Pianoteq 2.3 is out (major improvement) + Special Pricing

[mhschmieder]

FWIW, I compared the Motif XS side-by-side with the Kurzweil PC2X (which I once owned), this morning, as a sanity check. I still haven't had a chance to drive down to Redwood City to try the only Kurzweil PC3X in the SF Bay Area, so keep that in mind.

At the time that I owned both the Yamaha Motif ES and the Kurzweil PC2X, I found the latter way more expressive and organic sounding for piano, most orchestral instruments, and (with the expansion ROM) electric keys (but not organ -- I never cared for KB3 Mode as it sounded too abrasive).

The tables have turned, and literally the only things I still find superior about the PC2 are the French Horn (I always run it through the Mozart Horn Concerti test, for articulation and recovery), and the strings. Kurzweil strings are warmer, fuller, lusher, more realistic sounding, and more nuanced in their articulations and expression. Yet both Kurzweil and Yamaha are essentially processing the same (or related) sampling sessions from Seattle.

Back to piano, since that's what this thread is about, the added resonance effects borrowed from the S90 ES make a HUGE difference, and I find the acoustic pianos in the Motif XS to have more fluidity and realism than any sample libraries I have used, but I still prefer Pianoteq for its cohesiveness due to modeling vs. reconstructive layering.

I expect to have my Motif-Rack XS by end of June (I am pre-oredering from RMC Audio in Nashville today). It will be interesting to compare side-by-side with the GEM RP-x and also with Pianoteq. I may find that the Motif-Rack XS is all that I need for live purposes, hooked up to the Fatar Studiologic VMK188plus.

I haven't checked yet to see whether the Motif-Rack XS can accept Yamaha's half-damper pedal, but it may be that GEM's tri-pedals hooked up to the VMK188plus can transmit the correct MIDI CC's to the rack module via the MIDI cables.

Speaking of pedals, has anyone been successful yet in testing out Pianoteq's "fourth pedal", which is defaulted to emulate a staccato effect (the opposite of sostenuto, in some senses)? I tried a few months back, but currently only have a simple momentary switch (not even piano-style) while awaiting a back-order on the GEM tri-pedals.

[mhschmieder]

UPDATE: Just got off the phone with RMC Audio, and I am expected to be the first US customer for the Rack XS. It should arrive at their warehouse by Tuesday and at my workplace by the following Tuesday.

The only downer at the moment is that the voice editor for the rack isn't posted yet; just for the workstation. And for some bizarre reason, that one won't import from Motif-Rack ES Voice-Editor files; just from the workstation's voice-editor files. I may have to waste time bringing up both the Motif-Rack ES voice editor and Motif ES voice editor to re-save all of those files back into regular ES format, in order to import to the XS Rack.

[monkey man]

Wow. Lots of good news there, Mark; thank you.
I very much look forward (actually, that's an understatement) to hearing your thoughts once you've got that beastie in your hands for good.

Funny you should have mentioned the strings, 'cause the demos at Motifator have had me worried.
They're only ES patches, but they did sound rather awful to me - reminiscent of the mid 90s.
Given how crappy what I heard sounded, I momentarily considered hanging on to the Roland and fitting it with the Orch boards - that's how bad it sounded!

At this point it would be wonderful if you could allay my fears somewhat.
I realise it's not a Kurzweil and that the samples were only ES, but surely they can't be anywhere near that bad?
I figure I just need strings that'll cut clearly in pop/rock/R'nB mixes.

[mhschmieder]

Pianoteq has a 20% off sale during the month of December 2008.