I just checked out Jordan Rudess doing Sample Tank 4 at NAMM 2019

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WE5WwiCIhco

He is one of the most effective spokesman for the KORG Kronos, and the other Korg Music Production Synthesizer workstations.  Did you see that Big Kronos on stage?  Rudess is very high profile.  I can’t imagine Korg discontinuing the Kronos while they have such a powerhouse like Jordan Rudess who is so passionate, and such a good ambassador for the Synthesizer Workstation.  I think he was big on the Korg Triton too.

I can’t help but wonder, who played that role for the Yamaha Motif????  Who was the major star power associated with the Motif????  Who were the big time performer(s) that advocated for the Motif??  And if we had someone like Jordan Rudess that was an advocate for the Motif would Yamaha have ever discontinued it??  Is part of the reason we aren’t seeing a Motif at NAMM 2019 the fact that we don’t have a high profile spokesman or spokesperson??  And having Yamaha Product Specialists at the wheel don’t quite have the same impact.  “No offense meant Blake Angelos)

We all know Yamaha’s explanation for why they discontinued the Motif. “ Oh everyone is using computer based DAW’s these days so a Music production Synthesizer is not profitable, practical or preferable”

But for some reason Korg didn’t get that memo.  From what I hear the Kronos is a live and well and is still being featured at NAMM 2019 with new colors or something like that…

https://www.korg.com/us/products/synthesizers/kronos2/

When Yamaha supposedly did their survey and asked all the Motif users what they really needed in the next iteration, who were these Motif users?  Were there any powerhouses in the Jordan Rudess category? 

Or did Yamaha just “surrender” the market to:

https://www.korg.com/us/products/synthesizers/kronos2/

or to:
https://www.roland.com/global/products/fa_series/

What does Yamaha know about the synthesizer workstation market that Korg and Roland haven’t figured out yet? :-(

The Montage is not an advancement of the Motif. IMO its not even a reasonable replacement. The Montage is a performance synthesizer not a workstation synthesizer.  Yamaha claimed there really wasn’t a legitimate market for a workstation synthesizer that’s why they discontinued the Motif.

But was that the real reason?  If we had a Jordan Rudess Type “personality” supporting Motif would Yamaha still be selling it and would some kind of Special Edition have been featured in NAMM 2019?

How come Korg and Roland haven’t come to the same conclusion as Yamaha on the Synthesizer Workstation question???  Obviously they still see profit right???

Or was the whole discontinue-the-Motif-thing part of a move to sell more Cubase Licenses and move all the Yamaha pros into the Sequencing As A Service model?

I thought Yamaha’s new CP series at NAMM 2019 was impressive for a piano.  I was really interested to see if Yamaha was going to do something new in the workstation synthesizer space.  Just curious and when I saw Rudess doing his Korg Kronos thing, it just made me wonder....

What the fu#k was Yamaha thinking for real?

lastmonk - 28 January 2019 07:03 PM

[...] When Yamaha supposedly did their survey and asked all the Motif users what they really needed in the next iteration, who were these Motif users?  Were there any powerhouses in the Jordan Rudess category? [...]

http://www.motifator.com/index.php/forum/index.php/viewthread/479339/

http://www.yamaha.com/artists/digitalkeyboards.html?CTID=5070050
Check all six pages for “powerhouses”. Meh?

Enough said?

Don’t forget that the Kronos came about in 2011, whereas the first Motif was 2001, so there is time for Korg to do the same as Yamaha, and I expect they will in time, if we assume they go for a similar product longevity.

Greed and not listening to your user base is typical these days. I’ve always been a big supporter of Apple, but they are just the same in the post Jobs era.

Sadly, the Motif will probably only ever come back as a gold plated, boutique, mini synth, useless without cloud connection, and with a pay as you go system.

I’m also seeing a super knob mounted on the side in order to make it nice and ‘easy’ to flight case.

The gold will of course be an off green.

philwoodmusic - 28 January 2019 11:37 PM

Don’t forget that the Kronos came about in 2011, whereas the first Motif was 2001, so there is time for Korg to do the same as Yamaha, and I expect they will in time, if we assume they go for a similar product longevity.


Greed and not listening to your user base is typical these days. I’ve always been a big supporter of Apple, but they are just the same in the post Jobs era.

Sadly, the Motif will probably only ever come back as a gold plated, boutique, mini synth, useless without cloud connection, and with a pay as you go system.

I’m also seeing a super knob mounted on the side in order to make it nice and ‘easy’ to flight case.

The gold will of course be an off green.

LOL you and 5Pindin know how to put a fine point on the matter.  The funny thing is did I just miss Chic Corea in the list, possibly.  We know he’s a Motif guy.  I did see others on their list that are not keyboard players at all.  But look at how Jordan Rudess really is an evangelist for Korg Kronos, Krome, Kross, even Triton right?  Rudess on Triton??  I think

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pn68AL0CKrg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrJKWu9uotU

TBH some of the artists Yamaha claims as Yamaha artists, I know personally!!!!  And I know those particular artists loved the workstation, Sequencing, and Sampling functions of the Motif Music Production Synthesizer the ones that actually were Motif artists.

So you guys are right.  Why the intellectual dishonesty on the part of Yamaha???  Why the falsehoods?  In this day and age why not just be truthful with the customers?  Why not give your customers the long view and roadmap truth?

Or Did they have a “few good men moment” You Can’t Handle the Truth??

Even if they had come out and said we would like to focus our music production budget within the Cubase universe, it would have been better than telling the lie that the customer didn’t want this feature or that feature.

And besides there is a big difference in me prioritizing features saying that out of 5 sequencing is number 5, and me saying that I don’t want sequencing.  Just because its the least important thing out of a list of important things, doesn’t mean its not an IMPORTANT THING!!!! LOL

There is a resurgence in all things hardware.  e.g. I’m digging that new TASCAM Model 24

https://tascam.com/us/product/model_24/top

and for some reason (good reason I suggest) Korg and Roland both seem to understand customers still want and purchase synthesizer workstations!

Interestingly enough neither Korg nor Roland have a real software DAW to peddle e.g. Cubase like Yamaha does.  Hmmm????

So if Yamaha had no connection with Cubase or Steinberg, would they have discontinued the Motif line??? 

Although Motif and even Montage can be hooked up to Pro Tools and others, the real push is the tight integration with Cubase.

https://new.steinberg.net/cubase/new-in-10/

So I wonder what the Yamaha shareholders have been promised long term???  hmmm.???  So the real deal is another $600 for Cubase + what the long term Pay-as-U-go, sotftware-as-a-service model that Cubase has in store for its Yamaha synthesizer workstation customers.

Fortunately a few of us are getting together and trying to produce a couple of you-tube channels that will feature Motif and MOX, MOXF , that will demonstrate if you can do it in Cubase, we can do it “Nicer with Tighter integration” and more intuitively on the Motif/MOX .  We’ll have fun, don’t know how successful the channels will be, but we are putting together beginning materials now.  The integration is much, much tighter within Pattern Mode, and Song Mode, Master Mode, Mixing Mode, with the rest of the Motif/Mox than it is with Cubase.

Software Daw + Computer + Montage < Motif/Mox

And because both Motif and Mox also play nicely with Cubase we have

Software Daw + Comput + Montage < Motif/Mox + Computer + Software Daw

any way you cut it, we should have been looking at something new in the Motif Space during NAMM 2019, and we weren’t.

Chick has been involved with Yamaha for a long time.

He even wrote a track called ‘99 Flavors’ in honour of the SY99 back in the early 90s

I seem to recall Stevie Wonder, Jeff Lorber and Michael McDonald playing Motifs either exclusively or as the main part of their live set ups.  But, they do exist within my favourite styles of music, those being soul, funk, fusion and yacht rock.

I saw Michael playing a Montage the other day, so he is likely on the Yamaha artist roster still.

This is quite an interesting page of old:

https://www.yamaha.com/en/ipy/#instrument

We can safely add Steve Porcaro, David Paich, Chuck Leavell and Bob James in terms of big name firepower.

philwoodmusic - 30 January 2019 12:08 AM

Chick has been involved with Yamaha for a long time.

He even wrote a track called ‘99 Flavors’ in honour of the SY99 back in the early 90s

I seem to recall Stevie Wonder, Jeff Lorber and Michael McDonald playing Motifs either exclusively or as the main part of their live set ups.  But, they do exist within my favourite styles of music, those being soul, funk, fusion and yacht rock.

I saw Michael playing a Montage the other day, so he is likely on the Yamaha artist roster still.

Yea, but when was the last time any of those cats did a clinic for the Motif???  If you check out Jordan Rudess on Youtube, he has a boat load of public service announcements for the Kronos, Krome, Triton etc.  He’s not just on some artists list, he actively advocates for the synthesizer workstation.  I assume Korg pays him, or somebody pays him for each of those appearances.  But whatever the case he does full blown clinics and showcases the Korg stuff.

When was the last time we had any heavy hitters do something like that for Motif????

Although I do see one on Empire that Lucious and Jamal Lyons play from time to time LOL

Yamaha seem to use their product specialists for most things.

Rudess has endorsed many products for many companies over the years, including keyboards, software / apps and I once worked with somebody who had a pair of Rudess endorsed headphones. 

I would imagine it’s his choice and it is mutually beneficial for him and Korg.  He may have liked the board so much that he insisted on it, or they may have asked him, who knows?  He occupies quite a unique place being a skilled keyboard player in a niche band, who by comparison to chart pop music, are rather obscure.

I can’t recall Yamaha doing anything similar to that with a big artist but I can’t say I’ve paid full attention to what’s gone before in terms of clinics, or what’s out there on video. 

I get the feeling it could be exhausting to research all of that.

Jordan Rudess promotes a lot more stuff than Korg. He did a series of instructional videos for Moog and has endorsed a lot of software, including Omnisphere. Sound like he’s now working with IK (who make SampleTank).

The big difference between Jordan and Chick Corea is that Jordan actually is actively involved in promotion for these companies.

philwoodmusic - 30 January 2019 12:40 AM

Yamaha seem to use their product specialists for most things.

Rudess has endorsed many products over the years including keyboards, software / apps and I once worked with somebody who had a pair of Rudess endorsed headphones. 

I would imagine it’s his choice and it is mutually beneficial for him and Korg.  He may have liked the board so much that he insisted on it, or they may have asked him, who knows?

I can’t recall Yamaha doing anything similar to that with a big artist but I can’t say I’ve paid full attention to what’s gone before in terms of clinics, or what’s out there on video. 

I get the feeling it could be exhausting to research all of that.

Okay, well lets compare Chic corea’s Promo for the Motif (is he ever in the picture with a motif in this video?) i.e.  Does he sit down at the Motif, hit a few presets etc, compared with Herbie Hancock’s and Jordan Rudess’s attitude and support for the Korg Kronos.  There seems to be far more enthusiasm and authenticity with Herbie’s and Jordan’s verbal support!  I’m not saying Chic is not a true believer in Motif., but just look at the difference in these videos LOL

Chic Corea and the Motif ( Is there even a shot of the Motif in this Video?????)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5OMjKu-9dg

Herbie Hancock and his support the Korg Kronos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTXDnPoyYSU

Jordan Rudess and his support for Korg Kronos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TrJKWu9uotU

If I’m just new to the keyboard game and I come across these three videos, and for some silly reason I used only these videos to make my decision., do you think I would come away thinking the keyboard for me is the Motif LOL.

How long was Chic even in the same frame shot with the Motif?  How often in that video did you see him even touching the keys of the motif?  Now compare that screen time with what Herbie and Jordan did for the Korg Kronos. 

I know that Jordan has done other products.  I’m not saying he’s only promoted Kronos,.  but man when he promotes he really promotes it!  The same with Herbie.  Not so much with Chic.  Chic seemed to suggest that his favorite thing about the Motif XF series was his own Mark V voices ahem.....

And I didn’t bring up giants like Greg Phillinganes and his Korg support

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3c-SNFHi4Y

For some reason the Korg superstars really seem to get behind the Kronos, Oaysis, Triton, Krome, etc.

@PhillwoodMusic I’m fairly certain that Chic corea does not now have or never has had any kind of video clinic supporting the Motif anything like the stuff you see from Jordan, Herbie, and Greg.  Its not hard to get on youtube a see Chic’s support for Motif over the years.  Yea, he’s a Yamaha artist, I have seen him do a fair job on the Yamaha CFX grand.  But if all I had to go on was Chic Corea’s video portfolio on the Motif when I was making my decision I would not have
purchased one!!!!  I happen to personally prefer the Motif over the Kronos for lots of reasons, but Chic Corea’s open throated support was not one of them.  But if you’re new to the synth workstation game Korg Kronos appears to have the popularity and what’s a Motif???

And the point of this post is, if Motif had that kind of advocacy and star power associated with it, would Yamaha have dared to discontinue it????

That’s why I don’t think Korg is going to discontinue their workstation synthesizers anytime soon (regardless of product cycle) There are too many heavy hitters sponsoring them!!!!

Can you imagine the headline Korg discontinues the Kronos, Krome and all Synthesizer Workstations LOL Hell nawl

I’m a little more cynical about promotion.

“Promotion” means someone is paying to get that promotion. Cereal companies pay grocery stores for shelf space and placement at eye level, for example.

I don’t begrudge Mr. Rudess for making product promotion a part of his business model no more than I begrudge LeBron his endorsement deals.

Are there artists willing to promote Yamaha products and is Yamaha willing to pay them? A few gratis keyboards ain’t gonna do it—daddy’s gotta eat.

When Montage was released, I got the impression that the engineering department was soooooo anxious to innovate a “new” keyboard that they got self-involved. (I remember posting a more tactful blog at launch time.) I don’t see intellectual dishonesty or anything other than big company engineering culture. If anything, the marketing department was left with the problem of rationalizing a done deal.

Yeah, I play MODX and like it. But, you’ll have to pry my MOX out of my cold, dead hands. ;-)

All the best—pj

pjd - 30 January 2019 03:35 PM

I’m a little more cynical about promotion.

“Promotion" means someone is paying to get that promotion. Cereal companies pay grocery stores for shelf space and placement at eye level, for example.

I don’t begrudge Mr. Rudess for making product promotion a part of his business model no more than I begrudge LeBron his endorsement deals.

Are there artists willing to promote Yamaha products and is Yamaha willing to pay them? A few gratis keyboards ain’t gonna do it—daddy’s gotta eat.

When Montage was released, I got the impression that the engineering department was soooooo anxious to innovate a “new” keyboard that they got self-involved. (I remember posting a more tactful blog at launch time.) I don’t see intellectual dishonesty or anything other than big company engineering culture. If anything, the marketing department was left with the problem of rationalizing a done deal.

Yeah, I play MODX and like it. But, you’ll have to pry my MOX out of my cold, dead hands. ;-)

All the best—pj

Yea PJ, I’m also very very cynical about promotion.  I was a little uncomfortable about even providing links to some of those videos.  But when promotion meets genuine enthusiasm that’s a whole nuther thing.  If you talk to Herbie, Jordan, or Greg in real life, you’ll find that they actually are passionate about the Kronos.  They would say those things whether they’re being paid or not.  I actually know that for a fact.  Yea they’ll all tell you that there is room for improvement, but its definitely go-to gear.

Beyond my personal knowledge in this case, all you would have to do is track down the many interviews that these guys have done, where Korg is not present , not paying them, and they are not representing Korg on the record, and it is clear that they admire these instruments.  If you’re lucky go to one of their performances and talk them, they’re all good folks, they’ll give you their honest opinions.

And on the engineering tip, I do know what its like to be sitting on top of the same of stuff for a decade and to be chomping at the bit to get back into the fray and do something new and current.  So I’m with the Yamaha engineers there.  And you’re right, the marketing ppl FN dropped the ball on this one.

Yamaha could have easily simply marketed Montage as a new Flagship Performance Synthesizer.  That’s what it is.  There is room for:

A Flagship Workstation Synthesizer Motif
A Flagship Performance Synthesizer Montage
A Flagship Arranger Synthesizer Genos

The market place understands all those and the differences between them.  The narrative that they “went to the customer and the customer said....” blah, blah, blah, no sequencer, blah, blah, blah no integrated sampler, blah, blah, blah no pattern mode, etc is simply bull#~!@

But trying to pass the Montage Collage off as a replacement for the Motif is an insult to all of us who know the difference.  I don’t think that was the engineers intention.  I’m with you on that , I just think the engineers wanted to stretch their wings a little.  But the suit and ties, and marketing folks dropped the ball (like they so often do).

And so what even if they had postponed anything new for the Motif community, customer loyalty would not have been really harmed, and more folks might have been inclined to add a Montage to their rig.  The Montage marketing move left a bitter taste, and the Motif Society is now owed an apology.  Hell Yamaha could have release Montage, and the same year threw the Motif community a bone in the way a firmware update that included a few new arpeggios and performances.  Added official suport to the 4MB of Sample ram configuration and been done with it.  Sure we might snarl a little, but Yamaha would still have our respect and loyalty.  Now with the Montage marketing move., Not so much.  If anything happened to my Yamaha gear, and I wasn’t able to replace it from the used market (which is highly unlikely), I probably would walk away from Yamaha because of the bait and switch they attempted to do with the Montage Collage.

So what will the cover story be when Yamaha has to crawl back into the workstation space (and they will have to crawl back!).  I don’t think in the long run musicians are going to fall for the pay-as-u-go Cubase model that Yamaha has in mind.  I think ultimately the industry is going to standardize around another DAW (i.e. ProTools) for the DAW As A Service model, and Steinberg is going to be left holding the bag having caused Yamaha to surrender the keyboard workstation market to Korg and Roland at a time when dedicated hardware is about to make a resurregence.

Yep then , Yamaha is going to try to do some kind of now-is-the-time, nostalgic , Motif Revival (Its the 20th Anniversary type stuff).  It will be interesting to see if that works.  I dunno it pretty hard to re-capture the magic.

At this point the Yamaha marketing effort is kind-a-like the cheating husband that got caught.
The wife might, just might forgive, but she’ll never forget, and no matter what, the relationship will never be the same.

Your internet-assembled conjecture doesn’t mean a whole lot lastmonk.

Grasping at each and any YouTube links you can find, several years after the Motif was replaced, does not prove any of your beliefs about Yamaha to be true.

You have absolutely no idea of what happened or what they did.  All you can find are tenuous remnants at best.

I doubt you have the stones to post your findings at yamahasynth.com and if you did, you’d get dismantled, with ease.

I suspect they already know to ignore you.

MapleCarbine - 30 January 2019 10:47 PM

Your internet-assembled conjecture doesn’t mean a whole lot lastmonk.

Grasping at each and any YouTube links you can find, several years after the Motif was replaced, does not prove any of your beliefs about Yamaha to be true.

You have absolutely no idea of what happened or what they did.  All you can find are tenuous remnants at best.

I doubt you have the stones to post your findings at yamahasynth.com and if you did, you’d get dismantled, with ease.

I suspect they already know to ignore you.

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Trolling

lastmonk - 31 January 2019 12:54 AM

MapleCarbine - 30 January 2019 10:47 PM

Your internet-assembled conjecture doesn’t mean a whole lot lastmonk.

Grasping at each and any YouTube links you can find, several years after the Motif was replaced, does not prove any of your beliefs about Yamaha to be true.

You have absolutely no idea of what happened or what they did.  All you can find are tenuous remnants at best.

I doubt you have the stones to post your findings at yamahasynth.com and if you did, you’d get dismantled, with ease.

I suspect they already know to ignore you.

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Trolling

I’m not trolling you.

Learn to accept an opinion that differs from yours.

You’re unwell.

I’m also noticing the fact that there were vendors at NAMM 2019 still
introducing new Music Workstation Variations.  How could this be since everybody these days use computer based DAWs???  So while the Korg customers were treated to

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSrbYHv0GgI

The Yamaha/Steinberg collab got Cubase

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwjvH1_Wd2w

Don’t get me wrong, This Cubase is nice software when you need it.  Just don’t force it on by removing sequencing, looping and sampling from my gear. 

Its better to Have it and not need it, than want it and can’t get it (because its been discontinued)

Why couldn’t we be watching both Motif and Cubase at NAMM2019?  I simply refuse to believe that the customer that drops $4000 on a Montage, would not drop that same $4000 on a new Motif (and with less hesitation LOL).  I guess we’ll have to wait until NAMM2021 where we’ll get a 20th Anniversary Motif SE in colors (teal, koolaid grape purple, and fushia) with Cubase 2020AI in the box!