Yamaha MO6

Easy enough, but not the easiest. There is a definite learning curb. For Korg/Roland users, there may be an initial struggle which will eventually be fine. Once you are through the learning phase, you will simply love this board!

Too many. Enough for it's price. Atleast for making Techno/Ambient/Trance, this board is by far the best in it's class. I saw a review below saying Korg TR61 is better...that's absolutely ridiculous. I play TR61 and MO6 side by side....TR sounded like a toy and also looked horrible. I simply love the MO's layout of the control/keyboard.

This machine sounds incredible. Yamaha's acoustics simply cannot be matched by Korg or Roland. Korg/Roland fans, please... it's high time...accept that truth!

BUT...does not have aftertouch...

Once thing...this board is slightly oriented to Trance/Techo/Eurodance music...so if you enjoy the above types of music... this is the 2nd best board (after Motif XS) in the current market.

Absolutely! But the built is not as good as Motif XS or Roland Fantom G though.

Excellent customer support...never knew there is a support for musical instruments as good as this!!!

Excellent board. period.
The only board better than this (atleast for Trance/Ambient/Electronica/Techno) is Motif XS (which is much more expensive). Although Korg M3 is great too (with their Karma thing) but is twice the price...

For years my only experience with workstations was a Yamaha QY700. I loved that machine and could sequence anything with it(I hate software and never use it). I got out of keyboards for a while and then when I reentered a few years latter my first purchase was a Korg TR. I loved the sounds of the Korg but hated the most unuser friendly pathetic sequencer it had. I also thought the Korg was very complicated to use at first until I learned the Korg lingo. So, Off it went and then I got the Mo6.....Well, I thought I would be back home and happy as can be. Nope, The Mo6's seuqencer is similar to the QY700 but lacks alot of the detail and much more complicated to use. I much more prefer the old QY700 sequencer. As for the sounds, the MO6 is ok. To be honest I don't hear all the rave about it. I think it sounds just a wee bit better than the old QY700. The Korg Triton series blows the Yamaha away in sound in my opinion. I can see myself in the near future getting rid of this MO6 and finding an old QY700 and a Triton rack.

The keyboard action is better than an M-Audio axiom but not as good as a Fatar or even the Korg TR's. No after touch is kinda lame as well.

I guess when it comes to workstations you can't have it all. That's definitely the MO6's mo. Some are good to ok. The drum sounds are pretty nice but string sounds....keep searching. The fx? You better have sound great outboard gear or go for a Triton the fx on the MO6 are lame and cheesy.

Overall after owning both the MO6 and Korg TR 61, The Korg wins. If Yamaha wants to get in the game they need to bring a board out with all of the QY700 features and update it with a sampler, more ram memory, a better storage system, and make it sound like a Triton with their FX, and they would reign king. As a matter of fact they shouldn't make a board but just a table top unit like the QY700 so you can add your own real keybed.

I guess that for someone who doesnt have the mechanical approach it might seem a bit hard, the graphical interface is not as advanced as some other pruducts, but once you get the hang of it... its there!

I'd only rate this category 9 because it doesn't have a sampling feature, but sinse the price category is low its a great value for the money...

everything I needed and more... the sounds are alive and very vivid and colorful, the additional computer software adds soooooo much versatility to it that its an amazing feature by its own. you can get down to every detail of every sound and change EVERYTHING.

Have had it only for a month or so, so I wouldn't know just how reliable this machine is, but... before that I have used the yamaha psr-530 (antic by now) I have used it for SEVEN YEARS and it never failed me, never broke a key, never crashed... yamaha produce amazingly reliable machines, one of the reason that I had bought this one. so i'll rate yamaha on this one

haven't really needed any, but whatever I was looking for I found in the manual so I guess its ok.

yamaha, my true love! :):):):)

Great features onboard. I highly recommend reading the manual to tame this beast.
On board sounds range from very good to great.
I connect mine through good old fashioned midi. I have'nt used the vst/usb combi yet but I might give it a go in the near future.

Polyphony is 64 unlike its bigger brother, the Motif ES which has 128. I'm more than happy with this though.
Onboard effects are superb, especially reverbs. Not much need for outboard or vst's unless you want to destroy your sound completely, in a nice way of course!
The MO has no expansion but to be honest, it has plenty of great sounds on board already.
It has also a great sequencer if required, but like most other users, I use my computer for that.
Having a useful feature as DAW control, is great. It makes this very home studio friendly.
Keyboard action is not the best in the world, but nowhere near the worst either. The mo6 is my main synth/midi controller in my home studio.
The MO6 has a wonderful and versitile arpegiator on board. One of the best.

The MO6 has some seriously great sounds on board. Some much better than others.
As a Korg Triton Extreme owner, Im blessed to be able to take the best of both of these similar workstation synths.
I do find the MO6 has a shortage of strings, which my Triton makes up for in leaps and bounds. I also feel that the Triton has the upper hand over the MO in the string department. Period.
As far as wind instruments go, I believe the MO6 has some great sounding ones onboard. Also great are synths, bases and 99% of everything else.
With the top notch MO6 arpegiator, you can make some great guitar riffs.

Very reliable. Would use it live if need be. Never had a problem with it. Its made of platic, thats its own down fall.

I have never contacted Yamaha. I hope I never do!

If it was lost or stolen, Id be devistated and would buy another straight away. I love the MO6, its a great studio synth. Beautiful sounds onboard. Great arpegiator to boot. Built to last and looks very slick.
As mentioned above, I have compared the string section of the MO6 to my Korg Triton Extreme, which the MO did full short. But neverless, it is a beast in its own right and I would not hesitate to recommend the MO6 or the MO8 to anyone.
A very good synth/workstation.

The owners manual its Ok. Takes a little beat to undestand the way to find each "page" on the synth but it works. As soon as you descover the arppegiator function you will "flip-out" it is really amazing! and easy to use

I think the feature wich you can control a softwere from the "mo 6", it is not that clear.

It is a shame that the "mo 6 " has a short polyphony, spetialy when you are looking for a fat sounds!

I have been in the keyboard-words from a long time, and I rather buy another synth than up date the same one, so to me is not a problem that the mo6 has not expansion capabilities. But one feature that I really love it and use very offten its the USB memory storage!

I have not use very much the sequencer. I dont like to work in the keyboard's seq. I do it with my computer.

As I sayed, the arpeggiator is just amazing!! Defenetly, ths features makes an important part of the instrument!

The keybord of the mo6 I find it is little unexpressive if you use to work with a heavy-key, but comparade with the rolnd's keybord or Korg's.... it is good enough!

Some instruments like flute are just perfect. (Once I was recording a soloist at the studio, when I show the musical idea I have recorded with my mo6, she asked me, which player recorded that?) Piano are nice, probably if you love to use different programs you will find that the mo6 dosent have as many as you like.

The guitars are very good, plus the arpeggiator!! excelent!!!

The strings.... they are almoust nothingh!! I dont understand why if they have added a very good sound they did not the efford to add some good strings!!

I main use this keyboard in my own studio where I work with music film and some latin-pop-jazzy-rock styles!

I haven't use it, so I add a 10, so to me its better like that! It means that the instrument works!!

I have been playing it for a year.

The price its great, its worth it! becaouse their feautures! Defenetly I would buy another one like this!

There is an initial lerning curve, but if you've had a synthesizer before you'll get comfortable with it pretty quickly. For me is easy but maybe newcomers will find it kind of intimidating.
Editing the patches could be a breeze using the realtime controls provided (knobs and sliders) and the synth architechture is actually pretty straight.
Using the patch editor hooking the synth to a computer via USB is easy too and you'll be able to create new patches from there.
The manual is very clear and offers the information necessary to perform a wide variaty of tasks.

The polyphony is enogh for me and the things I do, the onboard effects are awesome and they really give character to the sound. The keyboard, however doesn't have aftertouch and some people could complain about the action (cheaper action than in pro keyboards but it could be worse, and once you get used to it isn't a problem 'cause it is not as cheap as PSR series). It doesn't have expansion capabilities but it can read MOTIF patches.
The sequencer is easy to use and I like all the options it has (Pattern and song modes).
Arpeggiator and Drum Patterns sound great and works for any kind of style.

I bought the synth after I heard the audio demos from Yamaha, but when I first played it, I wasn't surpised by the quality, actually I felt it kinda thin, but once I plugged to a pair of studio monitors and started to play and make a mix everything was completely different. Sounds are top notch and work very well in a mix. I use it to play live (all kind of music) but I've been fooolin' around making some sequences and it sounds great.
Basically with this keyboard you'll have a wide array of sounds for every kind of music.
In two words, this keyboard sounds "crystal and clear".

For me almost every patch has its own aplication, there is hardly one unusable patch (that is if you know how to correctly use a patch hehe).

This is plastic, but feels well built, so I think that carryng it to your gigs won't be a problem if you get a decent case or bag (I do that). Very reliable I think.

Haven't had to deal with it.

Well, this is a great synthesizer, lots of value for the money, what you get is actually the technology borrowed from the flagship series MOTIF ES with just a little cut down in therms of effect proccessing power. Their sounds are not just pretty good (they're great) but also very cool. Of course there are some things that could be better but honestly nothing that really matters. The MO6 is in fact a very powerful music creation tool.
I wish it had a breath controller and just ONE expansion slot... but for that price I won't say anything.

Once again I have ventured past Korg to delve into another brand of keyboard/synth. I have many other reviews on this board, mainly with Korg related gear, so it is with great excitement that I bring to you another Solo review.

I downloaded and installed v1.02 of the firmware for this machine, as it came with 1.01.

It was with some reluctance that I examined this keyboard. I had heard so much about how deep and difficult it was to get around on and program. In essense it IS fair to say that this board is not easy to program. Further it is not necessarily easy to get around on until you understand the heirarchy of the layout.

For example, just auditioning the sounds was a challenge. I figured out how to change through sub-banks of the User 1 Performance category. But no matter what I pressed, I could not change banks. Finally I figured out the Master was on, limiting me. However pressing the Master button did nothing, not even turning it off. Pressing the Perform button DID get it to turn off. Then I could go through the rest of the banks. While Master mode is very powerful, and while the sounds in this board are awesome, the 128 sounds I had access to (mostly with beats and arpeggiations) were NOT enough to sell me on the board. Thank god I figured out how to get to the other sounds.

Even once you get the hang of moving around on this board, there is always the challenge of going exactly where you need to. It usually requires a combination of button pushes, some scrolling, more button pushes and then archaic "Execute" and "Are you sure yes/no" button pushes to make any changes. This can be frustrating to a programmer, or even a performer.

That having been said, the manual was pretty straight forward and did not leave me scratching my head. I have referred to it several times and each time got the exact results I was trying to with sounds.

I am sure a patch editor would help (I would not know, I have tried and tried to get mine to work on Windows XP to no avail!) but that is useless in a live performance.

Despite some of the challenges to get up and running, once you get the hang of it...this baby is perfect for performance. More on that later.

Issues I have that cost the MO6 in this category-

1. Archaic menu
2. Needs a larger display or touchscreen (being a Triton Extreme user and a Trinity user for some time, I find myself trying to press the onscreen commands at times)
3. A button should be able to turn something OFF as well as on. Having to hit an EXIT button becomes ridiculous on some things

Some things that helped the MO6-

1. Data dial (I don't care how cheap a synth is, it should include this) made getting from one point to another easy
2. Tons of buttons and sliders and knobs make getting around and getting what you want easier
3. Layout is identical to Motif and ES series making those familiar with those boards feel right at home
4. Great no nonsense manual

When it comes to the MO6 it is a mixed bag. On the one hand I believe this one of the best bang for the bucks EVER in a keyboard. In essense it is a Motif ES6 with 175mb sound rom, onboard 16 track sequencer, phrase sequencer AND generator, multiple argeggiators, fantastic filters and effects, as well as 3 level EQ for each sound...

...the other hand...

...with 64 less polyphony, a slightly cheaper key-bed, and a few less effects busses. It offers no expansion outside of changing the programmed sounds. The key-bed does not have aftertouch. I have said this before...really, since the sound engine is capable, how much more does an aftertouch keybed cost? For that matter how much more for 128 polyphony?

Those however are minor gripes, because this keyboard is basically a Motif ES6. Outside of Performances that call for the extra effects, this board will make any sound in the Motif ES series. Furthermore it can import soundsets designed for the Motif series.

The arpeggiator is fantastic and really easy to use.

The real power lies in the pattern player. You can create up to a four track pattern using different instruments. There is a shuffle option that will shuffle the notes you played around in each measure. This makes for a TON of new ideas from your original performance. And it includes an auto-fill for things like drum rolls, bass drops etc.

Adding things like four sliders to control ?zones? or sound volumes and other features, four knobs for pan, tone, arp fx, EQ, gating, swing?a really awesome feature, etc. makes for a smoother realtime performance change. This keyboard is DEFINITELY aimed at the performance musician as opposed to your standard workstation keyboard.

A handy up down buttons for instant octave changing is great!

There are tons of other performance features that have not been tapped by me, even over the course of a month. The only reason this keyboard does not get a 10 in features is the lack of expandability, the fewer voices, and the lack of aftertouch. But with what is left, it certainly is well deserving of the 9.

I think this is one of the strongest points for the MO6. Let?s just go by category and look at it!

Pianos- Good. Not great. But good. Perfect in any band situation. Plenty of choices. Creative options in the sound department.
Keyboards- Very Good! The clavs are strong, the EP?s are worthy of the Yamaha brand. The DX emulations are clear and exact. Wurli?s growl a bit?which is what they should do!
Organs- Nope. Not here. Missing is anything that is thick and rich. Between Roland and Yamaha, I have YET to hear an organ sound I like. Go with one of the Korg workstations like the Triton or TR if you really want a strong organ sound.
Guitars/Bass- The Megavoice technology is awe inspiring! It makes strums on guitars easy. It adds harmonics and thump tones to basses. Slides and bends on guitars are very realistic?and the guitar and bass sounds are awesome. Definitely a major buying reason!
Brass- Surprisingly good for a workstation type of board. A lot of attention went into the sounds and they work very well, especially in mixes. Even the solo instruments are nice.
Woodwinds- Again, like the brass. Convincing in some mixes.
Synths- Without any expansion boards, I am shocked at the high quality a variety of synth sounds available in this board. There is hardly one UNUSABLE patch!
Choirs- Nope?just not there. Hardly any sounds to reflect it if they are.
Drums & Percussion- Again, WAY above par. Not as punchy as Roland and not a warm as Korg. But somewhat as good as either one. This will be a matter of personal taste. But the sounds are realistic!

There are other areas that I am sure I have not completely gone into, but the installed patches are very musical and inspiring. The Voice mode is very thick, while the Performance (combi) mode is over the top! Great sounds is what makes this board outshine any other in it?s price range.

While not delving too deep into the effects, the reverbs seem to be quite warm, and there are a variety of filters which enhance the sounds. All I can say about this is that they are as good as most I have heard.

Expressiveness is the weakest link. Without aftertouch, I am left a little let down. It would have made sense if there had been a wind controller input, such as on the Motif keyboards. But without even that, your expressive options are few. Thank goodness for the knobs and sliders to help with that department.

I prefer joystick of wheels, but that two wheels for pitch bend and effects are well placed (unlike on Alesis keyboards) and have a good feel to them.

Bottom line on sounds- it is worth the price on this alone. Period.

Every Yamaha I have owned was heavy and well built. This one is very solid and comparable to any in it?s class. It has powered up as expected each and everytime. Even with a cheaper keybed, the keyboard does not feel cheap. All knobs and sliders as well as buttons, wheels, and data shuttle seem very secure.

The only thing I can think of is that it IS plastic. A metal casing would have been nice, but likely too pricey. Also, opting for USB for storage verses a SD card or something that is inserted and invisible?well, if you forget to remove your USB stick, you could break it off in the machine or at the very least bend it. But you can?t have everything, and this is more preference than complaint.

I have dealt with Yamaha one or two times and always got satisfaction. Also the stores seem very prepared to help and handle situations.

This keyboard is one of my best purchases ever. It has a TON of bang for the buck, and sounds fantastic.

That comes from a 30 year veteran of keyboards and production...and a KORG man at that! I won't repeat what I have put in the dozen other reviews here about all of my gear and experience, but know that this is a great board to add to any setup or even as a first board. It is a pro-level board that I doubt I will replace for years to come.

Pros-
Sounds! Good feel! Great layout on the surface! Reads all Motif ES sounds.

Cons-
No aftertouch. Deep programming. Low polyphony. Not expandable.

Though I have had it for just a month I have already used it on a dozen pieces I have produced, and taken it to two live shows. This keyboard IS best in it's class, even though it does not have a sampling option like the Korg TR or the new Roland coming out.

Nontheless, you have a larger variety of rom sounds to work with natively out of the board. And they are some of the best out there!

If you are looking for a great performance board, something to add sounds to your current rig, or even a great first board, you cannot go wrong here!

Just bought the MO6 the other day and am enjoying it very much. I have a Motif Classic 6 so navigating aroung the MO is very familiar. I've been editing, saving and loading both in the board and via the USB Slot to Cards (like Compact Flash) with no problems at all.
As far as sounds - They are simply great. All the sounds of the Motif ES and then some in this very cost-effective board.

The manual works. I just got the unit so haven't read too much in the manual.

Polyphony is 64 - a drop down from the Motif ES, but I haven't noticed any note stealing at all.
The effects are fantastic and I like the fact that you can change the rhythm pattern in real time while in Performance Mode by selecting the beats shown on the screen while playing.
Also, what sold me was the "swing" dial right on the board which enables you to change the beat swing pattern with a dial rather than having to go into a menu to sub-menu selection. Nice touch!
Has full Midi and a sequencer.
Has the USB port for easy movement of files to and from the unit.

What can I say .... it's a Motif in MO form with all the Motif sounds which are excellent. This board will work for all music styles.
Velocity senistive but NO aftertouch!
The ONE thing I don't REALLY like is the "cheaper-feel" keyboard compared to my Motif Classic and Triton Extreme. The feel is not as bad as some realy plasticky feeling keyboards in this price range, but it's not as solid and responsive feeling as the Motif Classic, ES and Triton Extreme. I am originally a piano player so the feel is not what I really love BUT it is OK. I was not going to buy the unit due to the feel of the keys, but having played it more now, I am adjusting and it is OK. It's not really bad if you are concerned about the touch as I was. Go ahead a buy it. Not the greatest feel, but it is OK - especially for the money difference compared to the Motif and Extreme. You CAN play in "piano-style" without problems.
8 here only because of the keyboard feel and remember, I like the more resistive, solid feel due to my piano background.

It's not built heavy, heavy like the Motif Classic 6, but seems well-built and I would have no problems taking on a job and carting it around. It has quality in its construction.
Even in light of the lighter, not perfect-for-me keyboard, I would serioulsy consider buying a second unit to play in tandem with this unit. That's how much I like it.

Have not had a reason to deal with customer support even with the Clssic 6 so can't say.

If lost or stolen I would definitely buy one again.
Definitely worth what I paid for it.
Suggestion - Buy one!