Buy Yamaha Motif XF8 Music Production SynthesizerYamaha Motif XF8 Music Production Synthesizer Product Description:
- Comprehensive high sound quality, including an enormous 741MB of waveforms including an additional 128 Voices and 8 drum kits, for a total of 1,353 high-quality Voices
- Up to 2GB of additional content available through separately sold flash memory
- Realization of unique instrument performance methods through the XA (Expanded Articulation) tone generation system
- Reproduction of the unique, natural, warm sounds of vintage instruments through VCM effects
- 88 key Balanced Hammer weighted action with initial and aftertouch
- Including an enormous 741MB of waveforms including an additional 128 Voices and 8 drum kits, for a total of 1,353 high-quality Voices
- Comprehensive high sound quality, including an enormous 741MB of waveforms.
- Up to 2GB of additional content available through separately sold flash memory.
- Realization of unique instrument performance methods through the XA tone generation system.
- Reproduction of the unique, natural, warm sounds of vintage instruments.
- 88 key Balanced Hammer weighted action with initial and aftertouch.
- 8 drum kits, for a total of 1,353 high-quality Voices.
- Comprehensive high sound quality
Product Description
Soon after the original MOTIF was released in 2001, it was recognized as the best sounding, top selling and most requested music workstation on the market. Over time, it has continued to evolve and improve its expressiveness and functionality. At the same time, the online community of end users, sound programmers, software developers and product support specialists at www.MOTIFATOR.com has expanded into a vibrant online music production community. The MOTIF breathes new life into live performances with its expressive sounds and intuitive control. In music creation, the MOTIF not only offers its own music creation capabilities, it also offers a system for integrating those capabilities with a variety of software applications. And now, the next generation XF builds on the decade-long heritage of MOTIF, and provides groundbreaking expansion capabilities with flash memory that will set a new standard for keyboard workstations for years to come
Customer Reviews
Most helpful customer reviews
22 of 22 people found the following review helpful.
By metamorphis8
I'd give the Motif XF8 4.5 stars if that option were available, because, as one of the most costly workstations available, it lacks a few features that ought to be standard and its complexity is a but daunting. Otherwise, it really is an amazing machine. The sounds alone justify the cost and a five star rating.First and foremost, the sounds that the machine generates are the best I've heard. A guitar actually sounds like a guitar, nearly as good as when I record on my Martin and without mistakes. I am primarily a piano player, and the piano voices are top notch. There might be better dedicated piano units available (the Nord Stage comes to mind), but the Motif gets very close. I also like the balanced hammer action. Though it is not as weighted as dedicated top end stage pianos. the action offers sufficient tactile response to make playing easy and responsive. The performance mode is very useful as a starting point to creating music. They are widely varied, offering something for every style. I particularly like it that there are great jazz and classical performances to use. Far too many modern keyboards are geared nearly exclusively to hip-hop and similar styles, leaving those who play more traditional styles out in the cold. You are limited to playing four voices at one time (one of those includes the drum pattern), which is rather meager for a workstation of this level.The Motif is a complicated creature. This is in large part because it does so many things. One can literally create a full composition from scratch, sample, perform, edit, mix, and record it. The problem is that Yamaha could not be bothered creating a manual that actually explains how everything works. I have barely scratched the surface of its capabilities, due in large part to the ridiculously spartan owner's manual. For a machine this capable and complex, you'd think Yamaha could have spent a little more effort putting together a manual that actually shows the owner how to extract its full potential. or at least have decent online support. But that is equally useless. Be prepared to learn the complexities on your own. The motifator forum is very good, and offers a lot of help, but you end up wasting a lot of time rummaging through various threads and posts trying to find information that should have been in the manual to begin with.There are a few features that are lacking in this flagship unit. For one thing, there is no flash memory included, only a measly 128mb of volatile RAM. Try downloading any set of voices, and you will quickly see that they far exceed this puny onboard memory. Which means you have to pay $150-$300 for either 512 or 1 gb of flash memory. Yamaha makes the flash proprietary, so you cannot install standard flash cards. So, that's $600 extra for 2 gb of flash rom, at least half of which is probably necessary.Yamaha also sells as a $300 option a firewire expansion port which allows us to record audio into a computer via firewire, instead of the standard USB port which only allows MIDI. If you want to record audio-don't we all?-you have to spring for the card or buy an separate interface. I already own an Apogee Duet, which works just fine, but if you don't, that's yet another expense. The firewire port should be standard.I am still learning the interface of the Motif, but my initial impression is that it is far from user friendly. There are countless tiny black buttons protruding from the black metal body (which is of a rough texture, and holds fingerprints like superglue) not color-coded in any way. The display is good but not great. There is a lot of information in very small font size, and to move from screen to screen entails trying to line up and press the correct physical button that corresponds to the menu on the screen. It is quite clumsy. On the other hand, there is a physical button (even if it is small and looks like every other one) for nearly every important control, so there is a lot less digging through screens than there might be. Still, Yamaha could do much better in the ergonomics department.The internal sequencer is MIDI only, very useful, but an audio recorder would be welcome. Trying to record the MIDI from the internal sequencer to a DAW (something that many would want to do) is more complicated than building a spy satellite. I still haven't figured it out and can't find much assistance. This is the inherent problem with the Motif. It does so many things and most of them quite well, but because only the most basic functions are explained, it is easy to spend hours and hours trying to figure out how to record something, for example.So, in the end, I just end up playing the keyboard as a piano, and that is always enjoyable.
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful.
By Alan Wong
I couldn't agree more with the previous reviewer. At the date of this writing, I have had the XF8 for almost a year. I spent four months reviewing, testing and generally playing around with the functions of this unit. There will come a point where it all comes together. The user will have to be patient and expect failure on an intended action several times over. The user will have to cross reference the user manual with the reference manual many times. Motifator is very helpful and one should expect to do alot of research in the forums.I have not regretted my purchase. The learning curve is very high and yet, I have now come to a point where I can plan out any full score composition and have the Motif make it work for me.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
By Yang Feng
My husband tried the piano as soon as we recieved it and he could not stop until midnight. We had two other keyboards and none of them has the same effect as this one. He loved it so much.Also, the company J&R Music and Computer World has a very good customer service. When we sent a question to them, they replied very fast and gave us a good solution.Thanks &R Music and Computer World.
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