Phenomenal, just some kinks to work out. 
by Nathanael Davenport from Rexburg, ID, December 2006
Music Background:  Recording Engineer - Rock House Recording

I am very impressed with what this collection gives you for the price. Great selection, great sound (especially the reverbs), and is also very educational. My only qualm is that the loops are not synced at the tempos they purport to be at. This kind of makes them useless for "looping" when the loops don't fill up a full 2 or 4 measures and get out of sync with other loops.

Other than that, a "must buy."

  Motu Ethno, a first impression 
by MelloProg from Atlanta, USA, October 2006
Music Background:  Composer

Especially stringed (plucked) and some of the woodwinds are good. Most instruments are indeed very playable even though, in some cases they could have benefited from more programming.

A positive aspect is that they come with well recorded and well-chosen velocity layers which creates very good expressiveness.
What could be improved is to randomize samples on the same velocity layer. I hope this may be added in future.

Bowed instruments I would hesitate to use. Simply because without the necessary programming they are not convincing. But other instruments make up for it. The sound collection is by far not complete and purchasing EastWest Ra seems to me a good idea for extension as both libraries have enough instruments and features that the other one does not have.

For example the cymbalom is a great instrument, it sounds great, but why did they not program the dampened sound into the mod wheel? This creates unnecessary obstacles for playing with it live. For a better playability I recommend the cymbalom of Boldersounds.

Another funny thing is that Motu obviously forgot to provide the drones for the bagpipes which sadly makes using the bagpipes impossible in most scenarios.

The sliced loops actually work quite well. Much easier than I thought at first.

The user interface might seem cluttered at first sight, but as you start working with it, it soon will make sense and proves to be intuitive.

What is very annoying, I have to say is the dongle. Not so much the concept of it, but the fact that it completely blocks a USB port. If it had a USB port on the other end so you still could plug in another device it might be OK, but as it is I think Motu should provide USB hubs - The box Ethno comes in has definitely enough space for one... :-)

Vocal phrases are a welcome addition, but I wonder what the words translate into. It would be strange to compose a love song but actually you have someone chanting about death. There is no translation in the manual.

The included synth sounds are a little out of place. At least a good part of them. Instead of synth sounds i would have welcome more extensive programming on the other instruments.

All in all, Ethno makes a good impression, many sounds are inspiring and fun to play with - it definitely is worth the price.

  Love the spice! 
by Phil Castillo from San Antonio, TX, July 2006
Music Background:  Composer & Teacher

I run Ethno on a 1.8 single G5 in OS 10.4 with DP5. Runs very well and installation was a snap. This package is WELL worth the price and comes with a huge supply of great sounds and loops. The organization is fantastic which is key to finding what you need quickly. You have the choice of finding samples by geographic location, type of instrument, and/or loop only. The instruments are great and come with several articulation and fx types. Being able to drag samples from the Ethno window into a project and have it automatically sync to your project's tempo is huge. It really helps add some spice to a pop or film music project. Highly recommended.

  Another winner from MOTU 
by vince from Des Moines, IA, USA, July 2006
Music Background:  hobbyist

Installation is simple and relatively quick. The layout of the program is very intuitive, and after just a peek at the "quick start" section, you'll be very comfortable with this program. The sounds are very good to excellent. The browser makes finding what you need straight forward. Setting up layers of different sounds is also very easy. The convolution reverb is a nice touch, but personally I could live without it (prefer to add my own effects with hardware). I use this only as a plugin in DP5, but others may find the standalone version useful. Dragging and dropping loops directly into the host application is great if you'd like to tweak them further. Excellent price/performance.

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