this should be the greatest

This thing is a 90s/00s type of workstation with a great keyboard. It has all of yamaha's best digital synth engines from the SY77/99 workstations (AWM plus a full DX7II and a decent digital filter and nice spx90 type fx), the VL1 physical modelling engine, decent little poly sampler, a crazy next gen (for the time) fx suite on top of the 90s fx to morph patches further.... I mean, there's some cool fx in here like tornado.... AND the ability to mix match and modulate between timbral layers vector style or to use it as its own standalone work environment to make whole chunks of tunes. The keyboard is great! I want to love this as the sound engines are better than anything yamaha did before or since.

This thing weighs a ton. I had to get mine local pickup and I wish i had brought help with me to load it into my car. It has the most impenetrable user interface ever. I'm just starting to really decipher it and I can program a dx7 front panel no problem or handle a sy77 adequately.... but the 77 and 99 are better off with a software midi editor and so the more complex ex5 would benefit from one to unlock its full majesty.... but alas no. Can't find one. It does things no other synth can really do on paper and has stunning sound even by modern digital synth standards.... but I can often achieve close enough results with all manner of other synths. The next level features are tedious to access.

Further this thing suffers from periodic midi timing issues as slave! It wants to be your master clock source and master controller and while its a great keybed I don't want it as my master clock. AT home that's my DAW. Live performance that's from the drummer, synth percussionist whatever. At this point I'm patching and performing it by hand all the time. Patch loading on mine is SLOWER than an SY series. Haven't figured the sampler out yet..... I don't want to give it a bad review because its a really cool idea and I should spend more time with it just for sound design stuff, but the price ain't exactly low in the used market. I bought one with a broken high B and drove across town for it.

Way cooler than a motif or montage in the workstation game because its a REAL synthesizer (well, 3 or 4 real synths) made for serious sound designers. Skip if you want something plug n play and fun. And don't overpay. I don't know if my midi and patch/sample loading issues are inherent to the ex series or if I have a bad one (I mean, broken key).... but at this level of buy in for a minty one I would hesitate to do it over again.

Damn is this thing cool, even the presets really shine and few are dated, much like the 77 and 99 but deeper and sweeter.... and..... its a pain in my ass though and I swear its so heavy that if it spills off the stand it'll break through the 2nd floor into the living room!

This synth is a source of joy as well as frustration much like the SY workstations can be but with greater joy and deeper frustrations.

EX5 & EX7

Stunning Workstations The Joy of EX Very difficult to even compare to the Motif