I think it's a failing by Yamaha in how it markets the arranger. A LOT of $400.00 arrangers are sold in the USA.
The arranger is not a toy. Particularly the newest PSR and of coarse the Tyros. Having just purchased a Motif Rack XS, I can say the sound quality of the Motif is the same as the PSR S970... and the Tyros is better by far... it's the best sounding keyboard Yamaha makes AND the most expensive. But I suppose the new Montage has matched the sound quality of the Tyros, aside from the motion sequencer and Super Knob stuff... which if not used thoughtfully can become just a lot of noise and sound effects.. which may or may not be considered music by some people here.
Yamaha has made no effort to explain the architecture of the arranger or how the musician can use the arranger to compose music. These are complicated machines and yet Yamaha offer no help... we are on our own! Yamaha likes to hype the Motif (and now the Montage) to the hilt. The arranger and Motif are equal to my way of thinking... they just operate differently and each has it's strengths and weaknesses.
I think a NEW kind of arranger is coming... but it could be just wishful thinking on my part. We will know sooner or later. We've talked a lot about the mystery GENOS. Our engineer friend pj as noted that Yamaha left a lot of room in the S970 design for future expansion, and Yamaha continues to apply for new patents which are costly. They are up to something... and I'm sure most of us will like it... once "IT" hits the streets.
Joe H
Of course all of the samples are the same among all Yamaha keyboards but:
You should study your MOTIF XS deep enough before posting incorrect posts like above. You have not gone thoroughly in the waverom of MOTIF XS and you have not studied the capabilities of eXpanded Articulation in MOTIF XF.
Let me give you an example:
The Cello, Viola and DoubleBase samples on PSR S970 sound awful compared to MOTIF XF. The S6 Piano, S700 and CP1 Piano surpass the piano voice of Tyros 5 at anytime. You can also install up to 2GB of Yamaha flash memory and also 4GB flash memory cards from a German manufacturer exist.
The Sound design on Tyros is a joke. The parameters you can adjust on Tyros is ~50% of what you have in MOTIF XS/XF.
With the arpeggios, you can approximate some of the SuperArticulation 2 articulations like fall or tremolo.
When you purchase Tyros or Genos, you pay for the templates, presets and the SuperArticulation2 Voices. I don't like any of those templates and I don't like majority of the VOICEs that exist either in Genos/Tyros or MOTIF XF!
You should realize that the preset sounds are just ideas, demos to show you how they may sound. Can you do better than Yamaha? of course! Can I make better beats and drum patterns? Of course.
In fact the sound designers in Yamaha recently decided to add a bit of professionalism to their work. The samples in MOTIF XF series where not done the way a composer wanted them to be. They addressed some of them in Montage.
For example, I don't use string section VOICE. I use Violin section, Viola section etc and I play a 4-5 part harmony. I do the same for brass sections. I barely use the brass section VOICE. It sounds awful and unnatural.
So I have the impression that sound designers did not do their best.
Anyway the list is long and it seems you are so proud of your PSR! So it's better to sell it and use the better PSR. It seems Yamaha is crazy or too stupid to make these synths.
PS: Super Articulation 2 sounds very robotic and unnatural to me. If Yamaha ever introduces SA2 in their synth series, I appreciate it if the also give us the ability to create our own Super Articulation 2 stuff...