It seems every synth has its day.
A few years ago the Korg Triton was all the rage – every big name producer had one and you could hear it all over the top forty.

Before that it was the Kurzweil K2000. More recently the Roland Fantom X range has been making a lot of noise for its super-realistic sounds and workstation functionality.

Yamaha’s Motif keyboards fall into a similar pro category. Full of great workstation features and packed with super realistic sounds.

With their new XS series Yamaha have raised the bar again.

Yamaha has been at the forefront of synthesizer technology for a long time – their DX7 was an instant classic and ushered the world into the digital era. …subsequent keyboards like the SY series and later the ANX confirmed the company’s reputation as a synth heavyweight.

The XS series expands on these classics with three new models – the XS6 (61 key), XS7 (76 key) and XS8 (you guessed it – 88 keys). They’re updated versions of the popular Motif ES.

So whats new on the XS?

A large colour display for one thing – you get to load your samples straight into the keyboard via USB, more ROM and most importantly, an expanded tone generation system. This means all your sounds from the ES range have a sheen and sparkle like never before.
What was great is now even better.

The XS is a fully-fledged music production workstation, and as such doesn’t make a particularly good first synth. For that the MO series or MM6 would be a better choice.
There’s quite a bit under the hood of the Motif XS… and finding your way around these features can be tricky, and Yamaha have released a slew of instructional DVDs to help with this.
There’s even a website devoted to all things Motif - motifator.com.

You’ve definitely heard the sounds of the Motif XS before - Mariah Carey, Macy Gray, Justin Timberlake and Beyonce all make use of them in the studio and live.