I need your honest opinion

and i returned the xs because the sounds are not for my music at all... i think the g6 is way more for me.. i just wanted to have the original motif cuz i love the piano and its an 8... the xs was a 6... so why not have the motif 8 and a fantom g6... best of both worlds.... the xs was still nice i like it but for extra 800 .. no not for me... and its not even the money so much... its more of what i need boss...

Ok, but I still think that having two boards in a studio is an overkill. If you want the motif 8 so much, I'd also look on the SonicCell module. It's not quite the Fantom G, but the sound should be similar and you could expand it with srx expansion cards, with those sound are best suited for your music. It should still be cheaper than the Fantom G.
Having two workstations next to Logic doesn't make much sense to me, whether you like working with vst or not.

sorry mojkarma, I guess I am defining the word "overkill" for you as I have 20 keyboards setup in my studio.

Here my Honest Opinion"

Motif XS, for rock & pop music, with great arranger type patterns to inspire

Fantom G, for any music, as long as your a planning to develop the parts and pieces for yourself.

M3, for Dance Music or Pop.

I think they all sound great are more or less suited to any style of music, beyond that it is the feature set and work flow, that will make the difference.

Alrighty. I'll jump in here.

I had the Fantom G7 and sold it roughly 6 months after I had it. I had my reasons, but the full extent of why I didn't care for the Fantom came a few years later when I got the Motif XF. Quite simply, the Motif XS(XF) has greater flexibility when paired with a computer. I'll get into that in a moment, but what mojkarma is saying is spot on. Having more than one keyboard is cumbersome and a pain to deal with, so why not get the best keyboard I could get that can do everything I want it to do inside and outside the computer. My reasoning is below:

Remote Mode - Hands down, this is the best thing ever for controlling a DAW I've seen in a hardware workstation. It utilizes the Mackie Protocol and allows you to use all the buttons, sliders, transport controls and knobs on the Motif to control your DAW and VSTs thereby getting rid of all the pain of dealing with a mouse to control devices. It is funny, but it's almost like my Motif turns into a hardware Omnisphere / Komplete 7 keyboard when I want it to. Extremely intuitive and very very powerful.

FW16E - Wow... This thing... A firewire interface that allows my Motif to become the sound card of my computer. Now I know the Fantom G can do this, but does it have 16 outs and 6 returns? Nope. This opens up soooooo many possibilities. You have 8 discrete stereo busses or a combination of stereo / mono inputs which equal 16 your DAW. You now have the capability to route specific voices (or patches) to different busses which can have their own VST insert effects, send effects, volume, etc.

All this with the included VST editor it becomes very seemless, unlike anything I've ever used. I realize you don't like using VSTs that much, but if you spent some more time with your XS hooked up to your computer with the FW16E, I think you would be very surprised at what you can do with it.

Less is more.

honestly for hip hop , rnb, top 40 dancy music this keyboard is much better for it then the motif xs... my opinion... its just me.. and alot of other hip hop producers will tell u the same thing...

and its not an overkill dude.. i love the piano on the motif and i hate it on the fantom... its not as nice to my style of music... same with some other things... and it creates inspiration to me it really does...

Hi,
The Yamaha Motif does get a better review than the Fantom G series however at the end of the day you need to try out both if you can and make your own decisions. Whichever one you choose then i'm sure it will be great as all modern synth/workstations are state of the art technology and sound fantastic.

What does everybody really think about Artemiy's new glasses?

What does everybody really think about Artemiy's new glasses?

I like em,wish i had a pair.

Capital Skill

Hate to say this, sRa, on Artemiy they bring out the color of his eyes. On you, they just look goofy.

Rats! You're right, of course! Artemiy does have beautiful eyes . . . uhhh . . . not that I've ever noticed before!

Like you, I am a huge reason fan and have been since the day it came out. I do almost strictly hip hop and just sold my fantom g and got an xs in its place. The sounds are much better suited for hip hop in my eyes, simply because there are so many redundant sounds on the g. You won't notice it until you spend some time with it. The workflow on the fantom g had potential to be great but the sequencer limitations, and the sampling and phrase situation are absolute garbage for how i work, which makes its limited computer connectivity even worse in that regard. Dont let the mouse fool you, it serves pretty much no purpose, as the button presses are faster. I think the fantom g might be one of the greatest live instruments on the planet but as far as studio use and "workstationism" so to speak, its below the motif and its not close. Not to mention the absolute bastard step child treatment it gets from roland compared to the seemingly infinite support available to yamaha users. The sad thing is, Roland would be outselling Yamaha and Korg combined if they hadn't approached the G with such a half ass effort. The potential is limitless but far from reached. The g is a glorified sound module. Just my opinion. Igglethorpe hit the nail on the head. Dont get me wrong, the g has a lot of great features and sounds, and I would have kept it if finances permitted but functionality is key for me. Motif defecates on the g in that regard.