I am a song-writer for German audio broadcasting, and I have a lot of synths. And Yamaha does make excellent products. The CS6x is very versatile and flexible if you are smart enough to use it properly. Don't forget that the Yamaha Motif has won so many more awards than the Roland Fantom.

It is not very much known that Korg and Roland borrowed most of the post 80's digital technology from Yamaha. The yamaha dx-7 synthesizer set the digital revolution (until then other brands made analogs like the jupiter, prophesy, juno etc. )Without the DX7, the digital technology wont be possible, and hence the DSPs and other cool digital stuff.

My friend worked with Korg for a couple of years, and he showed me the press releases from Korg. The Korg M1 synthesizer (1988) was composed of proprietary yamaha technology 70 percent. Even today, don't be fooled, open up a synthesizer like Karma, and many parts inside are Yamaha, or have yamaha patent numbers.

Roland is a relatively recent company formed in 1981 in Hamamatsu, Japan, the same industrial location of Yamaha. While Yamaha made awesome analog synths for its time like the CS80, etc in the 1970s, Roland was just budding.

The more recent companies that supposedly makes analog modelling keyboards like Novation have the following message in their website "company history" section http://www.novationusa.com: Novation is all about commitment. Commitment to innovation, commitment to quality and commitment to you. "Back in 1992, Novation launched its first product, a clever companion to the popular Yamaha QY10 pocket book workstation called the MM10. Needless to say, it was a hit the world over getting rave reviews and selling in its thousands."

Everybody has borrowed Yamaha Technology, including the swedish Nord Leads that studied analog modelling technology from the Yamaha's VL1 virtual acoustic modelling (VL1 was introduced in 1991).

Here are a list of few innovations yamaha made: (source involves several press releases)

1983: FM synthesis 1984: MIDI was first planned by sequential circuits, Herbie Hancock built the first MIDI keyboard, Yamaha had the first midi-integrated synthesizer

1988: Korg releases M1: The most innovative electronic synthesis...what is not known is that, 70 percent of the Korg proprietary technology was originally designed by Yamaha.

1991: Yamaha invents the VL1 Virtual Modelling...this is the backbone of most other analog modelling synths to come in the later years including the Clavia Nord Lead, Access Virus, Novation Nova, Emu, Ensoniq Fizmo, Alesis QS6

1994: Yamaha introduces AWM, advanced wave memory, the first technology that makes home keyboards sound on the professional level

(unknown date): Yamaha invents the LCD backlit screen interface that is used by most keyboards including the ever popular Korg Triton Workstation/Sampler

Before you make harsh judgements like a 'wanna-be' pro, ask the engineers first! Peace, Hans