MOTIF INFO PLEASE

[Rocky]

OK>>everyone gave me such great feedback I have another one for the panel.

I went down to the Guitar Center yesterday and checked out the T2 and the Motif..all three models of the Motif.

However, as usual they have no people on the floor that understand the products that they sell. I could not load a few of my arrangements into the MOTIF to check out the play back and voicing VS my PSR 3000 and Roland G-70

I was however,quite taken with the MOTIF as a pro board and workstation in SX.7 model.

I downloaded the Owners manual from Yamaha. From what I could sumarize, you can use the USB thumb or Sandisk USB for loading external songs and data to the MOTIF.

My question is this: Do you have to download the music files to the internal sequencer or can you simply do your play list on the USB (same as the PSR3000) and bring then up as sets or a song list.

Thanks Rocky

[artwire]

Hey there Rocky
I have a Motif xs7. You have to load your sets/songs into the internal sequencer from a USB device (thumb drive). The sequencer holds 1MEG of data that can be loaded into 64 songs at a time.But you can also load a midi song into a pattern which will give you another 64.That's 64 songs, 64 patterns. But, if there's a ton of pitch bend and after touch ect you can run out of memory and only be able to load say 30 songs at a time. It's been my experience that you can easily load in an hours worth at a time. The USB2 loads pretty fast. So if you have all your songs on a USB thumb drive and someone requests a song that you don't currently have loaded into the Motif you could find it on the thumb drive and load it in ... which could take 30 seconds with practice.
Also some songs like Stevie Wonders Boogie on Reggae Woman will play great with no tweaking needed, but there are a lot of files that will need tweaking. Why this has to be is a pain in the arse. All in all it's a fun keyboard that has some great sounds, killer arps, and the ability to mix and match different arps.
I was going to get the Roland G-70, but this was a bit cheaper. And seemed to be geared toward creating your own songs a little more. But I still wonder if i should get an arranger and which one of those is the "best". Any input there?
art
ps. The XS will retain the songs you load in during power off.

[Rocky]

Hey Art..

Thanks for the info. I sorta figured that would be the case after review of the owners manual.

My problem is the fact that I have two separate applications here.

I use the G-70 for a workstation and composer and recording set up.

The G-70 is way above anything I have ever used in a Yamaha starting in 1990 with the SY-77 and SY-85 to date with the PSR 3000s for the gig.

Most everything that I have tweaked and arranged was with the Yamaha format and XG features. Works and sounds pretty good but you know we are always trying to make it better.LOL

To answer your question about a workstation. You would be impressed with the Roland due to the pure and real samples and voices.

I am just toying with trying to get standardized with all Yamaha format both for live and for studio recording.

If you go to a dealer and play with the G-70 let me know what you think.

If you like it..I might make you a very good deal or trade on your motif just to maintain consistency in the studio. It is like new ,seven months old with all of the upgrades.

However, I would really miss the voices, and weighted 76 keys.
The B3 organ with draw bars, flash drive loads a gig from external and will play from that drive. Also has floppy that will load and play from the disk w/out downloading to sequencer.
You can also control the accompaniment and board volume (what you are actually playing with any selected voice/voices with one knob left or right for an instant mix.

Downfall for the gig..the G-70 is heavy and big...

Thanks again for your input.

Rocky www.jazzbluesanddiamonds.com

[artwire]

Hi Rocky
I can sure see the advantages of being able to play sequences from a flash drive or floppy. I wonder why Yamaha left that feature out on their Motif's. I may have been a bit generous about the number of songs you could load into the MotifXS's sequencer. I mean heck if your sequences are 100k each that would only give room for 10 at a time. But i'm still digging it's voices, and when you got it going on with a good sequence, or performance, it sounds quite good all by itself. Actually a guitar player friend of mine said it sounds too perfect ... like he was listening to a radio or stereo ... in a way he's right ... I think it's the way the voices blend with each other ... but is that a bad thing? har!
I must say you've got me re interested in a G-70 again.
Thanks Rocky
art