I think people praise what they can't attain. If you have access to vstis and refills, the last thing that should impress you about a Motif or Fantom is the sound bank.
definitely agree man, I think it's all psychological. I've had the hardware, the one thing I love about it is the ease with which you can get through sounds and lay stuff down, the "no load time" is why many people have them in studios and on stage.
But when it comes to quality, for the prices of a motif or fantom, I can pick specific vst instruments that are dedicated to a specific sound and come out much better than an "all around" module.
SaintJoe, I totally agree. That's why i have been toying with the idea of buying a Motif rack. I love the sound but I am wondering if it is because it is what I know and am familiar and comfortable with.
What software would you recommend that you say blows the workstations away? I am looking for good pianos, strings, brass, etc. I liked the Motif sounds because they seemed more organic. Software instruments that I have tried just seemed thin and did not seem to have the same body to them.
there is a speed at which you can work with stuff like the motif/fantom/triton that we still try to achieve with software. But the software has bigger libraries so most have a little bit of load time, it's not much, but it's not instant.
There is no "one instrument" there are plenty I think demolish the fantoms and motifs. Many like Nexus, it has a "covered in fx" sound that is similar to workstations.
Vir2 VI One is another good one, as is SampleTank despite what some say.
But personally, I don't think you need an "all around" module, because there are sound specific instruments that let you build you library customized to what you want.
For instance, for the price of a new motif rack, I could get trillian for bass, true pianos or pianoteq (whatever piano instrument you like) for keys, something like Omnisphere, Massive, Firebird, Synth Squad, etc to cover synths, and still spend about the same or less.
I could throw in something like Kore 2 to give me a large selection of "workstation" type sounds, plus keep expanding with their soundpacks.
And get something like East West Symphonic Orchestra silver for strings/orchestra stuff.
Heck you could get komplete 6 for 500 bucks and be covered for sounds for a while...literally. Plus with Kontakt (my favorite) you have an endless level of libraries that work with it, so you can pick and choose your favorites
the motif rack xs is 1299 brand new...there is a lot of high quality instruments one can purchase for that.
It took me a long time to switch over to software, but I now feel the quality and selection is good enough that I'm not missing anything.
However, if you need something that you can just turn on and go, or maybe your taking it out to gigs, then the workstations are still a great option.
It all comes down to preference really and what you want to use. What I do like about the motif series is mLan allows you to send 16 channels of midi/audio over firewire and use it inside your daw
