Key Action on MOX6

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Hi, I just checked the keys on the Motif XS6 and I was wondering if the MOX6 has the same type of keyboard ?

I like the little resistance you feel on this keyboard, similar to the Korg M1.

Why are they different than most keyboards ? even they are not Weighted like the 88 keyboards ?

Any info on this type of keyboard will be greatly appreciated.
 
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have you contacted yamaha and asked them your questions? I think they are probably in the position to give you the best answer. All we could do here is speculate.

If you ping their facebook page you can engage interactively with "the Hub". They should be able to answer your exact questions
 
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If you are looking for user experience, check with the guys over on the motifator.com forum. That's where all the Yamaha workstation guru's hang out. This much I can tell you - I had a Motif XS6 several years ago and I tried a MOX6 several months ago at Guitar Center and they did not use the same keybed. The XS6 was their top of the line 61 key workstation of several years ago and the MOX6 is a lower MOTL or upper entry level unit. So there is/was a big difference in price between those two units. The MOX6 is a nice board, but it is not an XS6. The learning curve on the XS6 would also be a lot steeper than on the MOX6. When they say that the MOX6 uses the Motif sound engine, you have to qualify that. Quite often the sound samples are truncated in order to save sample ROM space and the pre-amps, amps, and D/A - A/D converters are of less expensive design. Here again, there is nothing wrong with that, but the cost difference has to be offset somewhere.
 
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If you are looking for user experience, check with the guys over on the motifator.com forum. That's where all the Yamaha workstation guru's hang out. This much I can tell you - I had a Motif XS6 several years ago and I tried a MOX6 several months ago at Guitar Center and they did not use the same keybed. The XS6 was their top of the line 61 key workstation of several years ago and the MOX6 is a lower MOTL or upper entry level unit. So there is/was a big difference in price between those two units. The MOX6 is a nice board, but it is not an XS6. The learning curve on the XS6 would also be a lot steeper than on the MOX6. When they say that the MOX6 uses the Motif sound engine, you have to qualify that. Quite often the sound samples are truncated in order to save sample ROM space and the pre-amps, amps, and D/A - A/D converters are of less expensive design. Here again, there is nothing wrong with that, but the cost difference has to be offset somewhere.

Thanks Ted that's the answer I was looking for.

Will you be able to tell if the keybed on the MOX6 is descent enough ?
In my case I will feel the Korg x-50 like a spongy keybed,
and a Korg Krome 61 or Roland JV-30 like a descent semi weighted keybed.

Thanks
 
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That's kind a a tough one. Keybed feel is like keyboard sound. It is so subjective from one person to the next. So I will just state my impressions and try not to sound like I am postulating any absolutes.

The day I tried out the MOX6, I had gone there specifically to get the Roland Juno-Gi. I was really after that plethora of acoustic and electric piano voices in the Gi, but wanted to look at the MOX6, in case I didn't like the Gi after all. For many years, I have played keyboards of all different values and have become quite tolerant of keybed feel, but keybed feel was the first thing I noticed when comparing the Gi with the MOX. The MOX feel was not what I would have expected from a $1200 keyboard and was not on par with the $900 Gi. It was not "bad", and would not have kept me from buying the board, but it just was not what I expected. You mention the JV-30. I had a JV-80 for many years and wish I still had it, but I don't think the JV-30's keybed was on par with the JV-80, and my impression of the MOX was that its keybed is not on par with the JV-80, but this may be an unfair comparison. I truly believe that design and production investment and quality control in keybeds was far better in the JV-80's era than today. Now, as far as overall, if I had the money and the room, I would have the MOX6 right here in the studio right now. I would love to have access to those XS sounds without the investment in funds and weight and size of a full blown XS6 or XF6.

Hope the helps. Good luck on your choice.
 
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That's kind a a tough one. Keybed feel is like keyboard sound. It is so subjective from one person to the next. So I will just state my impressions and try not to sound like I am postulating any absolutes.

The day I tried out the MOX6, I had gone there specifically to get the Roland Juno-Gi. I was really after that plethora of acoustic and electric piano voices in the Gi, but wanted to look at the MOX6, in case I didn't like the Gi after all. For many years, I have played keyboards of all different values and have become quite tolerant of keybed feel, but keybed feel was the first thing I noticed when comparing the Gi with the MOX. The MOX feel was not what I would have expected from a $1200 keyboard and was not on par with the $900 Gi. It was not "bad", and would not have kept me from buying the board, but it just was not what I expected. You mention the JV-30. I had a JV-80 for many years and wish I still had it, but I don't think the JV-30's keybed was on par with the JV-80, and my impression of the MOX was that its keybed is not on par with the JV-80, but this may be an unfair comparison. I truly believe that design and production investment and quality control in keybeds was far better in the JV-80's era than today. Now, as far as overall, if I had the money and the room, I would have the MOX6 right here in the studio right now. I would love to have access to those XS sounds without the investment in funds and weight and size of a full blown XS6 or XF6.

Hope the helps. Good luck on your choice.
Thanks again for taking the time to answer my questions. I remember the JV-80 and you are right, that was the top of the JV line at that time (including the workstation JW-50) and its keybed was much better than the jv-30 but I couldn't afford it at that time. But the JV-80 was a nice solid Keybed, I just tried the KORG KROSS 61, and the keys just feel like a cheap CASIO Lighted Keyboard, so sad, I just wonder how much money can a company save by ignoring a decent 61 keybed. Roland is offering a weighted keybed on a "RD64" portable. But I'm looking for something with sequencer capabilities.
 
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Ummm ! How I remember those days !

I bought the JW-50 a couple of years after I got the JV-80 because I liked the idea of the diskette drive, plus it had a way of generating backing track rhythms, but the process was really cumbersome. Its keybed was not as good as the JV-80, but it was useable. The biggest disappointment was the Sound Canvas SC-55 voice set they used in it. They were really thin. I used to run the thing at top volume just to get any sound out of it. That's how I got the SC-88 that I am still using now connected to my PC. I velcro'd it to the flat top of the diskette drive. It was canted inward toward the player. It looked really neat, like it really meant business. I used to get a lot of comments on it. I did not use its voices with the JW-50's. I just turned the JW-50's volume all the way down and just used the SC-88. It had all the drive I needed and more. A couple years after that, I traded the JV and the JW in on my first 76 key board - the JV-1000 with its dual 16 track sequencers and dual 16 part multi-timbral sound sources, which I think were just glorified SC-88's, but it had a great keybed, and you could orchestrate 32 track MIDI files that wouldn't quit.

Anyway, I do wish I had some good suggestions for you, but with the current mix of things, you can't judge by price what you are going to get and with dealers not stocking full lines so you can try things out, you could be ordering and returning keyboards for the next six months and still not come up with what you want/need/like.

Best of luck anyway, though !
 
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Ummm ! How I remember those days !

I bought the JW-50 a couple of years after I got the JV-80 because I liked the idea of the diskette drive, plus it had a way of generating backing track rhythms, but the process was really cumbersome. Its keybed was not as good as the JV-80, but it was useable. The biggest disappointment was the Sound Canvas SC-55 voice set they used in it. They were really thin. I used to run the thing at top volume just to get any sound out of it. That's how I got the SC-88 that I am still using now connected to my PC. I velcro'd it to the flat top of the diskette drive. It was canted inward toward the player. It looked really neat, like it really meant business. I used to get a lot of comments on it. I did not use its voices with the JW-50's. I just turned the JW-50's volume all the way down and just used the SC-88. It had all the drive I needed and more. A couple years after that, I traded the JV and the JW in on my first 76 key board - the JV-1000 with its dual 16 track sequencers and dual 16 part multi-timbral sound sources, which I think were just glorified SC-88's, but it had a great keybed, and you could orchestrate 32 track MIDI files that wouldn't quit.

Anyway, I do wish I had some good suggestions for you, but with the current mix of things, you can't judge by price what you are going to get and with dealers not stocking full lines so you can try things out, you could be ordering and returning keyboards for the next six months and still not come up with what you want/need/like.

Best of luck anyway, though !
Had the same issue with the JW-50, I called Roland directly and they guide me through a tedious step by step programming in order of obtaining more volume from the inside sounds and it worked. The bad thing about it was that such program had to be saved on the 3½" diskette and be loaded every time I had to use the keyboard and that didn't look reliable to me. Without adding that programming I literally had to slam the keys to get a decent volume. Try to exchange it for the JV-80 but money was the issue so that's how I ended up with a JV-30 and later on a MC-50MKII :). Well, those times are gone same as home place NJ, now I'm stock in SC. They have good CASIOs at Walmart :)
 
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How about the PC3 LE6 from Kurzweil ?
I have never played one before, is this an option with good samples and good Keybed ? Jv-80 alike ?
Where are they made ?
 

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I believe Kurzweils are made by Young Chang in South Korea.

I own a PC3K8 with a fully weighted hammer action keybed. This is something I was not used to coming from playing synth style keys for the past 15 years, but one thing that saved me from total despair is the ability to adjust the keyboard velocity curve and aftertouch pressure curve to my liking. My Korg TR76 had the same feature and even there I adjusted it to a lighter touch.

Both the Korg and the Kurz have 7 different velocity curve settings so remember when you try one out in the store, there is an adjustment you can make to the amount of force required to play notes of a certain volume.

I've been doing a lot of tweaking on my PC3K since I first got it. Out of the box, the volume levels are low, the drum maps are all wrong and the velocity and pressure curves were way too hard. All of these parameters are adjustable from the OS controls.

Now that I'm getting familiar with the OS and finding all of these adjustments I'm gradually moulding it to my liking.

So next time you audition a keyboard, ask what adjustments are available and how to make them so you can really try and see if the keyboard really is or is not a good fit for your playing style.

Gary
 

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