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I play live gigs with a coverband (party songs from the 70’s till now) with a NS3 and a Motif XS6. For me they complement eachother in a very good way.
The Motif XS has a hugh amount of presets of high quality sounds. But it is always nice to have a bit more
I wonder if the Roland Integra 7 would be a great buy and complement the 2 boards well. Or is the Integra in presets/sounds quite the same as the Motif and would it be a but useless to buy an Integra?
Is there anything specific which you are missing from the combination of NS3 and Motix XS? That could help to find out if the Integra would really add value or not
I've talked about this on multiple occasions, do a search. The Integra is pretty crippled if you don't have a controller that has either the dedicated Supertnatural buttons, or programmable buttons that can be used to access the alternate Supernatural Sounds. Not that there aren't still a lot of useful sounds in the Integra, but the things that make it most functional as a complimentary board (doing things the NS3 can't) require the extra buttons and there is no way to do that using the NS3 as a controller.
Current Gear: NS3C, NP5-88, NP5-73, Alesis QS7.1 & QS8.2, Hammond B3 with Leslie 122, Yamaha CP70, Yamaha C3 6' Grand, Roland D-05
Whether the Integra would be considered crippled without a sophisticated controller would depend on how you use it. I used a Roland XV-5050 with my Electro 3 as its MIDI controller for several years. This is because I preferred to pre-define keyboard split and sound setups in what are called a "Studio Set" on an Integra 7. Not everyone wants to do it this way, but it works for me because of the way I do things: I only use predefined settings during a gig.
One thing that the Roland Integra 7 (and the FA-06/07/08) are really good at is supporting custom splits. A single "Studio Set" can have up to 16 parts, each with its own separate low key limit, high key limit, transposition, and sound/tone selection. The Nord Stage cannot get anywhere near this.
I upgraded from my XV-5050 to a Roland FA-07, but I still use it with the same philosophy (I pre-define all sound and split settings in Studio Sets). For me the FA-07 is a good complement to my Nord because of the FA-07's superior split capabilities and a lot of useful synth sounds, horn sounds and others.
The way I use highly customized splits is not common, and probably will not matter for your needs.
I don't know anything about the capabilities of the Motif XF6, so I don't have a useful opinion on whether an Integra 7 would add anything that the Motif XF6 cannot do.
The Motif has a hugh amount of great sounds. But I am always searching for more good sounds. The Integra has more then 6500 sounds on board, but is it all the same as the Motif?
The disadvantage is that I would use the Integra only for the sounds. And it is a big piece of hardware. Are there also software solutions? So big libraries of good sounds?
