: Motif xs=Best new workstation !

Now I hope the motif xs organ, sound like the korg M3.

It looks Yamaha is very serious on sampling side of XS with 1Gb ram capacity and vastly improved loading speeds. If it’s true then it shouldn’t be problem to customize your own soundset using extra multisamples.

There was a promise of I/O perfomance benchmarks of XS. We will see.

Of course the stock organ sounds in XS might fit you just fine. The 355Mb of PCM rom is for a purpose, isn’t it?

For the M3 demos they are impressive but I have to say I like demos in my Juno-G better than those in MotifES. Does it mean Juno-G is better than ES? Of course not.