Motif XS7 review - Conclusion
Author: Vedran Dakic
Date: 20 Jan 2007

If I was to do a shallow direct comparison the M3 and Motif XS, I think it wouldn't be a tough choice. I mean, for the most part they are similar, with some pluses and minuses making the score a bit on Korg's side (Komponent System, Touchscreen, new synthesis, and some bits and pieces here and there). But if I was to look at the overall score with all of the technologies involved (Arpeggiators vs Karma included), the score goes bigtime on Korg's side. KARMA just makes M3 so much more valuable product - that much is obvious. And the sounds that I really like about M3, especially strings/orchestral stuff and more modernistic sounds are just plain amazing, whereas XS shines in the Sampling department, having up to 1GB of memory.

It's not a matter of being or not being a fan of Yamaha, Roland or Korg's stuff, it's just being realistic - I think Korg won this round in terms of technology and bang-for-the-buck. But Korg will have a hard time transferring that win to actual money-making if there should be any delays in M3 production. It's a bit late compared to XS as is so - they need that keyboard out, and soon. So, there's 4-5 more months before Korg starts making money on M3 and we expect that prices will be competitive. While waiting for that to happen, Yamaha will probably sell a nice number of XS's. With a couple of OS updates and nice addons, the XS will be a rather popular product.