Members GigMan Posted June 10, 2011 Members Share Posted June 10, 2011 So I've had my Yamaha S90ES since Dec. 2008 - still love the sounds but hate the bulk/weight of it. "Hoisting" it up into the car isn't great but it's a quick lift - getting it in & out of my house is the REAL nightmare I dread every wknd. - - I keep gear in the basement of my ranch-style house, 12 steep stairs to deal with, then out onto the deck, then more stairs down the driveway & into my van... plus wheeling the damn thing like a giant coffin in and out of the venues (banquet halls, restaurants, bars, etc...) is a chore. I knew the S90ES was HUGE when I bought it but you just don't REALLY, TRULY know how things are 'til you actually try them/use them/have them in a real-world scenario... I bought a Roland RD300GX a few months after my Yam. S90ES purchase, to use on certain smaller gigs as a lightweight alternative to the S90ES... that worked out great, I like the 300GX for smaller, quieter solo/duo or even trio gigs but it doesn't "cut thru" nearly as well as the S90ES and doesn't have the broad range of sounds either. So I still need the Yam. S90ES for about 65% of my gigs & I do, anywhere from 45 - 60 dates a yr. (average), depending on the year... that's a LOT of humping the damn thing up and down my bsmt. stairs - I'm just tired of it at this point. I have looked at the Yam. S70XS but it doesn't seem all THAT much lighter, smaller. Also considered the Motif XS7 & then also the Motif XF7 - though the XF line is still very pricey. I guess a used Motif XS7 would be a better value, if comparing those two... But now the M0X8 is out & I'm wondering if THAT could be the 'board for me - as it is WAY more compact & lightweight, yet it still has 88 keys? I like that it has XS sounds, it has a "Performance Creator" thingie, even has the magic Transpose button, whose value has been so oft-debated here on this forum - bottom line is, dedicated Transpose button is still a REAL handy thing to have (just to have as an occasional option - not to "depend" on...) - if you play OUT a lot, w/all different musicians all the time (I do), who sometimes sing stuff in all different keys from the original recordings & announce it on the The 1st main drawback to the MOX8 I can see is the polyphony is only 64 notes. I like to use the damper pedal a LOT to have a nice, smooth legato sound - which eats up poly easily... I wonder if the 64 note poly will give me note dropouts? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members dan88z Posted June 10, 2011 Members Share Posted June 10, 2011 More of a killer for me is that there is no apparent way to mix parts on the fly in a performance like you can with the sliders on the S90ES. So if you want to fade in a part as you play, you can't. I have patches with parts where in the beginning of the song it might be 2 sounds layered, and then bring in a 3rd layer for the chorus or something like that. Or a simple piano/string layer, if you want to bring the strings up or down in different sections of the song. It's easy to use the faders to do that, no way to do it on the MOX that I can see. The other killer is no after touch, which I use extensively. I might be able to live with 64 notes, even on piano, but the other limitations make it a no go. I'm seriously considering an S70XS. It doesn't save a lot on the weight, only 5lbs, but it's 6" shorter and would be easier to manage moving around. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members AnotherScott Posted June 10, 2011 Members Share Posted June 10, 2011 I don't think 64 note polyphony is much of a limitation for live playing. I think it becomes a more issue if you're sequencing numerous simultaneous parts. The other limitations to be aware of in going from the S90ES to the MOX8 are the loss of the S700 piano sample (you'll have to make sure you're content with the piano sound it has), the loss of aftertouch, and the loss of the 4 faders for simpler adjustment of the volume levels of different split/layered sounds in real time. You'll also have to decide how you feel about the different action. (On the flip side, the MOX8 also has a lot of newer capabilities that your S90ES does not have.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members GigMan Posted June 10, 2011 Author Members Share Posted June 10, 2011 More of a killer for me is that there is no apparent way to mix parts on the fly in a performance like you can with the sliders on the S90ES. So if you want to fade in a part as you play, you can't. I have patches with parts where in the beginning of the song it might be 2 sounds layered, and then bring in a 3rd layer for the chorus or something like that. Or a simple piano/string layer, if you want to bring the strings up or down in different sections of the song. It's easy to use the faders to do that, no way to do it on the MOX that I can see. The other killer is no after touch, which I use extensively. I might be able to live with 64 notes, even on piano, but the other limitations make it a no go. I'm seriously considering an S70XS. It doesn't save a lot on the weight, only 5lbs, but it's 6" shorter and would be easier to manage moving around. Great info, dan88z - thx!! I do like that feature on the S90ES: being able to bring up or down the volume of layers - like strings, or organ, or whatever... if you're saying the MOX8 doesn't do that, then I think THAT right there is the deal breaker for me, it's a NO GO on the MOX8 then. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members GigMan Posted June 10, 2011 Author Members Share Posted June 10, 2011 The other limitations to be aware of in going from the S90ES to the MOX8 are the loss of the S700 piano sample (you'll have to make sure you're content with the piano sound it has), the loss of aftertouch, and the loss of the 4 faders for simpler adjustment of the volume levels of different split/layered sounds in real time. You'll also have to decide how you feel about the different action. (On the flip side, the MOX8 also has a lot of newer capabilities that your S90ES does not have.) dan88z already mentioned about the loss of the 4 faders, but loss of the S90ES piano sound is whole 'nother point to consider. I think even if I went to the S70XS, I'd lose the S90ES S700 piano sound - the S70XS has a different piano sample, the S6 concert grand piano, as per their website - - so I don't know how I feel about that: I've come to really like the S90ES piano - some say it's overly bright but I just like the way it cuts thru the band mix like a mo'fo!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ChristianRock Posted June 10, 2011 Members Share Posted June 10, 2011 I played it (MOx8) the other day and I thought the action was surprisingly good. Not as good as the M50-88 but pretty good. I gotta ask, why is the M50-88 not an option? Also, I'm sure you have a better piano sound to play with at home. On a stage, do you think the audience will notice if it's the S700 or the regular Motif XS piano, as long as it cuts through? The S700 is probably good enough. Even my N1 piano sounds pretty decent live along with other instruments and cuts through really well. Played by itself it's pretty bad, though... Well, I guess you get my point. If the MOx8 piano is better at cutting through than your RD300GX (and I'm pretty sure it is), then I think it all comes down to your layer and split options and if you can live with what the MOx8 offers... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members AnotherScott Posted June 10, 2011 Members Share Posted June 10, 2011 I played it (MOx8) the other day and I thought the action was surprisingly good. Not as good as the M50-88 but pretty good.I gotta ask, why is the M50-88 not an option? If the main goal here is to reduce weight, the M50-88 is a lot heavier than the MOX8. Personally, I also think the MOX8 (Motif XS) piano sound is better than the M50's. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members AnotherScott Posted June 10, 2011 Members Share Posted June 10, 2011 Like I mentioned, I use sustain/damper pedal a LOT, to get a very smooth sound - which EATS UP polyphony & in doing so 64 note poly and note "drop-out" actually CAN be an issue Yes, I read that in your original post, and my answer is the same, I think 64 note polyphony is okay for piano. If you already made up your mind that it isn't, why did you ask? ;-) Really, you should just go to some store and play something that has 64-note polyphony (doesn't have to be a MOX8), go to town on the sustain pedal, and see for yourself whether or not you hear dropped notes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members ChristianRock Posted June 10, 2011 Members Share Posted June 10, 2011 If the main goal here is to reduce weight, the M50-88 is a lot heavier than the MOX8. Personally, I also think the MOX8 (Motif XS) piano sound is better than the M50's. Yeah but he's got an RD300GX, whose main piano sound is the same as the SRX-11. I had that card and while the piano does sound very good, the notes don't sustain. If you change the envelopes to get the decay slower and a bit more sustain, the very obvious looping becomes audibly painful. Also, it didn't cut through the mix, like Gigman said. So I figured the M50 had to be a good improvement It might be heavier than the MOx8, but it's quite smaller and ligher than the S90ES I knew he probably would prefer the Yamaha piano sound anyway, it was just one of those rhetorical questions... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members AnotherScott Posted June 10, 2011 Members Share Posted June 10, 2011 More of a killer for me is that there is no apparent way to mix parts on the fly in a performance like you can with the sliders on the S90ES. So if you want to fade in a part as you play, you can't. I have patches with parts where in the beginning of the song it might be 2 sounds layered, and then bring in a 3rd layer for the chorus or something like that. Or a simple piano/string layer, if you want to bring the strings up or down in different sections of the song. It's easy to use the faders to do that, no way to do it on the MOX that I can see. Leaving off the faders was unfortunate... but to me the really stupid thing is that, having decided to do that, they didn't even create a way for you to use one of the sets of 4 knobs to perform the function of the 4 volume controls for the 4 parts you can assign across the keyboard. Nevertheless, there are ways to do what you want. 1. To make volume adjustments among multiple sounds across the keyboard, you have to make sure the "Performance Control" button is lit; then hit button 1, 2, 3, or 4 on the lower right (depending on which of the 4 currently assigned sounds you want to adjust); and then one of the knobs on the top left will control the volume of that sound. If you didn't set it up properly in advance, you could also have to hit a button one or more times in order to make that knob adjust volume as opposed to one of three other parameters that can also be assigned to that knob, but with some planning, at least that much can be avoided. It's not as nice as having 4 dedicated knobs/faders for the 4 parts, you only have one part-volume control available at a time instead of all four, but you can usually change which part that knob is controlling with a single button press. 2. If you are setting up a layered patch where you know you're going to want to fade a particular sound up or down during the song, you should be able to assign the expression pedal to affect just the voice you want to be able to vary. 3. If you need to switch parts in and out but they don't need to fade, that is easy to do with push buttons, no special setup is required for that. 4. If you happen to have an iPad, it looks like Yamaha is coming out with a set of virtual faders. Check the Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members dan88z Posted June 10, 2011 Members Share Posted June 10, 2011 Thanks for that info, I figured there had to be a way around that limitation. Now, if there was only aftertouch... The more I think about it, the more it looks like it's going to be a Kronos 73 or an S70XS for me. Big differences between the 2, but I know the S70XS will do what I need, and I know the Kronos will give me a lot of options to do more. I'll have to weigh the price vs features and really make a hard decision when the time comes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members AnotherScott Posted June 10, 2011 Members Share Posted June 10, 2011 The more I think about it, the more it looks like it's going to be a Kronos 73 or an S70XS for me. I'd agree that those are both more capable than the MOX... it's a matter of whether you want to deal with how much heavier they are. (And also more expensive, of course.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members keybdwizrd Posted June 10, 2011 Members Share Posted June 10, 2011 I am 50+ and have carried one too many heavy synths up and down my basement and upstairs steps. I also had a hernia fixed some years back and that was no fun at all. Seriously not fun. I haven't played in a band for 18 months, but if I join one again my rig will be all about portability and lightness. A Yamaha MOX6, a controller, and a laptop sounds just about right for me. No doubt there are some neat things you can do with the aforementioned faders (I've never had them), but I would seriously find another way to accomplish what I needed to do as opposed to trudging some monstrous keyboard up and down the steps endlessly. My frickin back hurts just thinking about schlepping workstations in road cases up and down my basement steps (especially at 2:00 am). Never again! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members keybdwizrd Posted June 10, 2011 Members Share Posted June 10, 2011 I just looked it up - the S90ES weighs 49.6 lbs (22,5 kg), without a case. That's a beast, for sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members Etienne Rambert Posted June 11, 2011 Members Share Posted June 11, 2011 Buy the MOX8. Your back muscles will thank you. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members DJ RAZZ Posted June 11, 2011 Members Share Posted June 11, 2011 I played the MOX6 the other day and thought it sounded really good, specifically the piano and piano--strings patch. Very clean and decent keyboard action. Not as warm as my Juno Gi but the darn piano sample doesn't clip like the Gi either. I have never bonded with M-50 piano in any way. So if one can live with the unweighted the Yamaha sounds it looks like a definite win. If the weighted version is unusually light than a double win. I am with the Wizard I have been retraining myself to rock piano and organ on synth keys, not as fun but I am getting there. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members pdiddy Posted June 11, 2011 Members Share Posted June 11, 2011 Great thread - I've been looking hard at the MOX8 to replace my aged S90. Note to Yamaha - I probably would have upgraded to the ES and again to the XS if they weren't bigger and heavier than my S90. With the MOX - too bad they don't offer an upgrade option for those looking for more polyphony. You could upgrade the S90 with the plugin boards for this, and Kurz did it with the PC88/88MX. Anyway, the new MOX form factor and lightness is extremely compelling to me and that might have to trump more technical considerations. My original goals for upgrading are it has to do everything i'm already used to on my S90 & more, plus it has to weigh less. So far, no no-brainer choice has come along. I really don't care much what it costs either - i'm willing to pay for what I really want. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members AnotherScott Posted June 11, 2011 Members Share Posted June 11, 2011 Another lightweight way of getting all the sounds of a MOX8 (or all the sounds of an S90XS except the S6 concert grand) is to get a Motif Rack XS, and drive it from whatever controller you like... and that way you get your 128-note polyphony. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members keybdwizrd Posted June 11, 2011 Members Share Posted June 11, 2011 I have never bonded with M-50 piano in any way. The M3/M50 comes with 100+ organ patches, 100+ electric piano patches, something like 40 bell sounds, and two dozen clavinets. I mean, who really needs two dozen factory clavinet programs? There are several dozen pianos, and while the Xpanded piano is decent, there are a bunch of M1 pianos and whatnot. IMHO, not enough ROM dedicated to a couple of gorgeous pianos. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members AnotherScott Posted June 11, 2011 Members Share Posted June 11, 2011 not enough ROM dedicated to a couple of gorgeous pianos. When you say two dozen clavinets, my guess is that there are not two dozen samples. There are probably, at most, 4 sample sets (for the 4 pickup positions), and everything else is probably made up of programs of different EQ, envelope, and fx settings to get those other variations, which don't take up any more sample ROM. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members GigMan Posted June 12, 2011 Author Members Share Posted June 12, 2011 Also, I'm sure you have a better piano sound to play with at home. On a stage, do you think the audience will notice if it's the S700 or the regular Motif XS piano, as long as it cuts through? The S700 is probably good enough. Even my N1 piano sounds pretty decent live along with other instruments and cuts through really well. Played by itself it's pretty bad, though... Well, I guess you get my point. Actually I have the opposite: I find the Roland RD300GX by itself to be awesome but I have found that it does NOT cut thru a band mix as well as the Yamaha piano sound... which is why I only use it for small gig - solo, duo/trio, occasional 4piece - situations. As for what piano sound to have at home vs. on stage/at gigs - I don't play a whole lot at home, other than practicing for upcoming gigs... !? - so my thing is all about my "stage sound" - and Re: whether the audience would hear the slight differences between S90ES piano sound and the Motif XS or MOXS sound - that's not the point. I play out so often that I need to be happy with it, for MY own sake... it's just one of those things. - - like if you have a REAL long commute to work, you buy yourself a nice car stereo or satellite radio or a new iPod to jack into the stereo or whatever... to ease the pain just a little bit. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members GigMan Posted June 12, 2011 Author Members Share Posted June 12, 2011 Yes, I read that in your original post, and my answer is the same, I think 64 note polyphony is okay for piano. If you already made up your mind that it isn't, why did you ask? ;-) Really, you should just go to some store and play something that has 64-note polyphony (doesn't have to be a MOX8), go to town on the sustain pedal, and see for yourself whether or not you hear dropped notes. This is true - I should & will go to Guitar Wanker some time to see for myself, about the note dropout issue... you have to remember, also - that it's not just "piano" that is the issue - I often use a Piano/Strings layered patch, or an EP/organ, etc... - so that eats up the polyphony even more, given that there's 2 Voices (Yamahaspeak for "sounds") going on in each of those patches or Peformances (also Yammie-speak ). Btw, I was only asking this question to see if there were others on here that bear down heavy on the sustain pedal a lot (like me) that may have a "real world" answer for me - not just an "I think" answer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members GigMan Posted June 12, 2011 Author Members Share Posted June 12, 2011 IMHO, not enough ROM dedicated to a couple of gorgeous pianos. Once again - TOTALLY with you on this point. - - the ENORMOUS acoustic piano sample in the Yammie S90ES is probably what makes it sound so good, at least to my ears. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members GigMan Posted June 12, 2011 Author Members Share Posted June 12, 2011 Leaving off the faders was unfortunate... but to me the really stupid thing is that, having decided to do that, they didn't even create a way for you to use one of the sets of 4 knobs to perform the function of the 4 volume controls for the 4 parts you can assign across the keyboard. Nevertheless, there are ways to do what you want. 1. To make volume adjustments among multiple sounds across the keyboard, you have to make sure the "Performance Control" button is lit; then hit button 1, 2, 3, or 4 on the lower right (depending on which of the 4 currently assigned sounds you want to adjust); and then one of the knobs on the top left will control the volume of that sound. If you didn't set it up properly in advance, you could also have to hit a button one or more times in order to make that knob adjust volume as opposed to one of three other parameters that can also be assigned to that knob, but with some planning, at least that much can be avoided. It's not as nice as having 4 dedicated knobs/faders for the 4 parts, you only have one part-volume control available at a time instead of all four, but you can usually change which part that knob is controlling with a single button press. 2. If you are setting up a layered patch where you know you're going to want to fade a particular sound up or down during the song, you should be able to assign the expression pedal to affect just the voice you want to be able to vary. 3. If you need to switch parts in and out but they don't need to fade, that is easy to do with push buttons, no special setup is required for that. 4. If you happen to have an iPad, it looks like Yamaha is coming out with a set of virtual faders. Check the Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Members GigMan Posted June 12, 2011 Author Members Share Posted June 12, 2011 I am 50+ and have carried one too many heavy synths up and down my basement and upstairs steps. I also had a hernia fixed some years back and that was no fun at all. Seriously not fun. I haven't played in a band for 18 months, but if I join one again my rig will be all about portability and lightness. A Yamaha MOX6, a controller, and a laptop sounds just about right for me. No doubt there are some neat things you can do with the aforementioned faders (I've never had them), but I would seriously find another way to accomplish what I needed to do as opposed to trudging some monstrous keyboard up and down the steps endlessly. My frickin back hurts just thinking about schlepping workstations in road cases up and down my basement steps (especially at 2:00 am). Never again! Woah - never had a hernia but I'm 47 so the "WEIGHT" issue (of my gear) and those god-awful basement stairs is starting to "weigh" heavy on my mind. Not at 2am, though - I live in a safe enough neighborhood where I can leave it all in the car overnight until the next morning. Also, I have a lightweight Gator case for my S90ES - which only weighs about 22lbs. - - but still, that's over 70lbs. altogether, keyboard+case, ugh... And btw - once you HAVE faders, to control sounds, fade strings or organ in and out, etc... - it's hard to NOT have them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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