First of all, I would like to say that I use Yamaha product, almost exclusivley, and have for a long time.  I have always been happy with all of the Yamaha equiptment I have owned over the years.  However, the Motif ES Rack has been a disappointment.  The first, and main failure of the this module is that the piano sounds (accoustic piano sounds) are horrible.  I once read the post of another user here, who said the same thing, and the reply he got was one that made it sound like he wasn’t putting the right eq onto the patch, or that he was not using the patch (piano patch) in stero, and that this was the reason for the piano sounding so lousy.  Well, I have to disagree.  I have tried everything to get the piano sounds on the Motif rack to sound good, and nothing I have tried does any good.  And, at this point, I have given up.  I have a Yamaha P 200 that has excellent piano sounds, and have been lugging it around just to midi it up to my QY700 sequencer to have the right kind of piano sound that is clean, and that cuts through the mix with a brightness and clarity.
Anyway, my question here is, what kind of plug ins are available for the Motif ES rack?  I know they are obsolete now (you cant buy them new) which is also very dissapointing, and hard to believe.  I have seen some on EBay, but there seem to be several kinds.  I have been looking at the one with just piano.  I would appreciate your help with this.
The second big problem with the Motif ES rack is that the selection dial is going bad on both of my ES racks, and I am having to replace them.

Anyway, please offer information on the plug ins with good piano sounds if possible.  Thank.s

You’re not going to like my answer probably but, the fact that one other person or even 100 do not like the pianos in the ES Rack does not take away from the fact that thousands (maybe?) bought it and loved them. Seriously, I could play dozens of CD’s for you that utilize the ES’ Piano and sound spectacular.

There are three variables in this- the samples / sound editing that makes the voices; the pianist and the mix. This isn’t a bunch of bologna. It’s a fact. Chick Corea or Jordan Rudess or, whoever your favorite pianist may be, will still sound amazing on a toy piano. And, there is no- one catch all- sound that is going to sound ‘good’ in any given situation because of the physics involved in the room, temp / humidity, number of people, etc… A sound that is bright enough in one given situation, maybe too brittle in another. I love darker piano voices. They tend to ‘thin out’ when i play outdoors…

You’re probably suffering from ear fatigue. Playing the same voices over and over tends to wear on us and we start to focus sonically what is missing or lacking in the voice instead of what is there. In fact, that’s actually how I found the CD’s I’m referring to. I was ‘tired’ of listening to the ES pianos as well. Then, I would hear a song and say, “That piano is amazing”, only to see the vid on youtube and notice it was an ES. In most of the cases, i know it was a stock piano…

Anyway, I owned this unit before upgrading to the XS. In addition, I also owned some of the piano expansion boards with my Motif Classic. (They are listed in this article). You should be aware that the technology for these expansion boards predate the ES. And, imo are inferior to the ES in Quality. But that is just opinion. I was greatly disapponted in them. Then again, as I said above- there are probably hundreds of people who rave about them…

-Good luck-

Aha, you can also find them here on Yamaha’s site...

Issues of “ear fatigue” (huh?) aside, I share your low opinion of the ES Rack’s acoustic pianos. I bought my ES Rack sight unseen, expecting its pianos to be at least as good as those on my aging S90, but have been very disappointed in the rack’s acoustic pianos.

If you haven’t found some already, I located some demo MP3’s of the PLG150 AP expansion board at http://www.e4m.co.kr/home/cart/?doc=bbs/gnuboard.php&bo_table=com_news&page=5&wr_id=56. The page is in Korean but the demo links are in English, and the PLG150 AP demos sound quite nice. If my bookings pick up after the first of the year I may snag one off eBay for myself.

I guess if you wanted to trade rude barbs, I could probably say something along the lines, “I bought my ES Rack sight unseen” (huh?), but I’ll refrain :)