theshinenz

Thanks for the info mate... I do prefer the screen and workflow of the montage over my Kronos, but think the work arounds would make it more hassle than the benefits. Although i could achieve what I need to on the Montage I enjoy the freedom and ease of setting midi channels on the Korg. Hoping that Korg brings out a new flagship workstation in the next year or two.

The other thing about the Montage that has been beaten to death on the Yamahasynth forums is the hard coding of midi channels to parts, so no way to say stack 4 sounds on the one midi channel like Roland FA or Kronos can do.... hope in future yamaha starts listening to the people instead of stating Yamaha just works differently from other synths.

Can you use parts 9-16 to control external gear from the Yamaha keybed or do you have to sacrifice one of the first 8 channels? Last time I had a montage I remember enjoying it but from memory you could control sounds on those channels 9-16 from an external keyboard but not the other way around?

Tough call, esp since you already own the FA-07 which makes it that much more cost-effective. But the obvious things you'd lose would be the drawbar organ engine, the sub out, the trigger pads, the sequencer. Most of the Yamaha sounds should be better at least than their non-SuperNatural Roland equivalents (the other SuperNatural acoustic tones in the FA are piano, EPs, clav, basses, acoustic guitar, ensemble strings, which are areas where Roland could have an edge). In synth sounds, Roland should lead in virtual analog, Yamaha in FM. Seamless sound switching is more extensively implemented in the Yamaha than the Roland (for a change). Action will be subjective, but I expect that the Yamaha will at least be more even front-to-back, which should make it better for pianos. Ability to load custom samples ia a nice Yamaha perk, too. You can pretty much always find one person who will say anything. Especially at gearslutz. ;-) Seriously, again, actions are subjective, but I bet that will very much be a minority opinion. I've owned the FA07 and Montage.... The yamaha sounds cleaner, especially for FM type sounds. I'd say Yamaha has it over Roland for the EP's, organ sound well i never really used either too much as used KB3 on my kurzweil instead but say they are pretty close. Where I preferred roland was for synth sounds, especially pads.... the Roland Jupiter type sounds are really fat sounding, when layered they are killer. I always struggled to get the same fatness out of those kind of sounds on the Yamaha. Its really depends on what sounds you use most.