Before this series, YAMAHA released a similar one: the "MOTIF ES." Now it "refines" its contents and brings us the "XS6," "XS7" and "XS8," with 61, 77 and 88 keys respectively, all of them with a "balanced hammer" effect (the feel we'd get playing the keys of a conventional piano). The one in my hands feels "somewhat soft" to me, which in turn makes for somewhat more agile or virtuosic playing. Let's get down to business.
Since the '60s, YAMAHA has produced many hugely successful electronic instruments, among which I'd mention the 1980 "PortaSound," its magnificent and still current "Clavinova," or the "DX-7" itself, which since 1983 has remained a major benchmark next to other companies' products, but above all among musicians who play electronic keyboards.
They've gone so far as to refine things for potential users by also equipping it with an adjustable "touch response function," allowing you to modify the expression of the initial and subsequent pressure applied to its keyboard.
MOTIF XS6
When I tested it on my workbench, I was told there were only two units of this model in Spain, including this one... So it's a brand-new prototype.
The other one is being used all over the world by Bert Smorenburg, a Dutchman from Rotterdam born in 1966, Yamaha's official demonstrator for these instruments. He masterfully left us speechless when he presented it at an exclusive premiere in the Sala Manuel de Falla at SGAE in Madrid on February 22. There he not only showed us the great capabilities of this new model, but proved that he's a real showman, entertaining and impressing us with his skills at every turn.
MOTIF XS6 features
With 128-note polyphony (top of the range) spread across 16 internal parts, it has 1,024 excellent preset voices or complete sounds, plus another 64 percussion ones, sampled in each case across the whole keyboard, each more surprising than the last and, in many cases, with a certain "authenticity" thanks to their subtle details. For example, in its "classical guitars" (and for each type of string) you can hear those little squeaks a guitarist's fingers make on the fingerboard when changing frets or chords. Also that special twang of the strings you hear when playing them fairly hard and moving on to pluck other strings.
The same goes for winds and brass (flutes, saxes, etc.), where you can even hear "the musician breathing" or those non-musical clicking sounds made when placing "the mouth" on the instrument, or, for example, those harmonics on the flute that in real life the musician gets by moving their mouth over the embouchure. And all of this also responds to the pressure we put on the keys, which corresponds to the effort made when playing "real instruments." Listening to the XS6's acoustic results, you often lose all sense of digital versus conventional instruments.
In my opinion, one of the best-achieved sounds here is the violins and, in particular, "solo violin," with that initial attack of the "bow on each string" and, shortly afterward, the "special vibrato" that violinists learn to produce on that historic instrument. Few competitors can achieve what Yamaha has managed here.
Practically every musical instrument you'd find in any musical ensemble is in this machine. It also stores many others, some reminiscent of its celebrated DX-7 and later models, with enormously rich harmonics and sumptuous effects. Others are even non-musical but spectacular, and will be useful for illustrating many soundtracks for productions of all kinds of stage events, film, television and other audiovisual media.
Its sound memory is 228 MB (in 16-bit format), with up to 2,670 different waveforms. In GM it has 128 voices, plus one more for percussion.
In addition to the preset sounds, it has a large number of banks that users can configure to their liking, copying parts of the presets but adjusting them to taste, thus creating up to 128 x 3 new "voices," plus the normal voice and 32 percussion kits.
Each voice or sound can be shaped with 18 types of filters, 22 different chorus types, nine reverbs, 53 insertion effects spread across eight blocks, nine effects, a five-band master equalizer, and three-band stereo EQ for its different parts.
For example, using the typical Hammond sound, which many synthesizers now include as a "classic," on the XS6 you can vary its harmonics, as is usually done on Hammond's own keyboards, something that usually isn't possible on competing instruments, using its eight knobs on the left, which can also be used in a host of other situations.
It has up to 1,024 waveforms (multisamples) and 128 key banks per waveform. Up to 4,096 key banks. Its main sampling rate is 44.1 kHz.
- It has a great built-in sequencer
- With capacity for about 130,000 notes and maximum polyphony of 124 notes.
- It supports overdubbing and real-time punch-in and punch-out.
- It works with up to 16 tracks, each with separately adjustable parameters, supporting up to 64 patterns (x 16 sections) of up to 256 measures
- It can store up to 64 songs.
It has a superb arpeggio system with 6,000 different preset types, plus another 256 user-adjustable types. This function is especially valued when using rhythm patterns, or in its special effects, even changing the harmonies depending on the keys we're pressing at any given moment. With its eight knobs on the left we can also adjust the tempo and other aspects of the process.
For each song you can make up to five different "final mix" settings and save each and every one of them in the provided "Scene Memories."
Internal software
The XS6 is fully configured and ready to work connected directly to a Windows PC, with Cubase 4 or Sonar 5.2. If you're working on a Macintosh system, it can work with Cubase 4, Logic 7.2 or Digital Performer 5.1. That's much of what most "master keyboards" usually do, while this machine also has the rest of the most common functions for working from a master keyboard with a computer, since it also has a modulation wheel, PITCH BEND, ribbon controllers, eight sliders (with assignable controls for each one), as well as eight more knobs with assignable functions and two more configurable buttons.
The keyboard comes with a companion disc for setting up its functions with our work computer, containing DAW software for both Windows and Macintosh, with technical support arranged by Yamaha for this machine with STEINBERG itself, which also works over the internet. The XS6 manuals can also be downloaded from Yamaha's website in PDF format and printed out, over 300 A4 pages, in many languages, including flawless Spanish.
Backlit color LCD screen
The screen sits in the center of the top panel and measures 5.7 inches, with 320 x 240 pixels. It displays a wide variety of information that changes constantly in real time. It has very good visual quality, and its contrast can be adjusted to suit our position. The screen has a single fixed, flat position. Personally, I miss being able to adjust its tilt the way Yamaha does on its Tyros2, which I find more practical.
When we need to see the sequencer's 16 tracks, the screen shows detailed information about the contents of each of those tracks, as when working in Cubase, for example; it also shows the functions for different mixes and a wide variety of settings.
With the right connectors
Almost all the connectors are on the back and support the most widely used standards on the market, for example for audio signal inputs and outputs, digital too, USB (two types) for linking to computers (better with the special IEEE1394 cable Yamaha has provided for this machine), and several types of pedals for controlling sounds and other functions with our feet. And of course MIDI in/out/thru, Ethernet, power input, etc.
Apart from the "standard stereo" line or audio output, it has others that can perform various functions, both for external sound monitors (and headphones) and for sending parts of the sound to specific processors, which can then be returned to the XS6 via other connections provided for that purpose, through which audio signals from microphones, guitars or other instruments can also come in and work together with the XS6. Several of the XS6's sounds have VOCODER effects so that, with our voice, we can add "song lyrics" when, for example, we use sounds that simulate "human voices."
* The MOTIF XS6 weighs 14.8 kg and measures 1,045 (width) x 391 (depth) x 122 (height) mm.
* It runs on 220 volts and consumes only 30 W.
