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INDUSTRY INSIDER
WHY NO PLG EXPANSION BOARDS?
There’s no question that some fans of Yamaha keyboards are going to feel left out in the cold by the fact that the Motif XS series does not accept Yamaha’s line of PLG sound expansion boards. These were the cornerstone of what Yamaha called the “Modular Synthesis Plug-in System” introduced with the S80 and continued through the S90, S90ES, Motif “Classic,” and Motif ES. The idea was that you could turn one of these instruments into any kind of synthesizer you needed by installing up to three of the desired boards.
Okay, so with 1GB of sample RAM in the XS, plus how easy Yamaha makes it to store sample-based user Voices on a USB drive or Ethernet-connected computer, we likely won’t miss the ROMpler-type expansions. But there were also boards that added genuine virtual analog, FM synthesis, vocal harmony, and even the acoustic modeling pioneered by Yamaha’s VL synths — ask any horn player with a wind controller, and he or she will tell you that to this day, nobody else gets this right.
We asked Yamaha’s Avery Burdette, a senior product manager who’s been with the company for over 20 years, what’s up with this, and got a candid reply.
“When the new chip was developed for the XS, it was deemed to be a significant improvement in sound quality, so much that the sample-based PLG expansion boards were no longer appropriate,” he explains, “As far as the boards based on genuine alternate synth technologies are concerned — the analog and VL boards, for example — frankly, we realize that there is a group of very passionate users of the alternative technology PLG boards out there, but if the demand for them had been as strong as that passion, we would be having a very different discussion.”
“As it stands, we do make other products for musicians who want those technologies. The S90ES and Motif Rack ES take PLG boards, and the VL70-m sound module is where our acoustic modeling lives. The PLG technology was developed quite a while ago, and to bring it up to the level of XS will require us to completely rethink the entire concept. We hope that the suggestions and requests become so numerous that we have no choice but to do so!”
article from KEYBOARD Magazine
WHY NO PLG EXPANSION BOARDS?
There’s no question that some fans of Yamaha keyboards are going to feel left out in the cold by the fact that the Motif XS series does not accept Yamaha’s line of PLG sound expansion boards. These were the cornerstone of what Yamaha called the “Modular Synthesis Plug-in System” introduced with the S80 and continued through the S90, S90ES, Motif “Classic,” and Motif ES. The idea was that you could turn one of these instruments into any kind of synthesizer you needed by installing up to three of the desired boards.
Okay, so with 1GB of sample RAM in the XS, plus how easy Yamaha makes it to store sample-based user Voices on a USB drive or Ethernet-connected computer, we likely won’t miss the ROMpler-type expansions. But there were also boards that added genuine virtual analog, FM synthesis, vocal harmony, and even the acoustic modeling pioneered by Yamaha’s VL synths — ask any horn player with a wind controller, and he or she will tell you that to this day, nobody else gets this right.
We asked Yamaha’s Avery Burdette, a senior product manager who’s been with the company for over 20 years, what’s up with this, and got a candid reply.
“When the new chip was developed for the XS, it was deemed to be a significant improvement in sound quality, so much that the sample-based PLG expansion boards were no longer appropriate,” he explains, “As far as the boards based on genuine alternate synth technologies are concerned — the analog and VL boards, for example — frankly, we realize that there is a group of very passionate users of the alternative technology PLG boards out there, but if the demand for them had been as strong as that passion, we would be having a very different discussion.”
“As it stands, we do make other products for musicians who want those technologies. The S90ES and Motif Rack ES take PLG boards, and the VL70-m sound module is where our acoustic modeling lives. The PLG technology was developed quite a while ago, and to bring it up to the level of XS will require us to completely rethink the entire concept. We hope that the suggestions and requests become so numerous that we have no choice but to do so!”
article from KEYBOARD Magazine
