I have been in the hunt for a new keyboard. My last one was a Roland XP-30, which was at least 10 years old. Since “contemporary” changes by the moment, I felt it was time to upgrade my sounds pallette, so thus the search began. I was taken by the Yamaha MM6, the “Mini Mo” as they call it, as it has many of the sounds that their flagship Motif series has. I had demo-ed it a few times in the store and it sounded great, was fun to play, really made composing easy. But maybe too easy. I think this model is aimed at those with fairly limited musical abiliy. Not that I am any sort of piano virtuoso, but I did not need the keyboard to tell me what arrangements to use, what rhythms to use, etc. In short, it felt like cheating a bit, and anything I produced on this I felt I could not take credit for. Then I happened on the Yamaha MO 6. This has the same great sounds as the Motif, plus it is a “real” workstation / arranger, much like the Motif. Guitar Center had the floor model on sale for $799, and Yamaha was offering a $100 rebate, which would have made this around $700. The cheapest I saw it anywhere else was $1200. The only thing better than a great keyboard is a great keyboard at a great price!! So I snagged it.
Along with all the sophistication of this keyboard comes a steep learning curve. Sure, I was able to call up voices and performance patches and play to my hearts content. But the real feature of this keyboard is its ability to compose (up to) 16 track arrangements. You create a pattern, then ad everything you need -drums, bass, keys, pads, etc. This has taken me a few days to get my head around, and slowly but surely I am figuring this thing out. I have been using Reason 3.0 for a while, which is really easy to use. But, with my slower laptop (even my wifes faster laptop which she graciously traded me), it still ran sluggish. In short, Reason is a computer resource hog, and unless you have a new and speey computer, you cannot use it to its full extent. That is a big reason why I went with a stand alone keyboard like the MO 6. I am getting tired of downloading drivers, system hangs and crashes, etc. that come along with computer based music stuff (if you read my review on the Zoom site you will see this rationale for going stand alone with my recording gear as well). So, the Mo has all the contemporary sounds I need, the arranging workstation so I can work out songs, and it DOES NOT CRASH! Never. Not once. Nada. Zip. Zilch. While it is taking time to learn, the end result will (hopefully) be much less frustration. This unit really rocks. The more I learn it, the funner it gets. I was up till almost 1AM last night creating aswesome sounding compositions. Now, if I can just figure out how to record them! That will be my next learning task…
Here is a link to a cool demo of the MO 6. Hopefully I will be able to post some of my own compositions in the near future (I do not plan on making dance music :0
7 responses so far ↓
1 Laptop Reviews » Yamaha MO 6 // Oct 24, 2007 at 4:17 pm
[...] Welcome! wrote an interesting post today on Yamaha MO 6Here’s a quick excerpt I have been in the hunt for a new keyboard. My last one was a Roland XP-30, … laptop (even my wifes faster laptop which she graciously traded me), it still ran sluggish. In short [...]
2 Marisela // Oct 23, 2008 at 5:46 pm
Keep up the good work.
3 LK // Apr 28, 2009 at 10:32 pm
I presently have a Korg Triton Extreme which I have enjoyed for the past four years. However, I need a light weight keyboard. I have narrowed my search to the Mo6 and the Roland Juno G. Would you provide the pros and cons of each instrument? The information would be greatly appreciated.
4 admin // May 4, 2009 at 9:58 am
LK,
As far as I can tell these are very similar, both are full workstations, your standard pallette of sounds - keys, pads, synths, etc. and the ability to sequence a 16 trakc song. The main difference I can tell is that the Roland also has a 4 track audio recorder, so you can add live vox, guitar, etc to your sequenced track. This seems like a very nice feature to me. I used to have a Roland xp30, really liked it, good sounds (no sequencing though), so I I know Roland makes quality stuff. I wanted a workstation so that is why I got the Yamaha. Yamaha sounds are really excellent, if you are a skilled keyboard player (and I am not really) than you can make beautiful music on them. So it seems like the main difference (besides price) will be the additional audio ability of the Roland. If you, like I do, do your audio using a DAW then this may not be much of a draw, but I can see how it would be useful for doing scratch tracks etc without having to fire up your PC. Good luck, thanks for viewing.
5 Crystal // Jun 7, 2009 at 4:02 pm
Hello there,
I’ve had my MO6 for a few months now and I’ve been trying to figure out how to record songs onto it. I’ve read the manual thousands of times and I’ve had others take a look at the manual also. However, they too could not figure it out! So if it would be alright if you could help me out on the basics of recording I would GREATLY appreciate it! My email is crystal757652@hotmail.com if you could help me out. Thanks!
6 LK // Jun 7, 2009 at 8:07 pm
Thanks so much for the comments. I am now considering the Roland Juno Stage. What do you think of the sounds on this keyboard? Can midi the Juno Stage to my Extreme and use its sounds? Thanks Lk
7 admin // Jun 8, 2009 at 10:32 am
I have not played the Juno Stage, but the demo sounds on the Roland site sound excellent, particularly the bread-and-butter keyboard sounds (piano, e-piano, wurly, etc.). It does have semi-wighted keys, a big plus over the MO. But, it is not a workstation, so you can not build up arrangements. I think if you want a live keyboard this is very good, more of a players keyboard. If you want to build tracks, studio stuff, create new sounds, the MO is probably better. It does have midi out so will be able to trigger any midi device like the Exteme.
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