Just saw the video on the Motif XS on HC. It's going to be interesting how many of their patches contain full 8 elements - that will REALLY decrease the polyphony!!!!
As expected, Yamaha and Roland are taking their voices up one notch to compete with softsamplers by adding their articulation function. However, from what I can see from the video, the Motif XS articulation triggers are 2 assignable buttons that are the Yamaha standard small plastic rectangular buttons we all know so well (since the days of SY77/99). A few worries here:
1. 2 buttons means only 2 alternate articulations per patch which means they are limited even with all their future expansion cards. Softsamplers use the keyboard itself to trigger alternate articulations which means we can have lots more articulations per voice. But I imagine hardware are also limited by their no. of elements/patch. So it's understandable - keyboards will always be memory limited.
2. When we use articulations, we trigger them quite often when playing and sequencing. Using their standard plastic buttons means that the buttons is going to wear out pretty quickly. I'm sure all Yamaha keyboard users will know - most of those buttons when used too often tend to get into problems of wear and tear. I never liked their plastic buttons. The location of the buttons seems reasonable - towards the left, although I would prefer them to be a little closer to the keys themselvs (like closer to the areas of the wheels).
Otherwise, nice graphic interface and definitely an inprovement of their acoustic sounds. Can't wait to try on one and feel/listen to it it first-hand.
