ES6 VS XS6 action, feeling, velocity, expresivness, whatever you want to call it are not the same, i.e. piano from ES you can play normally reaching 128 in no time, on XS you have to play hard… really hard to reach 128? for me I have the problem that sometimes I play and hear the up and down volume on the sound because of that freaking velocity problem %@@!:((((((((((((

ES you can play normally reaching 128 in no time

We are sure you mean 127, if you can reach 128 - truly it is different :)

Velocity and aftertouch are dealt with the same way.
The action on the ES does contain lead, the XS and XF don’t. However, velocity curves, and aftertouch implementation are the same as they ever were, as far as I know.

Thats correct 127 sorry, my concern is how hard I have to play on XS instead on the ES, and I ended with up/ down volume problems because of that. I know that you said that we can tweak here and there but 1024 programs? Why you dont tell yamaha to do an update to fix that?  Really I am looking some others keyboards to do a trade in if I can’t be happy playing. I had a classic, ES and now XS and is the first big problem that I have.

tuquoque - 27 November 2010 04:17 PM

Bad_Mister - 27 November 2010 01:51 PM

Velocity and Aftertouch is the same on ES, XS and XF…

If BM’s statement is true it means that the difference is between 88-key and 61/76-key models. I had no velocity problems with my ES8. Now I have XS6 and reaching the velocities over 110 is really difficult.

Someone said the problem with velocity curves is there because Motif programmers use balanced hammer keys and therefore velocity curve options are designed to the 88-key version. If so, the extra soft velocity curve setting is needed only in XS/XF/6/7. I don’t want to buy XF8 just to have usable factory presets.

Clyde,

are you really saying you prefer to reprogram 1024 voices, over reprogramming them all at once by changing global velocity curve? How stupid is that?

About as stupid as complaining about issues which can be corrected on your own! Did I say I wanted to reprogram 1024 voices? Nope. Did I say I reprogrammed the voices I needed to that would make the synth meet my wants and needs? That I did, have done it with every synth I bought over the last twenty five years and plan on doing so for any additional synths I get.
Clyde

DX7IIFD, SY77, SY99, Hammond C3, Steinway L, CP300, etc.

alesis - 27 November 2010 08:49 PM

Thats correct 127 sorry, my concern is how hard I have to play on XS instead on the ES, and I ended with up/ down volume problems because of that. I know that you said that we can tweak here and there but 1024 programs? Why you dont tell yamaha to do an update to fix that?  Really I am looking some others keyboards to do a trade in if I can’t be happy playing. I had a classic, ES and now XS and is the first big problem that I have.

There is no “update to fix this” because the velocity sensitivity of the
keyboard is not related to the keyboard itself. It is a direct function of how the voice is programmed to respond to velocity.

Programmers can’t “guess” how hard or soft people play. If you need to
adjust the sensitivity then yes, you’ll have to edit the voices to “tailor” them to your own style. Sorry, there is no other way around that.

Of course there is other way besides reprogramming the voices:

extra soft velocity curve is needed by many XS users.

On the Classic and Motif ES we don’t have that problem, the problem is on the XS, so why we have to spend time and user voices to edit our presets that should be the same as the older ones with better sounding? I have a deal with a Fantom G and would like to see the comments on that.( I am really frustated wuth this)

alesis - 28 November 2010 06:13 PM

On the Classic and Motif ES we don’t have that problem, the problem is on the XS, so why we have to spend time and user voices to edit our presets that should be the same as the older ones with better sounding? I have a deal with a Fantom G and would like to see the comments on that.( I am really frustated wuth this)

You may feel there is a problem but others don’t think there is any problem (like me).

Anyway, since whether there really is a problem is a matter of debate,
and unlikely to be addressed anytime soon, you may want to just purchase
that Fantom so you can have the keyboard you like.

The Classic and the ES had keyboards that were physically different designs than the XS/XF keyboard. So it is technically impossible to
recreate the feeling of the Classic and ES keyboards on the XS or XF
keyboards.

On the Fantom G forum folks were saying Aftertouch was broke. They had to push too hard. You just can never win. Brian

Well maybe someone can tell me what’s the best way to work with this up/ down velocity issue. Play hard all the time or change the curve to normal or soft or edit some voices?

alesis - 28 November 2010 07:07 PM

Well maybe someone can tell me what’s the best way to work with this up/ down velocity issue. Play hard all the time or change the curve to normal or soft or edit some voices?

This is one solution: http://www.midisolutions.com/prodvel.htm
You can connect it between Motif’s midi out and midi in.

I don’t think trading your XF or XS for a Fantom G is the solution. I just traded my Fantom G for an XF! True, I found the aftertouch on the G very intuitive, and actually also the keyboard action and velocity. But all but the synth-sound are really much less quality than the Motif’s (I believe the G has 100 something piano voices, but not one even close to e.g. the Natural Grand S6 on the XF).
I did some testing and I think that the problem is not so much in the velocity curve (it’s not that hard to reach 127 on an XF), but in the voice programming. Many voices are too “cleverly” programmed, so that a certain element kicks in at velocity X. This makes it hard to play, because velocity X-1 means you don’t hear the element and at velocity X you hear it. This is okay for arpeggios, but a very crude emulation for manual players.

I have one more question concerning aftertouch: I can hardly play a note above velocity 80 without triggering aftertouch, but every once in a while a note slips through, even with velocity > 100, that doesn’t trigger aftertouch. I don’t have a clue how I can influence this. Does anyone know when and why the aftertouch effect is triggered?

Cheers

I have been getting into the menus of the XF8, and I have been able to implement the aftertouch pretty well, using it to increase the volume and cutoff of certain patches. But, my only complaint is that it has to be used very sparingly, and the effect has to be set at a relatively low setting...for the flaw that I have found is that aftertouch is VERY HARD to control...it seems like it’s either all or none.  Years ago, I had a Kurzeil PC88MX that had sounds vastly inferior to the Motif XF...but...it’s aftertouch was much easier achieve controllable amounts between 0 and 127.  I would love to see future Motifs inproved in this area.

Controlling velocity (which in turn controls sound dynamics) requires good technique in partnership with the keyboard you are using. Several months ago one of my wife’s piano students did a solo at our church on the CP300, his performance came out extremely soft or extremely loud, nothing in between. My wife and I both had discussions with him about technique and dynamics, a more recent performance was a vast improvement as he had been specifically working on his technique. Patches like organ sounds don’t need much technique to control velocity, they are pretty much either key on or key off. Acoustic pianos, EPs, strings, some synth sounds, etc. need a lot of technique and dynamics control to sound just right. Part of it is perfecting your technique, part of it is editing voices to fit your particular playing style. Aftertouch is also greatly affected by technique and the aftertouch settings for particular voices. I’ve always set up the aftertouch on voices on my synths to meet my needs and playing style, you might not be able to play my synths at all due to how I’ve set up velocity and aftertouch on the voices I use, but it works well for me. I even use aftertouch on many of my organ patches to bring in the Leslie effect as it’s much simpler to me than using the mod wheel to control it. Does it take time to set up a synth for my particular wants and needs? Yes it takes quite a while, but once done I don’t need to do it again (until I load some new voices that I’ve never used before) and it will be good for the many years I usually keep my synths.
Clyde

DX7IIFD, SY77, SY99, Hammond C3, Steinway L, CP300, etc.