It's here - Yamaha has upgraded their popular "S" series of stage-piano-meets-synth gig keyboards to Motif XS sound engine specs, and added some features - not the least of which is super-easy splitting and layering - that make it even more gig-oriented. Not only that, but they've introduced something fans of the S series and weekend warriors in general have been buzzing about wanting for a long time: a 76-key fully-weighted version, the S70XS. The 88-key version is called the S90XS.
Keyboard saw one of the very first units deep inside Yamaha headquarters, and filmed marketing director Athan Billias demo'ing its new features. The video was accidentally (and very briefly) posted a week early at keyboardmag.tv, and now we can show it to you in its entirety. Now, you can be the first to see Yamaha's official video (top window below) which at the time of this posting is nowhere else online. In the window below it is our now-infamous "spy" video. For official Yamaha info and audio demos, click here.
The new S series is scheduled to ship in August 2009, with MSRP list prices of $3,699 for the S70XS and $3,799 for the S90XS. Street prices will likely be significantly lower.