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Who is offering the best user friendly keyboard/workstation these days.


gpaaib

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+1 for Roland as well. I have owned 2 Roland boards (one which I use), one synth and one electric piano, both are extremely straight foward and self explanatory. TBH no other manufacturer makes user friendly boards these days cept for Roland (at least for a beginner). One thing with the FA-06 is that it is much like my VR-09 in build quality. CHEAPO!! and I was quite disappointed by Roland's sound set.

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+1 for Roland as well. I have owned 2 Roland boards (one which I use)' date=' one synth and one electric piano, both are extremely straight foward and self explanatory. TBH no other manufacturer makes user friendly boards these days cept for Roland (at least for a beginner). One thing with the FA-06 is that it is much like my VR-09 in build quality. CHEAPO!! and I was quite disappointed by Roland's sound set.[/quote']

 

Cheap as in a knob falls off the first time you turn it? It will not be for live purposes so I won't be lugging it around. It will just set on a stand for the purpose of creating demos.

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I own both an FA-08 and a MOX8. The FA-08 wins hands down for user friendliness. I had to buy a video from motifator.com to learn to use my MOX. The video cost $34 but was extremely helpful.

 

The FA-08 in the first 2 hours I created several studio sets from scratch and recorded a song using the sequencer. I didn't refer much to the book. All I did was watch a couple of demos from Ed Diaz on youtube.

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I bought a Jupiter 80 when it came out and got rid of it because learning how to perform open heart surgery would have been easier.

 

 

What's to learn? You have a table. You have a patient. You make an incision. Then you open up the heart. What's the big deal? If the patient dies, that's part of the risk with open heart surgery. But on the plus side,a lot of operating rooms have Ultra-Lounge music piped in. So you don't need to hassle with a synth.

 

Ditto for the Roland.There are black keys. There are white keys. There is a big screen. There are some colored tabs. It looks like a snap.So I think you're exaggerating. Learning open heart surgery is probably a little more difficult than operating a Jupiter 80.

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I bought a Jupiter 80 when it came out and got rid of it because learning how to perform open heart surgery would have been easier.

 

Hopefully you understood that the Jupiter-80 is not a workstation. You just dial up sounds and play them. :)

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Cheap as in a knob falls off the first time you turn it? It will not be for live purposes so I won't be lugging it around. It will just set on a stand for the purpose of creating demos.

 

It's not really a cheap build quality- it's very lightweight and it's a lot of plastic, but it's built well. The knobs are solid, the buttons feel good. The only problem I found with my FA08 is because it's so light, it'd slide on my stand. I solved that by using some adhesive backed rubber strips on the stand.

 

It's very easy to use. I have a Yamaha S70XS, which I can get around on pretty good from years of Yamaha interface use, the FA was so easy I had nearly 60 studio sets created for 2 bands in just a couple days of working 2-3 hours a night. I disagree with Chummy on the sound set, it's got some fantastic sounds and a lot of editing depth to tweak things to your liking. It does lack in the brass dept, and the rompler organs are not at good as a clone, but I've found everything else to sound real nice, especially in a mix.

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It's not really a cheap build quality- it's very lightweight and it's a lot of plastic, but it's built well. The knobs are solid, the buttons feel good. The only problem I found with my FA08 is because it's so light, it'd slide on my stand. I solved that by using some adhesive backed rubber strips on the stand.

 

It's very easy to use. I have a Yamaha S70XS, which I can get around on pretty good from years of Yamaha interface use, the FA was so easy I had nearly 60 studio sets created for 2 bands in just a couple days of working 2-3 hours a night. I disagree with Chummy on the sound set, it's got some fantastic sounds and a lot of editing depth to tweak things to your liking. It does lack in the brass dept, and the rompler organs are not at good as a clone, but I've found everything else to sound real nice, especially in a mix.

 

How are the guitar sounds? Are they as good or better than the Fantom G series?

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I own both an FA-08 and a MOX8. The FA-08 wins hands down for user friendliness. I had to buy a video from motifator.com to learn to use my MOX. The video cost $34 but was extremely helpful.

 

The FA-08 in the first 2 hours I created several studio sets from scratch and recorded a song using the sequencer. I didn't refer much to the book. All I did was watch a couple of demos from Ed Diaz on youtube.

 

 

That FA08 looks like a nice piece of gear. GAS alert.

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My Motif ES6 took some time to learn but once you do, it's awesome......it can do anything and loop remix sets it miles ahead......loop remix lets you take any song, pattern or arpeggio and scramble it in a ton of different ways to give you all new material to use......you always have the option to keep the original before loop remixing if you don't like the results......there are two PDF books: Commanding The Yamaha Motif - Volumes 1 & 2 that were the best to master using the Motif.....

 

Also, the drum sets and drum patterns inside the Motif are off the hook.......an amazing collection that sound super real....

 

The main thing to understand is when you go into different modes (Pattern, Song, Voice, Performance) the menus change to better serve the mode you are in.....

 

I don't like the build quality of the budget Motifs, but you can buy a used Motif ES6 for $1000 or less on Ebay and it's definitely an awesome board and built like a tank.....I haven't really felt a need to upgrade to the newer models....it can hold up to 1 GB of DIMM memory to load samples or to sample with.....load and save times are slow but the Motif XS fixed this and the Motif XS holds 2 GB of DIMM memory....the Motif XS6 is pretty cheap used.....I wouldn't buy the original Motif from before the ES.....no USB storage

 

If you got a Motif and set time aside to learn it, it makes sense once you do......it's worth the investment of time.....lots of real time control....I would avoid the Motif racks unless you just want sounds.....the keyboard versions are fully functional workhorses....

 

If I lost all my gear, I would buy a Motif XS7 without a doubt or any hesitation and I know what's out there......I'd be back in business immediately.....you can buy sound libraries for it but with 2,670 sampled sounds inside and over 1000 presets and 128 note polyphony, you really have what you need built in....

 

Some rompler's sounds sound very thin and compressed but not the Motifs....the quality of the samples is better than the others and I can hear this as plain as day.....the effects are top notch as well.....

 

This is a video of a budget Motif so the XS has the same samples but better converters / better sound.....this demos all the sounds:

 

 

 

http://usa.yamaha.com/products/music..._xs/motif_xs7/

 

I have listened to sooooo many boards but the Motif XS's sound set seems way more complete than the others......also the built in acoustic pianos are so well done you don't need to look elsewhere for these......I love the electric pianos in it too (much more than any other board I have played)....

 

I have Roland synths too, and there are those sounds that Roland does really well, but as a "do it all" board, I will always go with a Motif.....it covers the bases so much more completely.....

 

Learning the Motif takes some time, but as a performance board, there's not much to learn.....selecting and storing sounds is super easy and the real time controllers are a no brainer as well......you can reach up and move sliders to adjust part volumes within a voice or performance and then store the voice and it's always that way.....if a sound has an arpeggio attached and you don't want it, reach up and press the arpeggio button to turn it off and store it to a user location and it won't be on anymore.....also, turn off the effects and listen to the samples.....they are still awesome.....many boards fall flat when you do this.....

 

When you move sliders to adjust mixer or voice part volumes, the sliders begin to make changes once you reach the point where the mixer is set so the volume won't drastically jump to the new setting.....this is how all digital mixers work....

 

When I figure out this as far as how good of a value it is, I figure in how much they cost used......there are synths with more sounds and synths with more gigs of samples, but not for the price of one of these....today I saw a Motif XS6 on Ebay for $1200 with free shipping.....pretty good deal....it was 100% working with no issues......usually with patience, you can find a Motif XS7 for about $1500....sometimes they are more.....

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I agree with the FA-06. For the price, there's nothing like it.

 

ALTHOUGH... there's a few cosmetic things that really niggle me: the chrome text on the shiny black panel is a PITA to see, even in a well lit studio and the cursor buttons are directly above the Shift/Exit/Enter buttons, making it far to easy to accidentally exit the patch you're working on!

 

Apart from that, you can't really go wrong.

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I agree with Rockpianoman, I have just sold my Fantom G8 and bought a s/h Motif XF7 which I love already,only had it a day. I have had several Yamaha keyboards over the years and after trying a Korg and then the Roland I was glad to get back to Yamaha. I was disapointed with the Rolands Piano sounds especially the electric pianos, I think the Motif's Piano sounds are superior.

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I bought the Complete Piano SRX trying to improve the acoustic piano in my Roland rack and it was expensive and it just doesn't cut it (and I hear the Complete Piano SRX is much better than the other acoustic piano SRX)......the Motif piano wins every time....even the original Motif acoustic piano beats it and the Motif ES acoustic piano is much better than the original Motif acoustic piano but I played gigs for years with the original Motif acoustic piano (solo piano gigs) which shows that it's not that bad....the ES is just better

 

 

http://www.harmonycentral.com/forum/forum/Keyboards/acapella-18/31255796-playing-a-solo-show-in-2002-the-motif-was-new-then

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Rock, I would have to agree with you on the Yamaha sounds. I just reviewed the new Roland RD-800. From a controller standpoint and sensitivity, it is a bit more expressive than the latest motif. But for just piano sample quality, i have to admit that i prefer the yamaha. I've used Roland, Korg and even Kurzweil products over the years but I always end up back with Yamaha. I haven't used a keyboard based work station since the early days of computer based sequencing so I can't testify to the ease or difficulty with the motif in that regard. But, I've found that navigation and editing in the Yamaha interface is relatively intuitive and makes good common sense once you have a basic level of familiarity. Also has a great collection of samples across the board.

 

That being said, most of the big companies have products that are very competitive feature wise. It really comes down to personal preference and what you get used to. Having been a synth user from the 70's, there's never been a more fun time to play and create with keyboards. We've come such a long way!

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What happened with me is when I first bought my first Motif, it seemed hard to learn but now it just makes sense and I wonder why it was hard to learn......everything is laid out in such a logical manner.....

 

I can't believe all the synths that have been released over the years with acoustic pianos that are total crap.....I know they could have done much better because their digital pianos sounded really good......that is plain stupidity on their part.....if you please someone with your acoustic piano sound, they will want to buy it....they shouldn't shoot themselves in the foot trying to sell their digital pianos....

 

On top of that, when you lay out $250 for a piano SRX board, it better be good......you can buy a Yamaha P35 digital piano for $450 including 88 weighted keys and speakers that weighs under 30 pounds that will beat most synths I've heard and those bad expansion boards are laughable by comparison....

 

The Yamaha PLG piano expansion boards stomp that Roland SRX into the dirt as far as having a high quality and useful acoustic piano sounds that play great....I prefer the PLG150 AP to the PLG150 PF but they both sound very good.....

 

The Korg concert grand expansion board for the Triton series also didn't measure up to the Yamaha expansions.......that's a lot of money to pay for sub-par acoustic pianos....

 

The acoustic piano sounds Yamaha had in the SY / TG series were really bad.....they got a lot better in the EX series and when the Motifs came out it was like "finally.....a good acoustic piano sound that plays well"......

 

Some of these other expansion boards that I dislike could have probably been great but they don't play well because they were obviously released too soon.....the sampling isn't totally bad but if a piano sound doesn't play effortlessly, it's not ready for release....the Motif pianos play awesome no matter what style I play with them...they also cut through the mix well so you can hear yourself well with a band.....

 

The importance of acoustic piano sounds cannot be over-stated.....if these are bad it's comparable to a guitar player not having a instrument that plays well and that actually sounds like a real guitar....

 

And what is the deal with the craze for the Kurzweil Micropiano that I real all the time? That sounded so metallic that I couldn't stand it and I got rid of mine right away....it almost sounded like a sampled CP-60 which is not the way an acoustic piano should sound....

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RockPianoman, true to your name, you are focussing very much on the piano sounds, but the OP has given no indication that piano sounds are a big issue for him. What we know is that he is into sequencing and tweaking sounds, and looking for what will be easiest. As much as I like Yamaha (and I use Yamaha myself), I don't think it would be the best answer to that question. (Though he also mentioned guitar sounds, and I'm not sure which has the better guitars, I don't use guitar sounds myself.) As long as you want to talk about piano, though, while I also personally prefer Yamaha for piano, many people like the newer Roland SuperNatural pianos, and that's what's in the FA, which is better than what's in the Complete Piano SRX card, which I believe is ten years old already.

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Yeah....I got totally off subject to the post......this is a frustrating subject that I have been fighting with for many years......

 

I wish I could afford a Roland V Piano but I can't and I sure wouldn't want to move that to gigs....I am pretty happy now with my piano sounds in my synth but it sure took long enough (been gigging for many years......since before the first DX7 was released....)

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I tend to agree with the people preferring the Yamaha sounds... but the OP asked which was the most user-friendly' date=' and that's not a phrase that usually comes to mind when people think Motif. I think most would agree that the FA is easily a more user-friendly board.[/quote']

 

I have a nylon-string Yamaha MPx6na guitar. It is a Yamaha piece of gear I consider user-friendly. I have two Yamaha modules, MU100 & an MU90R. I still haven't figured them out. I have owned them 10 + years. The manuals are useless.

 

I have 2 Yamaha MG 16/6 FX mixers OTOH, that are reasonably easy to navigate - as long as I did not try to read the manual.

 

I have not sworn off Yamaha gear. I have sworn off Yamaha synths. Time is valuable and I've wasted too much time already trying to figure them out. My patience with KORG is wearing thin as well. But that's a QC thing. Yamaha has great QC.

 

My rankings on ease of use:

 

1. Roland (followed by a big drop-off)

2. Korg (followed by the Grand Canyon drop-off)

3. Yamaha

 

july2012a-small.jpg

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