I recently bought a MO8 and plan to sell my cheaper MM6. I set them both up through my mixer and Edirol studio monitors and did a comparison of the sounds.

I found the synth sounds, the orchestral sounds and the drums and bass on the MO blew the MM away, as expected. But what i was surprised to find was that the piano sound, particularly power grand, was a lot crisper, louder and stronger on the MM than any of the MO piano sounds. I had to turn the MO to maximum to get a decent volume and it lacked power before distorting. It was surprising. I’m selling my Technics SX-P50 Digital Piano for a similar reason. The MO just seemed muffled and lacked power and sparkle, especially in the bottom end. I found a similar situation with the EP’s though the difference wasn’t as great.

Has anyone else come across this before? Are there some effective tweaks to improve the piano sound?

I have found when playing Piano style voices, there is a big difference when comparing weighted and non weighted key beds. Using using the non weighted keybed I find it a lot easier to reach max velocity (128). This may be what you are experiencing.  I would expect that there will be a few velocity curves available for the MO, one of which will be setup to help you reach max velocity easily. Alternatively you could midi the MM into the MO & play the MO sounds using the MM as a controller only and evaluate the sounds.

Hope that helps.

I think you’re right. I’ll try Midi-ing it up and see what happens…

both of you guys are right, to some extent

I just exchanged my MM8 which I owned for 1 month with the MO8 (note that they are both hammer action 88 keys). While the MM8’s PowerGrand may sound crispier and ‘louder’ in the beginning (and for that matter, should satisfy the need of 90% of piano-dominated applications), as you exert full, pianist-like power (I’m first and foremost a pianist) on the two synths, you start to realize that the MM piano sound is nothing more but an upgraded PSR piano sound with very limited sound editing and re-synthesis possibilities and starts to sound ‘thin and cheap’, while the MO8 preset piano delivers a solid, dynamic, metallic and highly sustainable piano sound if you exert more strengths on the keys, let alone the endless sound editing and recreation possibilities. You can edit the velocity curve, etc. in addition to the envelop and effects, etc.

My fiance who is a professional classical pianist likes the MO8 way better.

btw, I wouldnt be surprised if the PowerGrand patch on the MM is an limited and edited version from the MO/ES/XS original piano waveforms

The MM Power Grand piano sound is from the original Motif “classic"--Yamaha advertises that the MM sounds and samples are those of the Motif. I like the sound of Power Grand better than the MO piano sound too (MO sounds are from the Motif ES sample ROM) and you can load the voice file for Power Grand into the MO and it will sound similar (you’re using the built in MO samples instead of the MM samples, but the sound is close). And as mentioned in an earlier post, playing with EQ will also help get the the MO piano sounds the way you want them.

Kevin

I replaced the MM6 with a MO6 in my rig, so my response takes the weighted vs non-weighted action out of the equation. In general the MO blows the MM out of the water except, IMHO, the acoustic pianos. I don’t even play the MO grands anymore, they sound brittle and artificial to my ears. My favorite Yamaha acoustic piano emulation is still the S700 - with a little tweaking - in my S90.

Bob