Today I went to Guitar Center in El Paso TX and they now have the Motif XS8, in fact its on the wall right on top a Motif XS8. I spent a few minutes going through the sounds and this is my fist impresion:

1- The lcd screen is nice, its white so I would think that in a mid day live show it wouln’t be a problem dealing with the SUN.

2- The search category is nice, it’s easier to move through the sounds or to search for a sound.

3- Most of the sounds, at least the ones I went through are the same as the XS, most of them. I noticed there are more variations of synth bases which I’m a fan a sytn bases sounds. Somebody mentioned that there are farfiza organs, I didn’t see any but maybe I missed them because I was in a hurry. The pianos are the same, suposedly there is a new piano but still Piano 1 Steinway are way much better in many cases(in my own taste).

5- The black color is nice, what I didn’t like is that the paint is flat and not gloss. Flat paint gets dirty more easily and it’s more dificult to clean than gloss paint. Now here is contrast of the black paint vs the white LCD Secreen, in a live situation at mid day in the middle of summer, the lcd screen will be more visible, but the black metal paint will atract more heat and the machine will get very hot very soon, ofcourse most synths have been black through the years, this is just subjective.

That’s about it, I was there just like 6-7 minutes because I was in a hurry. Maybe on friday I’ll be there and spend more time.

I honestly don’t have plans of buying it because I already spent a lot of money on the XS7. If I still had my ES6 then I would consider the XF, but still I don’t lose anything with exploring the new instrument!!