Info on Yamaha EX-7

[Pauly 6 String]

Hi all. I am a guitar player (I play in a cover band and have some keyboard playing abilities) and am looking to get a synth. I have a lead on a EX-7 and was looking to get any advice/input regarding this instrument.

Ease of use

Programming ability

Pro's/con's

Any info on getting a printed manual and original disks

etc.

I have downloaded the manual (305 pages) and will start reading through it tonight but will go see this thing tomorrow and would like to get any info I can. It appears to me that it may be something that will serve my needs and then some depending on how much I can figure out on my own.

Thanks


PS I am doing a search on this synth but was hoping to get some feedback in the meantime.

[balma]

Hello.

The EX7is the smaller of the EX trio, with some great reductions on features.

-Polyphony has been reduced from 127 to 64.

-Cannot sample stereo. Only mono sampling.

-The VL engine is missing on the EX7.

Is a good digital synth, that can achieve some unique sounds, specially if you learn deeply the 10 FDSP especial effects that you cannot find anywhere else.

It has seeral engines:

Virtual Analog & FM engine. Similar in some features to the AN1x engine, nice LFO features, FM master or slave, two oscillators, ring modes.

FDSP: unique and very powerful effects, some of them have around 24 different parameters. Excellent for rhodes, and the water effect is great for pads.

AW2M rompler: strongly focused on acoustic instruments. great strings, pianos and guitars.

The Insert Effect section is huge, more than 70 differnet effects to chose for.

SAMPLER: c**p. No stereo sampling, from factory, it can sample 10 seconds. the samples are erased when the unit is turned off, something that I cannot understand, and maybe the worst lack of this great digital synth. You must adquire nonflash ROMs to avoid erasing your s**t.




there are huge limitations on the 16 linear sequencer, that makes it quite uncomfortable to use it. If you select one FDSP or VA synth, ALL the other FDSP or VA s sounds are not possible to select on other tracks. So you are forced to use only AW2M sounds WITHOUT the insertion effects. This is quite annoying. OR if you use an INSERT effect on only one voice, the VA or FDSP directories will dissapear from the sequencer.

The pattern sequencer is lovely, hiper complex, full of any kind of groove effects you can imagine. Different signatures per track, one of the best pattern sequencers ever designed, becomes c**p with the poly reduction.


Now, the synth is quite hard to use on multitimbre mode. But in patch solo, is a great digital synth. This is maybe the most complex synth I have touched, along with the SY99.

I had it during 3 months, then I realized most of the potential of the EX series, was lost without the VL and the half poly, so I paid the difference and got the EX5. That was almost 10 years ago, and I still using the EX5.

Not a synth for everybody. Kind of frustating on some areas, but if you have other synths , you'll be glad to have it on patch mode.


If you have no experience on deep digital synthesis, I cannot recommend it. The best on this machine comes with long hours of programming solo patches. The VA will be confusing for you, and it requires practice to learn how the FM works. It comes with GREAT factory presets, that will blow some of the best acoustic sounds of the MOTIF.


It's around $500, with that money, there are dozens of better options for you. Like an ION, or a Fantom G, or first MOTIFs.

[b3groover]

www.ex5tech.com

Pretty much all you need to know.

I own an EX7 and an EX5r (with the flash RAM, expanded regular RAM, SCSI, and a custom 3.5" card reader that works off the SCSI bus so sample loading/saving isn't so painfully slow). They are extremely frustrating synths in many ways, but I will never sell them. They are totally unique. It's a shame Yamaha never fully debugged the OS nor got the the SCSI working properly. So much potential.

[Pauly 6 String]

Thanks for the replies. That Forum is great. Thanks for providing it as it has been a tremendous resource and I'm just digging in.

@balma

I have printed your post for future reference when any of what you said begins to make sense to me. The terms were familiar but their meaning is not yet within my grasp, but it will soon be.

Thanks again.