After reading Dave’s blog about computers and workstations, I had to respond.

Dave Polich said "Saying you prefer a workstation instead of a computer for music production is like saying you prefer rotary phones and dial up to high-speed broadband and cellphones."

I like and respect you Dave, but in this case I think you are completely wrong. Read more to find out why.

When I worked at Korg I was product planning manager for the M1 and helped develop the concept that became known as a music workstation. In fact, here is an interesting story.

Michi Nozokido was the head of engineering at Zoom which was a company founded by former Korg employees. Zoom was still doing design work for Korg at that time and had not yet come out with their own branded products.

He was working on developing the S1 a sampling drum machine and sequencer. If people remember Korg introduced the M1, S1 and Q1 ( hardware sequencer)at the same time, but only the keyboard came out. Anyway that’s a whole story for another day.

We had a meeting at the Korg offices in Shimotakaido. Michi had the idea to call his sampling drum machine/sequencer a Rhythm Workstation. I liked the idea and we came up with names M1 Music Workstation, S1 Rhythm Workstation, and Q1 Sequencer Workstation.

We sent the names to Korg USA and they hated them -especially music workstation. The comments were basically - " a workstation has a very specific meaning - something which connects to a mainframe computer. No one in the music business will understand what a music workstation is. "

Being the head of product planning for Korg Inc in Japan, the final decision was mine and we went with Music Workstation. The rest, as they say, is history.

So with this background I think I can speak with confidence about the concept of the music workstation because I helped invent the term and was a product planning manager for the product that initially defined it- the Korg M1.

Dave, saying you prefer a workstation instead of a computer for music production is like saying you prefer apples to oranges.

Actually a closer analogy would be saying you prefer a balpeen hammer to a sledge hammer. They are both hammers, but two different tools better suited to different tasks.

Music Production involves a lot of things. Getting inspiration, writing a song, picking sounds , recording audio, mixing, selecting effects and mastering. Either a keyboard workstation or a computer can do all these things, but each have different strengths.

A keyboard workstation and in particular I feel the Motif XS is a far more creative and inspirational tool for song writing than a computer. Why ? It is not only a quicker path to the song writing process , but more importantly more instrument oriented and less engineering oriented.

I have done clinics where somebody says “a computer is way more powerful for music production”. I will then challenge that person to prove it by getting the basic idea of a song down on computer faster than it can be done on a workstation.
(Dave, any time you want to take me up on this challenge, I'm ready).

With the computer and the keyboard turned off, we both start at the same time. Before Windows has booted up, I can call up a drum phrase and have recorded several tracks on an Motif ES.

We have always said the Motif is the shortest distance between inspiration and creation, and that is more true than it ever was. On the XS, using Direct Performance Recording I could have easily recorded several different complete pieces of music before Windows booted up never mind launching a DAW program like Cubase, assigning tracks, opening VSTs etc. How many great songs have been lost because that moment of inspiration passed by before windows booted or some one got distracted by Windows boot chords .

So why did Yamaha acquire Steinberg ? Because after that initial inspiration and your idea for a song chas ben aptured , nothing is more powerful than computer software for massaging, mixing , tweaking and warping audio and MIDI.

Unlimited audio tracks, great VST effects, a huge screen for mixing and editing hundreds of tracks- all of these things are possible on your computer. I love recording audio in Cubase because it is a very comfortable environment for the recording engineer part of my brain ( I used to own a 24 track recording studio back in the day).

The musician side of me loves the Motif XS. The engineering and geak side me of drools over Cubase.

So here is my point, a computer is not better for music production than a keyboard workstation, it is a different tool. I have done productions completely in software from beginning to end. These include lots of keyboard parts all played by soft synths like Hypersonic. I’ve done complete recordings (like the material in the 3rd Motif DVD where we recorded a singer song writer guitarist) on a Motif. So it is completely possible to work and finish projects in one or the other. But they really both have their strengths.

I have the newest versions of Cubase AI with all the integration. But I haven’t used it much yet.

Why ? Simple.

Because I am still having too much fun putting together sequences and ideas in the Motif XS with the 4 arps and direct performance recording. I’ll write tons of songs using the Motif XS and then later when I want to be more engineering minded , I’ll port them over to Cubase (eventually in a later version, I’ll be able to open the songs directly in Cubase AI) and continue working from there.

Combined together in an integrated system like Motif XS and Cubase AI that are designed to work together, you really have the best of both world’s - hardware and software.

Maybe that is the new updated definition of a music workstation now - a keyboard that works for complete music production on it's own , but can also be seamlessly integrated into the computer software environment.

The great thing is you can choose which way you want to work because the Motif XS does both very well.