I think the name “MOntage” suggests a certain continuity to “MOtif”, so this would support the Motif successor theory.

Looking at the interview with the Yamaha developers (first link of my previous post) one could find arguments for both assumptions though. One the one hand, they say Motif “has been, and still is, incredibly succesful”. If thats the case, it would not make sense to quit the workstation market. One the other hand, they say the market has changed, and that the “workstation was the answer 10 years ago, but today it’s different”.

I guess we just have to wait and see…

Workstations will never die. If the Motif line and the XF models were incredibly successful, that lets us know many people will forever buy workstations.

Computer synths will never take over hardware synth sales. Whenever a quality and innovative product is built, people will come and buy. And Yamaha and Korg have proved that with their last workstation keyboard offerings.

Faldin - 08 October 2015 04:44 PM

I think the name “MOntage” suggests a certain continuity to “MOtif”, so this would support the Motif successor theory.

So you agree with my post from nine months ago…
http://www.motifator.com/index.php/forum/viewthread/474016/P30

I like to think the term Montage implies it will be a collection of multiple different items combined into an artistic whole (instrument) - in this case multiple engines or “synthesis” methods combined under one hood.  AKA Kronos but we don’t know Yamaha’s take on it and we can anticipate Yamaha will deliver a story that many in the market will find compelling in comparison to Kronos.

Montage:  a work of art that is made up of several different kinds of things (such as strips of newspaper, pictures, or pieces of wood)

: a mixture of different things

I’m betting one of these elements of the montage is a modeled clonewheel.  ok, its a hope, a plea, and a prayer if you will.

As to workstation vs. “keyboard”, etc., that demarcation line is getting so blurred I don’t know I still care.  I’m not a music producer, me and many like me are hardware performers who bought flagship workstations because thats what we needed to buy in order to get the performance options/abilities we wanted for live use.  For us live performers, now mid-range boards are providing most to all of of these live performance needs with much less of the “work” portion of the traditional workstation that we don’t even use.  MOXF is a great example.  I have an XF because MOXF didn’t exist.  That and I like the 76 key size.

And for many music producers, the many computer based options that de-link the produced music from the source generator are so much more powerful, portable, and easy to use.  There isn’t the same need for all-in-one workstation as there was previously.

If Yamaha is releasing a new flagship that’s really great, it benefits them to release small details to create some sorta large cloud of early excitement. Gone are the glory days of yesteryear, when some manufactures used to show you their new major products months before they release them.

lordbachus - 08 October 2015 01:37 AM

ferrari512s - 07 October 2015 02:29 PM

It makes me wondering, when such a highly capable man takes weaks to understand the new interface, how will this land with the general people that have become acustomed to better and very easy and intuitive interfaces.

TBH, i don’t think this is an issue really since (i guess) 80% of their customers are preset-noodlers anyway

.... at least that is how i believe Yamaha to view their customers as (dropping the entier PLG line since it was too complex, etc).

As a long-time Yamaha user (currently only using moxf and EX5) i will say for certain that the last piece of gear that will ever leave this house is the EX5. The Motif range is quite dull in comparison.

Curious.  There are cyclical posts that ask, speculate, predict, etc. about the next generation synth, workstation and such.

While I find these interesting, I can’t help but wonder if there are musicians that have actually “outgrown” the motif XF, or believe they’ve maximized the beast to the point of needing something new (or something lacking with the motif xf)

Personally, the only change I’d like with the XF is for it to be 20 pounds lighter.  At age 62, I’m a heartbeat from a hernia now and then! ;-)

Peace out

richie1027 - 15 October 2015 11:20 PM

Curious.  There are cyclical posts that ask, speculate, predict, etc. about the next generation synth, workstation and such.

While I find these interesting, I can’t help but wonder if there are musicians that have actually “outgrown” the motif XF, or believe they’ve maximized the beast to the point of needing something new (or something lacking with the motif xf)

Personally, the only change I’d like with the XF is for it to be 20 pounds lighter.  At age 62, I’m a heartbeat from a hernia now and then! ;-)

Peace out

No not really… Tough sometimes i also change to a new car, while the old ome still works perfect..

And while my current tools Kronos and Tyros 5 still have many many secrets for me… There have been dozens of moments that i wished for something that wasnt possible..

Here is some more speculation:

http://sandsoftwaresound.net/category/music-technology/

If the author is right- and Montage features a kind of AI for automatic music accompaniment and creation- that would be quite cool imo…

Looking at the recent developments in IT, like Siri, self-driving cars, etc. etc., maybe it’s not too far off!

Hi --

I’m the guy behind the sandsoftwaresound.net blog. (Hi, Bachus.)

It’s really hard to say where Yamaha will wind up with all of this. So, I’m not willing to predict specific features and so forth for a new workstation, especially the Motif follow on. The patents are interesting, but how—or if—the tech makes it into product and when, only Yamaha really knows.

I’m just thinking that there is a world beyond FM, VL, SA, etc. From a researcher’s perspective, FM, VL, SA, etc. are “solved problems,” using a tongue-in-check cliche. However, I still would love to take a screwdriver to any one (or all) of the Reface products. :-)

I’m also wondering if Yamaha sees higher sales and profits in products that sell to non-keyboardists, e.g., an accompanist for guitarists, string or wind players. The guitar market, for example, is much larger than the keyboard market and maybe a product like “DigiTech TRIO done right” might be a money maker. Performance aids like vocal harmony boxes keep getting better at sniffing out chords and such from raw audio, so why not drive or compose a full accompaniment?

It’ll be interesting to see where Yamaha goes. At some point, they’ll charm the credit card out of my pocket. :-)

Take care—pj