They missed the boat. In Voice mode, every voice has 2 Insert Efffects available and every "element" of a voice has a 2 band EQ. In Song/Pattern mode, only *one* track can access it's Insert Effects and to change/tweak the effect you have to switch back to Voice mode. The SW1000 sound card, released yeasr ago also had this dual Insert effect set-up, but either of the effects could be applied and tweaked independently of each other, so Yamah have taken a step *back* with the Motif. Yamahas lame answer is to say "well of course you can resample so freeing up the effects". Right. You can also via sysex change the track accessing it's Insert effect, but Yamaha didn't even have the forethought to make this easy. you have to enter the sysyex every frickin time...theres no easy UI here. The EQ for each voice *cannot* be accessed in Song/Pattern mode. This is *so* frustrating I cannot describe it. The TRITON has 5 (?) Insert effects, a Touch screen, etc, and heres Yamaha with a 2 band EQ on EVERY TRACK and they just blow it. You have to jump to Voice mode, tweak, jump back to Song mode, listen, jump back, etc etc. Their lame answer? The Variation effect, another hang-on from the SW1000 sound card. Basically theres a global Reverb, a global Chorus which also contains all the delays.....and a global Variation. Yamaha reckon you should set the Variation effect to a 3 band EQ, make a setting and then apply it to *every* track that you want to change. Cunning eh? They missed the boat. Alot has been made of the "unofficial" Motifator.com site, and how wonderful Yamaha is for talking to it's users. My own theory is that someone realised what a fudge had been made with the Motif and that the web site would help sales. End of story.

Price paid

1,000

UTILIZATION

Haha. User Interface....whats that again? Once you've grasped the terminology.....patch, phrase,chain,patter,style.....it's all so frickin unnecessary. The whole thing is un-user friendly. I've got it, I'm using it, but the Triton was so much easier.

It's robust, well built. I've already managed to make one of the keys stick though. Yamaha UK customer support...well, understaffed doesn't do it justice. But they are helpful if you can talk to who who need to talk to. And I've never had a problem with repairs they've done.

SOUNDS

Weirdly enough, I remember one of my gripes with the Triton was it's "thin" sound, but the Motifs sounds all need tweaking big time to get a smooth mix, there seems to be alot of low mids in there. Whereas the Tritons sounds seemed to blend a lot easier. And you need to use the computer software to edit, the screen is just to damn small...it's the same size as Yamaha keyboards from 10yrs ago.

OVERALL OPINION

Dammit, it could have been so much more. It's an attempt to mimic the Triton, but missing the point that Triton had a huge touch sensitive screen, multiple effects, an easy UI.... the potential to make the Motif special is *there*, you just can't access it, it's not fully implemented, instead you get an "unofficial" support site (asically there to help with the unweidly UI)and the Tritons nice silver colouring.

Originally posted on FutureProducers.com
Posted by: Unknown (January 0-, 2002)