YAMAHA MOTIF ES8 KEYBOARD (88-KEY)

[James]

All,

 

I've been out of the ex-demo/second hand gear market for a few years and I'm just wondering how much you reckon I should pay for a 2nd hand YAMAHA MOTIF ES8 ? (i'm finally fed up of my main controlloer keyboard the SY-85, and I want weighted keys/hammer action) I'm probably going to put some bids in on e-bay and just want to have a ball-park figure idea.

 

I think they cost about £1,800 new

 

 

Cheers,

[Shaney_R]

Fuck knows dude, but looks mint

[James]

OK I know I’m only new to E-Bay – but I’m a tad fooked off… I was told by a friend at work to wait until the last minute before upping my bid too much – with 12 minutes still to go someone can in £20 ahead of me and the bloomin seller immediately ended the bid early ! :@ He’s a twat as I would have paid another £100 on top – but WHY would someone close the bid early ??? Kind of defeats the object – unless it was a friend of his or this guy had really good ‘feedback’ etc. ??? I’ve been watching this auction all day and thought I had it in the bag.

 

I’m now bidding on the next model down from this but I’m certain the same bloody thing will happen again – so I’ve put in my ‘real’ maximum bid this time.

 

I’m still a bit unsure about E-Bay as there seem to be a load of scams going on there as well – one item (which is worth £2000 new) someone had bid £5000 for :s

 

*confused

 

[LiamStyles]

TBH James, I had a play with this at that sounds expo we went to last year and wasnt that impressed.

Depends what u want it for, if its the actual sounds you want then there are plenty better out there for you to buy.

[James]

Liam,

 

No its not really the sounds I'm after as I've got quite a few virtual instruments now. I've just always been impressed with the Yamaha sequencers and after viewing the training DVD of this beast I'm amazed at what it can do. I'm all for Cubase etc but sometimes I just wanna switch on just 2 things and start playing and knocking something up quickly. I also desperately want another main keyboard, larger with weighted keys ideally anyway.

 

They've put quite a lot of new stuff into this beast like the phrase factory arpeggiator which is really cool for knocking up ideas quickly. I'm also really impressed with its real time control as ever.

 

I know there is also the Triton Extreme and the Roland V-Synth (not a workstation I know) ? If you have any suggestions let me know.

 

I'll be posting about my E-Bay experiences seperately soon - what a waste of fecking time that was !

[LiamStyles]

A fellow hardware sequencing fan! YAY! Good stuff

 

Granted the onboard seq on this is cool, and with what youve just posted reguards what u want, then I think this would be ideal. Some of the new specs are pretty wikid, it was just the sounds that I wasnt really impressed with.

[Mr Moo]

James, I knew you was into your "producing", but you sound very much in "the know" and very experienced about it... but still never heard any of your productions...

[James]

Moo,

 

I'm still learning, I've still not sold my house yet and until then (its on the market) I cant properly kit out a dedicated room again. I should be moving in the next 2 months now so I'm researching what new kit I need - I dont need that much but after testing several proper digital pianos i've noticed a much bigger improvement in my playing style so am deffo getting a full size hammer action keyboard - on looking further I decided £3-4000 was a shite load of money and if i'm spending that I'd rather put it into a newer synth. I'm also looking at amps and a new set of monitors. I've just ordered a new Dell XPS Gen4 purely for music this week - before I was relying on my work laptop to run Cubase and my VSTis as my current desktop (P2) couldnt handle shit.

 

So the ball is firmly rolling again and this time it wont be one weekend every 2 months I get to practice, it will be a few nights a week (work permitting!)

 

I've realised that to get to be doing what you REALLY want to be doing in life you have to go through several jobs and ups and downs before you are even in the correct environment or have the money to do so. This 'ideal' environment is arriving shortly - there will be no distractions and i'm finally on top of work. I am also hoping to get onto an evening course of some kind but this will depend on work again, I know Mark has been on one and they are quite expensive but the coverage is extensive. That said I'm reading a load of magazines still but the basics I already have and what I love most is just creating new chord sequences and melodies (not necessarily dance, in fact mostly just easy listening stuff!). I'm also buying a digital full size Yamaha drum kit off a mate at work - now that should be fun, I used to have lessons at boarding school along with the guitar (which i never got on with!), but my dad never allowed a full size kit - this option is perfect for me as you can fold it away as well - plus i can obviously trigger ANY kind of sample I want and I know it will be great for setting up my own patterns from scratch rather than trying to programming drums through a tracker (which I'm useless at). I MUCH prefer the hands on / live stuff to be honest, which is another reason i prefer the hardware sequencers (same reasons liam does). Yeah there are a shit load of features in say SX but most of the time I can do what I need through just one bit of hardware, another main reason i was using the synth more was because as I said my current pc couldnt handle more than one VSTi very well and certainly couldnt layer different effects to different tracks properly, whereas i could modify and record all this in real time on my synth. I think what I really need to get however (once the new PC arrives) is a proper midi controller with all the knobs and sliders you need - I saw some wicked ones at the last music show i went to but they were about 300-400 which seemed a lot for a controller, maybe they have come down now.

 

I would imagine in the next 1-2 months I should have a few things to upload if you are interested but as i say they are hardly ever 'completed' tunes (in terms of mastering AND structure) as this is what I want to (one day) learn properly. I am definitely keen to create tunes which are not based on samples or extracts from any other tunes - what interests me most is making something which sounds half decent almost by 'accident' and then taking this further.. and maybe ending up with a library of my own original stuff which I can THEN put an original full piece together with. I think the worst thing you can do as well is to be listening to other stuff whilst you are trying to write your own, so quite often when trying to write something the only CD I have playing in the car is my library of stuff which I can review and tweak at the next sitting.

 

Its frustrating that most of the things I choose to do in life are stop-start - as i'm someone who wants to do everything, but then never gets anything done. I've finally decided that music IS the area i now want to concentrate on more fully and its only now that i'm in a position to invest in it as i now have the time and the money.

 

I post about synths etc in here in the hope that there may be other people out there into this stuff, THE main reason i set this section up. I have friends in bands in Brighton into this but it would be IDEAL to know a few people more local and perhaps take the odd bit of kit round to experiment with and work together on - i've found sitting with a mate for a day can REALLY speed up your knowledge, that said its kind of nice finding out everything for yourself and developing your own unique methods at getting the job done. However I'm sure I'm going about things in a very long winded un-necessary way, especially in the mastering arena - this really BORES me to be honest as its not actually 'making music', but probably because I dont fully understand how to perfect it propery

 

I did upload something a while back (Here) but since then had no fecking time to do anything apart from getting on the keyboard for 20 minutes to play the same old tunes i always play. Pointless me uploading anything else as the main comments were that the production was shite and i've made 0 progress in this area lol. In the last two weeks I've started to look into stuff properly again and realised that 'if I only had this or that' sorted out (mainly a dedicated music pc, which I ordered last Friday) then i'd actually get something done.

[fifedjdomo]

u sure do write a lot.

i canny be arsed readin it lol

uh good luck n i hope for the best for ya

[James]

FYI - this is the toy I'm getting - should be a laugh

 

[LiamStyles]

Now that I would love to have a go at!!!!!!

 

Triggering percussion samples from that would be so much more fun that a step sequencer, or even playing them in on a keyboard.

Real "live drum" sound.

 

I WANT ONE!

[James]

EXACTLY mate - I'm not blowing my own trumpet but when it comes to time keeping and being able to knock out a pattern for 'real' I can, but I never got into step sequencers much - I always preferred to literally tap the keyboard to trigger the samples - this thing will be fooking perfect as i'll be able to trigger anything i want and truly lay down what is going on in my head in real time

 

liam - once i get my new pad and room kitted out (studio if you will lol) you can come over for an extended weekend and we'll have some fun - by then i should have all this new gear - just looking at mixers now (still currently using my fecking dj mixer lol)

[James]

By the way I'm getting the mark II of the above not the mark III - these range from 800-1000 new (I wouldnt pay that!), so getting this one 2nd hand off a mate at work (all mint cond. of course, less than a year old) for £400 !

 

I didnt even realise it came with its own sound generator with shit loads of kicks, including some wicked dance ones pre-set (and of course its own mini-seq with factory & user patterns etc..)

[LiamStyles]

It sounds ACE man! tbh its nothing something i had ever thought of buying - but now since you've mentioned it, I really like the idea.