 It there is one thing that stands out about the Yamaha Motif, it is the quality of its sound. The instruments, or voices, as Yamaha calls them, are stunningly realistic and expressive. Most of the Motif's voices sound great as solo instruments but also fit into mixes with other instruments well. This is especially true of the the main piano voice, called the "PowerGrand." The sound is powerful and bright, but not too bright like an upright Baldwin. The tone is smooth from the lowest to highest octaves. While there is a slight dullness in the mid-bass notes and the highest notes sound a bit tinny, the overall the piano sound is very realistic.
Some of the other impressive voices on the Motif include the Violin, which has an excellent attack and vibrato, the Sweet Flute, which is strikingly realistic, and the organ sounds, which faithfully resemble the original analog sound. There are over 64 diverse drum kits on the Motif, including rock kits, electronic kits, dance kits, hip hop kits, and pretty much every other kind of kit you can think of. The drum sounds are as good as the other voices as they are superbly sampled with a realistic attack and decay. Adding a little EQ, reverb, and delay can make the drums fit into any song, and sound almost as real as a live drummer.
While the Motif has a large selection of realistic instruments, there are even more synthesized pads and leads to choose from. These are great for electronica and pop music, or for adding a little flair into otherwise traditional music. You can edit the sounds to create the exact expression you want, though the sound editor is rather difficult to use. The screen is simply not big enough to manage an advanced editing interface, so it can take awhile to find the sound parameter you want to edit. Fortunately, the knobs and sliders on the left side of the instrument allow you to make realtime changes to parameters such as attack, release, cutoff, and resonance. The standard pitch bend and modulation wheels are also available, allowing realtime control of pitch and vibrato, or a parameter selected by the user.
The Motif 7 has a 76-key keyboard, which means it's almost a full-size piano, but not quite. Fortunately, there are easily accessible Octave Down and Up buttons on the left side of the instrument when for you need to hit that super low bass note. I still have yet to play any music that requires me go to above the 76th key. The keys are not weighted, like the 88-key Motif 8 model, so they feel rather light if you are used to playing a traditional piano. This is standard fare for 76 key keyboards, but I wish the keys had a little more resistance so I could play more expressively.
The Motif's main playing modes include Voice and Performance mode, where Voice is a single instrument mode and Performance is a compilation of up to four voices. Both modes are useful, and the built-in arpeggiation feature can be used with either one. In Performance mode, you can choose which parts use the arpeggiator and you can fade the volume of each part up or down using the four sliders on the left of the keyboard.
The sequencer on the Motif includes Song and Pattern mode, where the Song mode is mainly used for recording linear songs and the Pattern mode is for -- you guessed it -- pattern-based music. I only use the Song mode for recording song ideas and use the Pattern mode for everything else. You can have up to 16 parts for each mode and a built-in mixer allows you to control the volume, panning, and effects of each part. Unfortunately, only one part can use the system's insertion effect at a time. This means, for example, if you want two guitar parts each with variable distortion, you're out of luck. Otherwise, the mixer is easy to use and works great for creating a smooth compilation of different tracks. The pattern mode allows you to have up to 16 different sections, which means you can create an entire song by just jumping from one section to the next during playback.
I initially used the Motif's built-in sequencer for my music creation process, but now I use my computer's sequencer almost exclusively. This means my small frustrations with the Motif's sequencer are no longer relevant. I just record one Motif voice at a time with my computer, so I can use all the effects I want. The sound is what matters the most, and fortunately, the Motif's sound is more realistic than any other keyboard I have played. The large selection of voices as well as the built-in song creation modes make the Motif a great choice for playing live or for composing your own music. |
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