AUGH! Roland RD-700 or Yamaha Motif?

[Qasper]

Hi. I was a pianist (or peenist as my sister so aptly calls me) before anything else, and started my search with "find best piano play and sound" in mind. But oh, how things have changed.

The best piano (and strings! wow!!) I've met so far are in the RD-700. Bar none. BUT:

I am David Grey's little brother and Massive Attack's cousin. Basically your run-of-the-mill singer-songwriter, acoustic and electric guitarist, fretless bass and djembe jammer, dumping track after track on my VS-1880. I need the best piano I can find, since some of my songs have a Tori Amos feel to them (and therefore need more than the old Casio sound). BUT:

I've wanted to arrange my material with electronica for ever. Adding colours, ambience and drive to always-acoustic (or just about) tracks. Fusing folk and beats. Enter Motif 8...

Problem is, Motif's piano sounds about as elegant as a muffled 200$ upright. And the piano expansion card offers many more examples of the same muff. Ok, not quite. But it won't cut it.

The dilemma is a biggie. I'm looking at getting my hands on Roland's XV-3080 with the orchestral piano sound card which makes the RD-700 such a pleasure, then controlling it with the Motif 8... Makes for a big bill, but I've got the cash for it.

Call me stupid, but I want it all.
Suggestions?

- Q -

 

[Roel]

What's left to say...

The motif's piano sounds really do suck... They even don't have the beating that's so typical for a piano, just a static pong. It might be usable in a complete mix, but not in a solo or duo situation.

I haven't heard the RD700 yet. But I own the A90; which has good piano sounds... Listened to the XV88 too, which sounded too thin for average solo/duo-thingies. Didn't hear the expansion board...

Well, if you got the money, and you already made up your mind, go ahead... The yamaha is a nice tool, sequencer, sampler, lotsa rom sounds,... The XV3080 is also a very nice tool, even more rom sounds. But it's alot of money indeed...

 

[struberg]

Why not buying an old used Akai S1000 and a Sample CD full of Bösendorfer?
This duo beats all built in ROM sounds i know...

 

[Roel]

Well... The yamaha comes with a built in sampler... So you just need the sample CD and a SCSI CD-drive. (Some Plextors work with the VS1880, or the Roland will work as a SCSI drive too...)

Don't know how good the quality of the sampler in the motif is.

And you also have to load the samples everytime you turn it on... But that is a small price to pay compared to the XV3080.

 

[struberg]

i think you can get an S3000 with included Effect board for under 700USD on ebay.
Anyhow, if you use a mac than i suggest to use a SCSI ZIP drive as sampling media. You also can use it on your PC via a cheap SCSI card and copy the sample programs from your cd to zip, cause it is much easier to handle an singel zip for your arrangements than feeding 7 different cd-roms at startup to fit your whole sprectrum.

A question to all Motif users: The SCSI interface of the Yamaha EX5 was fuckin slow, so i hope things have changed, did they?

 

[smooth_mix]

I just bought a MOTIF 8 (first synth) don't know yet about the SCSI speed because I'm in the process of figuring out which type to get. It says SCSI II 50 pin. do I need to know anything else???? I am new to this any help would be greatly appreciated. Also I saw you mention SCSI CD and SCSI Zip. What is the best SCSI device to use? As long as it's not completely outrageous in price, I want to get the best.


smooth

 

[Skyline609]

I have been researching that dilema for so long...heres what ive set my heart on.
get the rd-700 the feel is awesome, and they key is its Piano SRX expansion... the rd accepts SRX cards.. the rd and the xv 88 pianos pretty much sound exactly the same...good but thin. However, the SRX is amazing! hands down, its probably the best piano ive EVER heard on ANY board. And the rd is affordable, only get for 1799 rather then a hefty 2399 for the Roland XV-88....expansions are 300 usually... Check it out

rock on