Yamaha Montage Arranger Performances

[Zoltannn]

The Yamaha Montage is a flagship, professional synthesizer, not an arranger keyboard like Genos. The big question is: Can we use Montage as an arranger keyboard? The answer normally would be: No, because it is a synthesizer. My personal answer is: Yes, you can use it as any other arranger keyboard. You can have the same functions as an arranger keyboard but with a higher, world-class sound quality. With Yamaha Montage, you can get a much better sound quality than on arranger keyboards. Incredible, realistic tones and drum sets, higher quality effects that help the live or studio performance to sound like a real band. I had many gigs where I only played bar piano music. For this purpose, Montage is a perfect choice with a stunning piano sound. Sometimes the parties end up with dancing so I had to carry my Tyros 5 to have an arranger keyboard as well, with styles. Now with this new custom library for Montage I don"t need any arranger keyboard. I can play nice bar piano music and Pop,Latin, Dance, all genres of music only with the Montage. At the same time, I have a high quality,professional Synthesizer, Piano, and Arranger keyboard under my hand.All the performances have custom made drum sets and tone combinations. Even if some tones are repeating in the registrations â such as the piano tone - they always show a different character and colour. From the eight channels, the first five are working as arpeggiator, which are controlled by the left hand. The last three channels are for the right hand. In some performances channel seven and eight can contain two tones, which can be called up using the assign 1 and 2 buttons. All performances consist from 8 scenes (E.g. Intro, Main A, Main B, Main C, Fill A, Fill B, Fill C, Break, Ending). You can control the last three channels (6, 7, and 8, which are for the

right hand part) with a foot controller, like a volume pedal. This way, the playing is much easier,and we get a nice, balanced and dynamic sound without interrupting the playing.Whether in the studio at home or on stage, the Montage delivers world-class sound and features.The red colour performances contain two sounds at channel seven and the performances marked with blue also contain two sounds at channel seven and eight which you can control with the assign 1 and 2 buttons.

 

[Music Bird]

Wow that"s actually pretty cool!

[Zoltannn]

Thanks !

[RandyFF]

Welcome to the forum!

 

Hmmmmm.... so there's a new OS for the Montage that gives the Montage the functional equivalent capability of a Tyros/Genos arranger? Are these Styles that you've gotten from the Tyros or did you create them yourself? Lots of info there, paragraphs are appreciated!

 

So using Scenes you've created the equivalent of the buttons used on an arranger for intro/variations/ending? Am confused about your use of arpeggiators, which would give you generated repeating patterns, which is not the same as the 'motifs' that the Motif boards were named after. I remember my XS7 had more than 7,000 motifs/pre-recorded snippets, which I imagine could be put to use in an arranger kind of way.

 

Sorry for all the questions, it's just blowing my mind- you make it sound so easy and straightforward, which I'm not inclined to believe. Please explain a bit more! I imagine that the Montage is much better suited for this as it has a much more extensive control surface than the MODX boards.

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I don't know about the Tyros, but my Korg arranger, the Pa1000, has by far the best sounds of any board I've ever had, I experience them with the same superlatives of mind-blowing excellence you've been expressing. I keep on wondering if there are a lot of boards, in the last 5 years that have this stunning audio quality that you and I have experienced. No one has addressed this, it's so dramatic and noticeable to me. My points of reference are boards that are over 10 years old, the Yamaha XS7, the Korg M3 and Nord Stage Classic.

[BRW]

^

 

That Karma-Lab chap (Stephen Kay) was sort of doing something similar already with the Motifs, although he did it via his software and MIDI, utilizing the sequencer for added tracks (since the Motifs only had four-part Performances). The so-called "arpeggios" always had "arranger-like" features since they followed your chords. I never really used them because they were poorly programmed - you had to play the chords only one way, and their left-hand voicings didn't make sense to me, coming from a jazz piano background.

 

The Montage with its extensive controls makes this a bit easier which I think Zoltann is doing above (although the same problem with the voicings is still there, since I think a lot of the arpeggios were recycled). You need to do quite a bit of editing to get there, but like Zoltann explains above, the basic idea is to insert the desired "arpeggios" into the Scenes. And edit the Performance in a way that your desired Voices for both hands are split accordingly.

 

And since the Montage now includes a Pattern Sequencer, you could also record some more "pre-recorded" sections and then play-along...

[RandyFF]

@ BRW,

Thanks for the explanation. But it still sounds like a lot more customization, time and effort than using an arranger board that is made for this.