How would you characterize the sound of this product? Awesome. Converters are second to none. We're talking pristine sound with virtually no noise floor. Everyone says my mixes sound like live instruments. How does the sound respond to your playing? The keybaord action is again, second to none. Some programming needed though as sensisitve levels aren't set by default to accommodate grace notes etc, especially with drums. Does the product help you achieve the sound you are looking to get? Absolutely. I do R&B, Jazz, HipHop, Electornica, etc and the Motif is more than cpable of sounding terrific no matter what I feed it. Are some sounds better than others? Of course. The horns are not that terrific (thouhg better than Triton's by a long shot). Strings are decent - better than most. Pianos, Keys, Basses, Drums, Guitars, etc are phenomenal. What other equipment are you using with this product? Nothing else. The Motif is more than capable of emulating any instrument or sound you can dream up with a little bit of programming.

What are the most useful features? The sequencer rocks. Definitely as good as an MPC if not better. Tight timing, greatr swing, etc etc. Event editor is dead simple to use. Total recall file management is unparalleled in the industry. Sampler is on par with the best in the business.

Phenomenal craftsmanship.

Motifator.com rocks. Best product support ever.. bar none.

Everyone's got one now.. you see them on every professional stage. They can't be beat.

Producer, Composer

Everything but country :)

This is a awesome sounding, feature rich board. It is the best keyboard I have ever purchased in 20 years of owning pianos and synths. Full, encompassing accoustic instruments, beautiful pads - literally everything you could ever want. Nothing sounds thin or flat coming out of this board. Everything that I do sounds good out of the ES 8.

Unbelievable!! After months of working with the board I still find features that I never even knew existed within the unit. How did the engineers think of all of this stuff? Excellent MIDI implementation, audio to die for. Sequencers, patters, entire songs, peformance and master modes. Just a brilliantly designed unit. Yes you have to add an expansion board for digital but hey - not everyone uses digital so I understand Yamaha's reason for doing this.

Outstanding. The ES 8 can take a modest beating and perform night after night. No problems with any aspect of the unit so far.

How you can get so much out of a $2,300.00 board is beyond me? Totally worth the money - I will get a decade of use out of this board, minimum. It is that good.

On-line support and community is very large and active.

This is a beautiful board that will keep you inspired for years. Just the nature of the guitar arpeggios gives you access to patterns and textures not previously available at a calibur such as this.

Jazz, Chamber, Fusion

In comparison with most of the keyboards out there (including the Korg Triton Extreme and Roland Fantom X8) the Yamaha Motif ES8 has by far the best piano sound. It is expressive and rich whether you're playing the Full Grand or the Aggressive attack piano---these really sold me on the keyboard. The acoustic guitars and drums are also worth mentioning. The guitars come across crisp. And there are enough drum kits to span just about all the genres you can think of. Some of the pitfalls you'll find: the organs are so-so, the electric guitars are weak, and you can apparently only layer up to 4 instruments at a time in Performance mode. If you're looking for electric guitars, synths, and dance-type tools, you might strongly consider the Triton Extreme, however. Out of the box the combi presets (especially for electronic and house music) rock.

The ES8 has a mind-boggling array of features and you may have to dig through many menus to get access to all of them. Having said that, you can probably create almost any sound you need. And if you can't, then just sample it into DIMM memory. :)

Solid feel. I absolutely love the response of the weighted keys as well.

Expensive but so far I think considering the sound quality, wealth of features, and construction it is worth it.

n/a. Haven't attempted support yet.

Aside from the mini screen and the bazillion controls, it's a very nice item to have in your studio.

Hobbyist musician, some live performance, mostly in-studio production

Pop, Jazz, Dance, Electronica

Well i love it. I have found the sounds to work wonders. the Piano sound sure beat the roland piano sound with a long pointy stick. The drum sounds sound better than ur standard electric drum which i find odd. the bass sound like there is a bassist in the room. which is crazy. but i dont use those cause i play with a bassist and a drumer. i love the organ sounds. and the string sounds sound great too. but i must say its still a keyboard and it doesnt feel or sound like a piano cause its not one. same with the other sounds, strings drums etc but it turns me on.

they r pritty good. reason why i give it a 7 is cause. im a big nob and button fan and more would be great for the snyth sounds. but its not a snyth and i got this so i wouldnt have to have heaps of keyboards just one. but this hasnt happened. lol. but its pritty good. the polyphony is good spesh on the piano. only time i got it to cut out was when i layered 2 pads on top of a piano and went hard it cut out but i was bored and trying to make it cut out. i play hard out classical on this some times and it works fine doesnt cut out.

well its pritty good. not sure about the bottom though. i have had some screws come out. not sure why. but then i started out as a piano player and i learn it is a precussion introment to you gotta hit it. so i give it heaps. and it takes it. just thoughs screws

well i live in nz. and it sucks with the exchange rate and all the prices r huge. but everthing is like thi over here so dont get shocked when u hear the price. 1 nz dollar is like worth 60 us cents. wish i live in the states but over here its about write price. well cheaper than the other keyboards in its range but not sure wats its like overseas

hell yea this thing turns me on. fantom is just uggly and the triton looks cheap. (triton extreme is bad though) it looks like a beast looking onto the stage and on the stage. where the triton looks good when u look onto the stage but looks cheap when ur playing it. and the fantom is just uggly. that big screan recks it i think. i get alot of people saying man thats a beast. so i call it the beast.

Active Musician/Band Diretor

Rock, Blues, jazz, Classical, Pop, alternative

the sound quality is perfect on the instrument. not the real instrument but darn close. i love the EQ on the synth, allows me to customize my sound

the synth comes with many many features. we have 7 keyboardists, and they have not been through them all yet. easy access to many features

the worksmanship on the product is exellent. I have had it for about 1year and have had no problem at all with anything.

Yes!

i wished they offered a training class....

OYA!!..the large key board, slick silver body, with minimal buttons and knobs and stuff where very sexy!

Active Musician

Contemporary Christian

Very clean sound.

Needs RAM for the sampler (not included) and you really should get a CD-ROM for the USB hookup. Save up for these as well as the optional mLAN16e firewire card and a big hard drive (othewise you'll have to use SmartMedia cards).

I have a Roland XV-5080 and the ES8 sounds better.

Spendy. And THEN you start to add all those other things you need, like cards. Did I mention spendy?

Can't say I've used Yamaha support but there's a lot of user groups and a great set of websites.

Hobbyist

Alternative

Wonderful tones. I use it for basic purposes but am very happy with the quality of the voices.

I can't even use all of the features yet - but this has many more than you could want. the synthesizer / track recorder could be easier to use though.

great quality

great value for money

no comment

hobbyist

pop, RnB, hip-hop, soul

The Yamaha Motif ES8 is one of the best keyboards I've even seen in my whole entire life. it's a wonderfull tool to work with. With this keyboard you can do many, many things you can write and creat your music on it vocally and instrumentally. You can connect a microphone, guitar, another keyboard, and also it has the best sounds. The sounds are so realistic. I love this product.

The features of this product are the best. I love the way it looks and the way the keys feel. it has heavy weight piano keys and it's nice to play on it.

The quality of this product is the best because you can do so many things with it. It also sound awesome the best sounds that's I've ever heard in my life!

I personally think that this product is worth selling because like i've said before it's one of the best products I've ever seen in my life.

I haven't dealt with the company But I've talked to the people that sells the product. and they are very friendly.

I think that the keys feel very nice and the color of the product is cool.

I play 5 Instruments

Modern

Okay, first of all, my last keyboard was a Roland MKB-300 Super Jupiter, just so you know where I'm coming from. Great sounds. Individual strings and "close miked" strings very good, but I miss some huge orchestral string sounds. They're there, just lacking. Electric pianos rock, again individual instruments, french horn, oboe, etc, awesome. Overall sound quality is hard to beat. Infinitly controllable and tweakable. You could spend the rest of your life getting it just right if you wanted. If you can't dial in the exact expressiveness you want, the problem's not the keyboard. Takes a while to learn the ropes. Has taken me about 3 months of evenings working with sounds to learn all you can do. Haven't touched the sequencer yet.

Miss a volume pedal input that doesn't doesn't pop back to 128 after you change a voice. Can't change the arpeggios 1-5 without hitting the pad on the unit (i.e., can't change these with foor pedals). I find this a huge limitation for live work. Haven't used the ribbon controller much, but I can see how it will be useful. Ditto the effects processors. BTW, the 128 voices specification is crap. Yeah, it's 128 voices if your voice is only composed of one element. Most are composed of 3-4 elements. With all 4-element voices, you get 32 voice polyphony max. Also, I can't friggin' BELIEVE this unit doesn't have polyphonic aftertouch. I mean come on, the Prophet T-8 in 1982 had it.

All looks great. Haven't found any flaws, and I'm one picky dude. I expect it would hold up on the road well with a modicum of care.

Awesome keyboard for the money.

I sent some "how-to" questions to the Yamaha folks and got a satisfactory response within a couple of days. I think they'd be there if I needed them.

I guess silver probably allows you to see the buttons on stage, but it's been years since I was there. I personally liked the black panel with wood ends style of the CS-40M and CS-70M units of the early 80's as they seemed more organic. The sounds coming out of the unit sure sound organic, I think they could make it look a little more like an instrument and less like a "piece of equipment".

Ex-professional keyboardist, hobbyist now.

Rock & Classical

A person could make a whole song on the Motif without needing anything else... except for a set of good Nearfield monitor speakers.

Screws work loose underneeth, easy fix with some better sprung washers from B&Q. no other problems at all.

I paid

Hobbyist / Active / Recording Engineer

All kinds but mostly Rock, Jazz, Funk, Dance etc

The sounds are most realistic of any keyboard out there. Blows the Triton right off the planet.

This thing is great as a stand alone unit or fully midi capable with my Mac G5.

The manual is OK. What do you want from Asian Techies. It's nothing like the folks at Zoom, but it's not as bad a Roland.

I can't count how many times I've whacked the faders and they're still as solid as the day I bought the unit. I love this work station.

Worth every penny. This thing is an engineering marvel.

If you don't need support, that's the best kind of support as far as I'm concerned.

The screen could have been bigger, editing data can get a little tedious after 10 hours, but what doesn't. I bought a fresnel lens and mounted it on a magnetic armature and it blows it right up, so that's no issue anymore.