My trusty Kawai MP9000 has started to behave erratically, I'm having to switch it off and on too many times these days, I think it's finally time for it to begin a wellearned retirement. So while I consider a replacement I decided to buy myself a temporary standin, a 15 year old, halfbroken Yamaha Motif XS. Well I didn't buy it knowingly half broken but that's another story....

So this is my first ever Yamaha workstation, I've owned Roland's and Korg's in the past, and I must say that finally after getting some sound out of it I'm loving the "real world" instrument factory samples on the XS; things like acoustic and electric pianos, acoustic guitars, saxes and horns. Must admit I'm not loving the synth presets at all, I think I need to try to program some of my own.

But in the meantime, this video is a jam that basically just fell out the very first time I played this Motif XS, the sampled presets just filled me with inspiration and this song was basically the result. Let me know what you think of the sounds, and what your favourite workstation is. Do you own a more recent Motif model, and if so would you say it is definitely worth the upgrade? Looking forward to reading your comments! :)

All video reproduced here is available for viewing and download on YouTube under Creative Commons licence. The soundtrack is my own creation and protected by copyright.