Yamaha Motif 6

Software version 1.40. Presets are great sounding. Have not edited any sounds yet. Using the sequencer is very confusing at first. The web site has some links to info that explains some things that make it very understandable. Definately register with the web site and order the video. The manual is ok, but again use the www.motifator.com website and get the video. You will be glad you did. File mode is a very confusing mode also. Just basically saving and loading data is confusing at first also.

Poly is 62. Keyboard action is somewhat klanky like the old Sequential Circuits Pro-One synths, (which I have for sale). The effects are great. The expansion capabilities and midi capabilities are phenomenal. With this board there is no need to purchase another board. It comes with an onboard sampler that by itself outshines a lot of dedicated samplers on the market.There are things you can do with the integrated sampler that are amazing. It comes with 2megs and can be expanded to 64 megs. The sequencer is very, very versatile. Keys are velocity sensitive. The onboard seq has some really great features,but is confusing to use at first. Again get the Motif video. One other important thing to note. This keyboard will not fit in to a standard 61 note keyboard case. The website sales a very expensive hardshell case. I personally purchased a Gator GK-261 Hardshell case with wheels from soundprotector.com for 155.00. The smartmedia cards are also cheaper at pricewatch.com. The keyboard is equipped with 4 analog outputs, a scsi port, a digital optical port and 2 analog inputs plus some others. You can add up to 3 sound expansion boards and an MLAN board for broadband connectivity.

To sum up this category one can say one word. Fantastic. The sounds are very realistic for instruments that need to sound real. Then you have your synth sounds that are great sounding. The arps are truly stunning and plentiful. They are the most realistic arps I have heard ever. The guitar arps make the guitar sounds sound like you have an actual guitar player player in the studio. This board is for every style of music. You can get free sounds, arps and samples from the website also. The sound quality is unmatched.

So far so good.

The website is all you need. Yamaha is very good about responding to the website questions and announcing updates there. www.motifator.com.

If lost or stolen I would buy again. Possibly the 88 key version as I have heard it has weighted keys and a better key bed. I had the Korg Triton LE at first but sent it back because it was a joke and got the Motif 6.

I was up and running out of the box. Figured out some simple editing quickly as well. Having played numerous boards over the years I expected to be able to fire up a sequence without much effort. Instead I was stumped for awhile. After calling a friend with the video manual he walked me through the basics and I have to say now that I can get around it the sequencer is really easy to use. Although I still give the nod to the triton for the better sequencer. Most everything else works the same as in other keyboards.

This keyboard does everthing a workstation has to. I use it at gigs, to record, songwriting and beat making. And it seems to excell in all these catagories. While I would like to see more effect insterts, the effects are outstanding. Check out the reverb on the patch Kubrick. This patch is also a good spot do check out the filters. Hold a note and drop the resonance now climb the cutoff freq.
You can hear the netherworld in there, great filters.

I bought this board for the waves. And because my Triton has spent its time on this earth and it was time to move on. Wind and brass may no be the strongest. Amazing guitars and keyboards. OK organs. You will notice that the sounds are uncommonly clear.

Had it just 2 weeks. Its the same action thats in the 61 and 76 note tritons ( actually a Yamaha action) so it will hold up to playing. No wall wort.

If you've been to the website you know the support is out of this world. Calling Yamaha for help also nets good results.

Selling my 61 key to a bandmate so I can get the 88. Its a nice rig and if someone stole it they would be a lucky man.

I'm using software version 1.40 in my Motif6. The sound are great and there are manay sound, also I can download some voice file Motifator.com. The voice editing is very easy to use, you can edit the voice by selecting 4 AWM (Advance Wave Memory) and edit the detail. The manual...nothing bad or good, the manaul show abit detail information, but I never read it, like some new function such as the integrated sampling and the mixing, I bought the Motifated video manual. This video manual is great, so I just watch some part of the video and I get how to use the Motif6.

The arpeggio sound okay to good, but only last 3~4 weeks I get bore with it (maybe I'm a heavy user), so I have to download some new arpeggios. It really depend because some standand arpeggio in the Motif is not that useful. There are 3 expansion shot, so you can add on 3 expansion cards and use this at the same time, and the SCSI shot is standand in the Motif. The best thing is the Motif got optical output(That's is perfect), so I can record the demo to a MD. I use a USB cable instead of MIDI cable to connect to the computer, but my computer are not that reliable while using the USB cable. The worst part about the USB cable is the cable can't use as a audio cable. The sequencer is very very very easy to use, BUT is suck on the Motif O.S. Version 1.00, because the sequencer got BUG in it!!! After I used about 3 weeks, I can't record on some of the track, but after I updated the O.S. to Version 1.40 very thing goes well.

There are some voice are realistic such as the piano, some of the strings, drum kits.(I use the most is piano, so is very very realistic.) This a Motif....if I want to make Dance, Techno, House, Eurobeat or EuroTek, I will like to use Korg Keyboard, like KARMA or Tirton. I didn't said the Motif is bad for making Dance music, everything in the Motif is good, but I personally will like the Dance music goes with the KORG. The realtime switch is fun on the syn.lead voice and other voices. The original 4MB sampling ram is not enough. It is very useful after expandable to 64MB of ram.

Motif is very reliable, everything works great.(I use about 3 months, since there was nothing happen yet..^_^) SO FAR SO GOOD! Backup?! NO NO NO... NO Need! NOT Necessary! The dependable SmartMedia card work hard and very reliable, but saving the song is necessary, without saving the song then turn OFF and than turn it ON again, every song will be gone in the song mode, is very important to buy a SmartMedia card or connect a hard disk to your Motif.

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If lost or stolen, I would replace it with a Motif7 (sometime is not enough key to play on piano voice, and I don't like to play halfway and I have to switch the octwave button. "more KEY is BETTER") ,because of my budget, so I bought the Motif6. I only play it around 3 months, it really easy to use beause I own a Yamaha QY100 squencer, most of the functions work the same. Although I got a Motif, I still want a Korg KARMA or Yamaha B2000 or Yamaha SU200 sampling unit. I love most of the stuffs on the Motif more than hate. I choose the Motif becuse the price is same as the Korg Karma, and the Motif got most of the functions I will like to use. I personally turst Yamaha, so I like to use Yamaha product.

This is a tough one. Depending on what aspect of the board you are using it ranges from extremely simple to extremely difficult. Right out of the box, you can plug it in and play some GREAT sounding presets. When you get into editing, it gets a bit more difficult. Depending on your past experience you may find it counter-intuitive to what you are used to. It took me a couple of days to get the hang of the layout of the patch-editing. After that it seems to flow in a fairly straight-forward manner.

The manual is slightly better than a joke. The video manaul Yamaha sends out for free is a big help. Also, the motifator.com website is excellent, and there are many people there to help you answer questions.

62-note polyphony. (How do you get 62 notes? Are two notes missing somewhere). Many of the patches are so rich and complex that this gets eaten up right away. The OS update (2.4) helps with this a bit, but I stil find that when playing a piano/string stacked sound with sustain pedal I lose notes. The action is OK. (Keyboard action is all a matter of taste anyway, is it not?). The built-in effects sound good. I have yet to feel I need any outboard effects for any sound I am using. There is room for expansion boards and extra memory for the sampler. The sampler and sequencer are included with the board. I haven't used these much yet, as I bought the board primarily for the sounds. My only other complaint with the features is that except for some convoluted routing method through song/mix mode, the on-board sounds are only available via 1 midi channel at a time. Therefore, accessing the on-board sounds via another board is difficult. This could have been made a bit of versatile IMO.
This board has a set-up called Master Mode, which makes the board a pretty versatile midi controller. As I use it primarily as a live-gigging keyboard, I have found a lot of use and ease through this feature. There is no floppy disc. The back-up is all done on SmartMedia Cards. This is very simple. The cards are a bit pricy though.

Here we come to the meat of this board. The sounds. Many, many excellent, realisitic sounds. The fact that there are so many different ways sounds are created here (different synthesis techniques used) accounts for this board have a WIDE variety of sounds. IMO, boards I've played prior to this one have a tendency to have the same tonal qualities on all patches--Korgs sound like Korgs--Rolands sound like Rolands, etc--This board has amazing variety of tonal qualities, and a rich warm sound throughout. People will (and do) nitpick about the quality of each particular patch, but the truth is you won't find better quality sounds throughout on any board in this price range. Are there better piano sounds somewhere? Probably. Better strings? Better pads? Sure. But not all on one board. My only 'beef' was with the factory brass patches, but I was able to tweak this to my taste fairly easily. I use this board primarily for classic rock/r&b/pop stuff. It's excellent for all of that. I almost bought the board just based on the Rhodes sounds alone.

Very reliable. I have never had a reliability problem with any Yamaha product. I've owned it 3 months now. I guess we will wait and see how it holds up with time.

So far, the customer support has been good to great. The motifator.com website is an excellent resource. I don't know of any other manufactuer providing this type of support. My only complaint was it took over 2 months for me to get a copy of the video manual. But is was shipped FREE, so I can't complain too much. They have also provided free sound banks available over the internet. Hopefully they continue with this level of support for a long time.

I think I would buy it again, yes. I love the sounds on this board. When I bought it, I was also looking at Korg Triton, Trinity and Roland Fantom. There was no choice. Just on sounds alone, this board won hands down. I've heard great things about Kurzweil 2500 and I might check that out first if I had to replace the Motif, but I can't imagine wanting another board. I don't buy new keyboards very often, and one of my primary concerns was "how will I feel about the sounds on this board a few years from now when it is considered out-of-style and obsolete?" I think I will be very happy with this purchase for years to come.

First let me start by saying that this keyboard has the best sounds/structure for Pop music - so if you do pop, this is the keyboard of choice. I won't talk about "this keyboard has XYZ and ABC" - for that stuff, go to http://www.motifator.com.

Ok, that being said. For ease of use, I think a good proxy is "how easy is it to make really great music." Some of the presets and USER banks make it easy for you to just add water and end up with "Instant Cheiron in a box" (refer to http://www.cheiron.se ) or "Instant depeche Mode in a box." But it doesn't stop there - "instant euro dance in a box" and also "instant techno in a box." Remember just add your inspirational 'water'.

Polyphony could have been better - EMU's proteus 2500 comes with the ability to play 32 MIDI channels at a time. I would have thought this board should have been able to do similarly. However, they probably didn't since the screen is tiny relative to a Korg's, and 32 channels would have given people enough MIDI rope to hang themselves.

Effects are amazing!!!!!

I am working with someone who uses a Roland XP-80, and when he did his gig, he brought our song to life. However, when I took his tracks and used even the GENERAL MIDI sounds - they sounded WAY better and brought his stuff to life! Long live the Motif!!!!

My only problem has been picking which of the many awesome string sounds to use....maybe I will just use them all....

A preset sound on this board sounds better than the COMBI sounds on my Korg !!!!!!!!

I only use this for studio use - never on the road. It works like I expect to, and not like I don't.....at least so far. So I think it is very reliable.

I appreciate the user forums sponsored by Yamaha - at times they even have a representative address user questions. I haven't seen that before, so that is outstanding!!!

I would buy it again, in a heart beat. I have a Korg Trinity, a Roland D-50, an Alesis SQ6 in addition....and I am unloading all of these to pay off my CC bill from buying the Motif....and happily doing so.

I allready own a cs2x, so the yamaha technique was not so new to me. Though, it costed me a lot of time to get explore all the functions. That's probably the reason why some people find it difficult to find out how to work with the motiv; it's got so many features..

it's a workstation... sampler, sequencer, 16 parts, many effects... motiv's got it all. there are only a few things which aren't so great: eq is only possible on master signal. Further, I regret that teh machine doesn't have the variphrase technique. I would have loved that. But the motiv has got a great slice function for samples.
+ USB for midi!

It has got over 1300 sounds, it contains realistic sounds but also very cool and weird dancy things. That's great about the motiv. It is a machine which works out for many musicstyles. That's also I reason I wanted it.

I expierenced some problems with savind songs. Sometimes the motiv doesn't save the sounds I picked in a mix. Further on.. my G4 has sometimes problems handeling the USB connection. Don't know if that's due to my motiv.

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also own a cs2x + G4 including pro-tools. The motiv is the heart of my setup. I love the machine. (as far as you can love a machine...)

Low rating due to the complexity getting the sound you're playing into the sequencer track and moving along with your inspiration. Yamaha states it as the shortest distance to inspiration..... well maybe, if you're a Yamaha developer and have been trained in the multiple layers of commands needed to simply apply the correct FX, program, etc to tracks. It ain't no Ensoniq!! In fact, Yamaha should take a 10 year old Ensoniq SD-1 and have their engineers study the guts right out of it. Simple is often better. The complex editing features could still exsist, but should not block the process of creating MUSIC... I ain't no programmer, I use Macs 'cause I'm Plug and Play only.

Features are running off the page!! Lots going on, lots to dig out. The screen should be larger, or better have an output for connecting a cheap computer monitor. There needs to more polyphony... they 62, but in reality all the cool sounds use 2-4 "waves"... figure the real polyphony to be 24-32. Tons of expansion room.. one reason for buying this thing is that alone. No floppy drive, seq data is volitile and has to be saved before you shut down. Smart media and SCSI help...This rig is very much like a PC based system. Lots of detail midi sys ex data can be altered... all of which is great if you're into editing PC type sys ex. data.. again, I'm a Mac guy... intuitive interface means alot to me... The Sequencer is DEEP and not as straight up as Yamaha junkies would like you to believe. I'll get it figured out, one day. It's gonna take awhile. Not Plug and Play. And someone here stated any six year old could figure this out. Can I hear anyone say MENSA?? Overall features are excellent.. although Yamaha needs a new manual to allow easier access to them all.

No question here, the sounds are incredible. But be aware of the fact that many are very dependant on programmed FX. With the FX many sounds are Casio in nature....

Dunno... I have an 88 key model... I ordered a 61 key model and played it for 2 days. Terrible keyboard. Awful... Sad... if you're serious about playing get the 88 key model or hope that Yamaha will make a 76 weighted key model. I sent my 61 key model back with full refund, Fed-x delievered my 88 key model (80 pounds) with a broken middle E key. It had to go back and the replacement arrive 3 days later....

Dunno.. the MOTIFATOR site is still growing. They need to get some decent info there beyond the manual. There's only a couple pages, both of which are pretty basic.

If it were lost, or stolen and the insurance guys wrote me a check on the full amount......? I'd have to think about it. It sounds great, it is expandable, intergraded sampler is real cool, 88 keys are perfect, the sequencer, song writing process is a bit delayed at this point. I reckon a few zillion hours decoding the manual might get me there, but it's a s l o w process to be sure. I'd probably look at the Roland Fantom or maybe a used Triton,, or perhaps even an Ensoniq ZR-76. Tough call right now.

The preset are divided in to categories : voices and performances (basically a mix of up to 4 voices). Patch finding is extremely easy as they are classified by type of sounds. Besides, whilst searching for THE sound you need, you can put a "Favorite" tag on the sound you prefer for further decision making. The manual is ok but you need to adapt at Yamaha's way of writing manual. It comes with 3 CD-roms. One being a sample CD of demos, one has the Voice editing program plus lots of drums loops, and another one called Acid express that I haven't tried yet.

Effects are okays though not as impressive as my TR-Rack. Thanksfully, Yamaha is to issue expansion boards very soon and have asked feedback from motifs users on www.motifator.com for further expansion boards ideas. One very welcome feature is the Master mode (like a master controller). It gives you 8 banks of 16 preset that will fetch sounds from the motif itself or from external synths/modules. Very handy indeed.
The sequencer seems complicated but it's the first time I use a workstation. The real pain is that you HAVE to buy a smart media card so you can save your sequences!

Electric pianos are good. There are some great clavinets .Organs are a bit weak. Saxes and winds are okay but it's mostly the synths (pads, leads, brass) that are to mention.
In all cases, I find that I need to modify every single sound I use but this can be done very easily thanks to the 4 knobs on the left (with a selection of basic parameters such as Eq, Rev/Chorus, Cutoff/Rez).
I use it for Fusion and Funk but I can't see why the Motif would suit other music styles. The keyboard is excellent. I use it as my top keyboard, mostly for solos and the keys are very nice to play with.
Aftertouch is often to be programmed but it takes no time to do so.

I've had it for three weeks, gigged and recorded with it. It's solid and the screen is big enough to check sound selection in the heat of the performance.

Yamaha have proved great care of their clients by putting up the www.motifator.com website. You can purchase additional accesories and other stuff, but also participate to forums.

I'd definitely be pissed off if stolen and would have to sell some gear for buying another one as it fits my rig so well (I use a Kurweill Stage Piano connected to the Korg Tr-rack).
It's a great keyboard, very easy to use and program.

V 1.10. Presets are great. Editing patches seems straightforward enough to me but I wouldnt say Im an advanced user. Manual is patchy. The Getting Started guide is OK but tends to miss steps. So too, by the way, does the Motifator site section on Behind the Manual, which I would have thought rather defeats the purpose.

Plenty of polyphony unless you are using lots of 4 wave voices. Effects are Yamaha, so very good. Lots of expansion via PLG boards, additional inputs. Would have been more sensible to include a coaxial SPDIF out rather than an optical one seeing as the AW4416 uses coaxial. You can get coaxial i/o on the optional i/o board but why have to pay extra. Integrated audio sampling and sequencer is brilliant. Computer interfacing is excellent and the multiport USB MIDI connection allows the use of additional modules, which is handy. The board itself I find easy to navigate after a bit of practice. The File Utility program requires a little thought. Sounds straightforward in hindsight but it took a while to figure out how to add files from the PC to the memory card via the file utility - you have to open Windows Explorer as well and copy files across. One great feature is ability to use it as MIDI controller for sequencer software, etc. That's worth 10% of its price straight away.

The sounds are the best I have heard. Far better than Triton and slightly better than JV1080. Listen to the viola and cello for example. Plenty of preset patterns to use. I wuld think this board can be used for any sort of style. Could do with more orchestral sounds, though. I'm a guitarist rather than a key board player so cant really comment on action, but it seems very good to me.

Only had it a week so cant tell, but my other Yamaha stuff has been very reliable. Had a problem with noise on an AW4416 but Yamaha fixed it for me. Verry solid so would be fine on a gig. Autoload feature allows very quick resetting after power outage.

I have found Yamaha generally excellent.

To me this is the best option currently on the market. Far better sounds than Triton and much more flexible than existing Roland offerings. Cant speak for Fantom but that has no sampler. User sounds are eclectic to say the least and not generally usable, but they are after all there to be over-written. Wish it had coaxial SP/DIF in and out on board rather than via an expansion option. Optical digital out no use to me with the AW4416. It would be nice to have an ADAT i/o as an upgrade option. It would also be nice to have software for editing performances. However, you cant have everything and I think this is a fantastic bit of kit.

learning curve like any new gear, but once you got it all figured, it's really easy to get around

the expandability is the best feature. the effects sound really great. i don't use any internal midi stuff, so i have little to say on that.

great voices. the drum kits rock for any type of music. the keys are the best in my opinion. not even a kurz is this lively in the rhodes department. some voices suck, but that's just personal taste... i use it for dance music, but you could make anything with it. the sampler sounds great too.

so far so good...

great. go to motifator.com and see for yourself.

great workstation. i sold my emu and my virus to buy this and i'm not looking back. this is the perfect workstation for anyone serious about music.