I’m currently trying to figure out whether I want to buy a Montage to replace my Motif XF.

I don’t currently think the Super Knob would be worth ~$3,000 to me.

Eight-part performances are attractive, but Bad_Mister showed me how to set up a Song/Master combo that’s reasonably equivalent to a 16-part performance, so that doesn’t seem to be a reason for me to buy new gear either.

That leaves me with what I’ve heard is going to be amazingly better sound quality. That could be enough to convince me to buy a Montage. On the other hand, ~$3,000 could buy a lot of sound libraries for my Motif XF.

Would a Motif XF with the right sound libraries to be able to match the sound quality of a Montage?

Has anyone seen specs on the base waveforms in the Montage vs XF?  I think they expanded memory by orders of magnitude, did they create larger longer etc samples? 

All in all, if you’re not using the XF sequencer to do advanced music production, I’m going to guess Montage is more and better for performers.  One of the things I’ve yet to understand as I haven’t seen one in person…

... in XF we created voices as our building blocks.  We’ll take this voice and use it in many places (performances, songs, etc.).  maybe tweak it to a new voice and save as a new voice.  My understanding is that as a concept is gone, and Performance is the fundamental level.  so we can’t design and save basic “voices” as we understood them? 

where is an AP?  a basic JP detuned synth?  a Clav?  etc. - are these now “Parts”?  is there a “Parts” library that holds all these basic blocks to build a performance?  I’m guessing we can’t create custom Parts and just save them as Parts?  That part of the Montage architecture I still dont’ understand.  But I love 8 parts per Performance and it appears that we can edit much much more (everything?) about each Part at the Performance level?  That was a limitation in XF that caused me to create alot of almost redundant voices - certain parameters I couldn’t edit at the XF Performance level.  That is a cool forward step, I just need to re-imagine in my visualization this new architecture.

But as its different, I’m confused - how can XF data be used in the Montage?  One of the selling points I liked was I could use my XF programs.  but how - if there are no user voices, ... ?  its confused me until I see it.

But dude ... its got a SUPER KNOB! 

in truth, the demos they used the super knob that i heard are for music and styles I have no use or interest in.  Don’t do all that arpy stuff, don’t do EDM, techno, etc, which is what I heard so far.  Market for it, sure, just not for me.  but I have ideas of Performances where the ability to custom assign lots of different things to one knob might be cool.

Michael Trigoboff - 03 February 2016 11:07 PM

I’m currently trying to figure out whether I want to buy a Montage to replace my Motif XF.

I don’t currently think the Super Knob would be worth ~$3,000 to me.

Eight-part performances are attractive, but Bad_Mister showed me how to set up a Song/Master combo that’s reasonably equivalent to a 16-part performance, so that doesn’t seem to be a reason for me to buy new gear either.

That leaves me with what I’ve heard is going to be amazingly better sound quality. That could be enough to convince me to buy a Montage. On the other hand, ~$3,000 could buy a lot of sound libraries for my Motif XF.

Would a Motif XF with the right sound libraries to be able to match the sound quality of a Montage?

The Montage sound quality is key for me too. After I heard the latest strings, FM, choir and pipes I’m probably going all in for the Montage. I’d trade 100,000 good waveforms for 100 amazing waveforms plus FMX. Quality over quantity any day and besides there’s plenty more to come via Yamaha expansion packs and FMX programs. Let the AMAZING Begin!

Listen to this: https://youtu.be/wfAxxav4PUU

motidave - 03 February 2016 11:29 PM

I’m guessing we can’t create custom Parts and just save them as Parts?

Yes and no. While you can’t save a “part” as a separate entity, you can create a performance that has just one part and then reuse that part in other, multi-part performances. That’s your building block.

But as its different, I’m confused - how can XF data be used in the Montage?  One of the selling points I liked was I could use my XF programs.  but how - if there are no user voices, ... ?  its confused me until I see it.

An XF voice is imported simply as a “single part performance”. All the factory XF presets are stored in the Montage as such.

motidave - 03 February 2016 11:29 PM

But dude ... its got a SUPER KNOB! 

It’s just a controller assigned to scene morphing.

And it seems it’s not the most convenient one to use for that purpose while playing, according to this video where Katsunori Ujie uses the ribbon controller (@11:50), which is more conveniently located under the player’s hand, or a foot pedal to morph between scenes.

Montage demo by musictrackjp

Imo they would have done better to add a 3rd wheel, like on the SY-99 and on the EX5, instead of that useless blinking toyish gadget.

EXer - 04 February 2016 11:34 AM

motidave - 03 February 2016 11:29 PM

But dude ... its got a SUPER KNOB! 

It’s just a controller assigned to scene morphing.

And it seems it’s not the most convenient one to use for that purpose while playing, according to this video where Katsunori Ujie uses the ribbon controller (@11:50), which is more conveniently located under the player’s hand, or a foot pedal to morph between scenes.

Montage demo by musictrackjp

Imo they would have done better to add a 3rd wheel, like on the SY-99 and on the EX5, instead of that useless blinking toyish gadget.

Well, it’s not useless. I spent over a year and a half with programming on the Montage.
Umm...nope, it’s far from useless.

A third mod wheel wouldn’t work the same way - because the wheel can only go in one direction, it’s not bi-directional. But furthermore, the SuperKnob controls assignable knobs for all parts in a performance. It’s not possible to do that with a third wheel.The best way to control the Super Knob is to hook up a second foot controller to foot controller 2 input and then you can use that to move the Super Knob, freeing up your hands for playing.

Sound quality - yes this is where Montage really shines. It’s better than the XF, and also for you Korg lovers, it’s much louder than the XF. There is no other FM anywhere that sounds quite like FM-X does. It’s not the old grainy aliasing FM of the DX7, and it’s not the plasticky FM of FM-8, or the rubbery FM available in the Kronos. It’s very detailed, sharp, crystal clear.
You have to hear it for yourself. And the only way to do that will be to go see a Montage in some store somehwere when it is officially released.

Sound quality - yes this is where Montage really shines. It’s better than the XF, and also for you Korg lovers, it’s much louder than the XF. There is no other FM anywhere that sounds quite like FM-X does. It’s not the old grainy aliasing FM of the DX7, and it’s not the plasticky FM of FM-8, or the rubbery FM available in the Kronos. It’s very detailed, sharp, crystal clear.
You have to hear it for yourself. And the only way to do that will be to go see a Montage in some store somehwere when it is officially released.

Sweet! So will Yamaha make the May release date? I owned the Kronos and it looked fantastic. I messed with it briefly but had to sell it. I didn’t connect with it but then to be fair I also didn’t connect with the XF much either. I just didn’t have enough time to invest in learning them. I just want to turn a synth on and be engulfed by it so much so that I don’t want to turn it off again. I think that sound quality primarily and then user friendliness or the user interface can make that happen. The tyros 5 sound quality did engulf me but I never learned how to make a custom style. It probably didn’t have the Montage power that we’re all about to experience. The improved FMX engine and interface will be exciting combined with the improved output quality. I’ve heard textures in some demos that are earth moving. Plus, nobody can do AWM2 better than Yamaha so I’m hoping for many endless hours lost in their Montage performances.

DavePolich - 04 February 2016 02:29 PM

A third mod wheel wouldn’t work the same way - because the wheel can only go in one direction, it’s not bi-directional. But furthermore, the SuperKnob controls assignable knobs for all parts in a performance. It’s not possible to do that with a third wheel.The best way to control the Super Knob is to hook up a second foot controller to foot controller 2 input and then you can use that to move the Super Knob, freeing up your hands for playing.

There is no difference between a wheel and a foot controller (apart from its shape, of course). It’s just a physical controller wich gives values that are translated into numbers by the software.

You could move the so-called “superknob” with a 3rd wheel as well as with a foot controller.

True. The only benefit of the SuperKnob (vs modwheel/foot controller) is that it’s endless.

Dave, I’ve got best of the best, my 800 MB XS bank (ALL format) made with chosen XS libraries. Is this possible to load it into Montage ?
I’ve figured out, first the XS ALL format load into XF, next save as XF ALL format, finaly load into Montage ?

I’m not in the zone to buy either :) I’m with an ES.

but I think that if you get the Montage (which seem to be amazing - 7 times the voice memory of the XF, all XF voices preloaded, tons of new ones, new FX processors and out of this world FM-X) and sell the XF you have, it won’t be 3000$ anymore…

e.laforge - 08 February 2016 08:14 AM

I’m not in the zone to buy either :) I’m with an ES.

but I think that if you get the Montage (which seem to be amazing - 7 times the voice memory of the XF, all XF voices preloaded, tons of new ones, new FX processors and out of this world FM-X) and sell the XF you have, it won’t be 3000$ anymore…

I’m pondering this equation.  Buy the M7, sell the XF7 ... Net net probably ... $1500?  I think Montage is better for me.  Will wait to feel it in person ...

motidave - 08 February 2016 11:02 AM

[...]I think Montage is better for me.  Will wait to feel it in person ...

Agreed - making a purchase decision before you can get your own hands on one would seem a bit premature.

Although I don’t think a Montage will be for me - I don’t gig - I do see one thing that could make life easier for those who create their own Performances. With the Motif, you have to be careful to keep Voices that are assigned to Performance Parts in the locations the Performance points to, or the results might be “discordant”. Since the Montage has eliminated Voice mode, Performances on it won’t have that issue.

5pinDIN - 08 February 2016 11:29 AM

motidave - 08 February 2016 11:02 AM

[...]I think Montage is better for me.  Will wait to feel it in person ...

Agreed - making a purchase decision before you can get your own hands on one would seem a bit premature.

Although I don’t think a Montage will be for me - I don’t gig - I do see one thing that could make life easier for those who create their own Performances. With the Motif, you have to be careful to keep Voices that are assigned to Performance Parts in the locations the Performance points to, or the results might be “discordant”. Since the Montage has eliminated Voice mode, Performances on it won’t have that issue.

I see lots of things that apply to my live use much easier in Montage.  One of my most frequent limitations was the number of voice-level parameters and settings I could modify at the Performance level.  This made me need to create lots and lots of “almost the same” user voices.

The big conceptual hurdle I’m trying to wrap my mind around is now there are no “voices” - there are Parts.  8 parts per Perf already solves many of my problems - I used to create specially coded multi-voice voices by utilising AF On/1/2.  but it had alot of limits, first one being I had the same 2 insertion effects for all of the 8 elements.

Now in Montage its flipped.  There is no Part user banks.  just Performances.  If I create a standard “go to” custom Part I like to use in lots of different Performances, I could just save that Part as a 1-Part Performance? Or I can remember the last Perf I used it in, in multi-part performances.  or ... ?  This isn’t a big deal, just a mental paradigm shift in file management.

(i’m not all that keen or attentive on file management lol!)

I still haven’t heard or read how many User Performances it can store.  the 512 Perfs in XF were 300 or so more than I needed, but I did max out User voice banks between purchased libraries, Inspiration..., and ones I created.  Of course 3rd party libraries always had alot of voices I never ever use, so now I just overwrite one when I create a new one.  There’s alot of file cleanup I could have done but ... meh, i’m lazy :)

(haven’t heard how many user waveforms we can import/save, etc etc either).  details to come, i’m sure.

One thing I noticed though, is that the OS has some lag. you can actually see the frames. it’s not as quick as say a Kronos.

Michael Trigoboff - 03 February 2016 11:07 PM

Would a Motif XF with the right sound libraries to be able to match the sound quality of a Montage?

Check out 12:40 here - I don’t think any other Yamaha synth can do this nowadays… https://youtu.be/wfAxxav4PUU?t=12m41s