Rumors: Yamaha Montage successor

[David Emm]

I got a nice grant at about the time Korg's M3 appeared. I was lusting after it, especially for the superior keybed, but I made some command decisions and "settled" for a TR61 (the last of the Triton line) and for me, next-level software. That included going for Logic v.8, where IMO, the thing really took off in terms of both function and ease of use. A friend said "Aren't you sorry you missed out on the M3?" I replied "Not really, because I'm so far ahead of the game now, its not a loss at all." The TR served me quite well until I passed it along to a music student, so I see it as a double win.

 

I'm no stranger to GAS, but too much FOMO is self-defeating BS. Montage buyers knew what they were getting into, namely a rockin' flagship. Its wise to look at incremental steps as being just that. If you really needed that 9th drawbar, you would have gone elsewhere. No instrument does it all, nor does the one that comes the closest today necessarily look as good when the upgrade appears 3 years later. Sometimes you end up better off when you buy >outwards< a little more rather than dropping large coin on v.2. Compromise doesn't necessarily mean being compromised.    

[CHarrell]

6 minutes ago, David Emm said:

Sometimes you end up better off when you buy >outwards< a little more rather than dropping large coin on v.2.

 

Could you expand on what you mean by buying outwards?

[DmitryKo]

Why didn't anyone speculate on Montage m8X specs yet? Here's my take:

 

• NW-GH natural wood graded hammer action
• AWM-X, FM-X and AN-X synth engines
• AWM-X: 16 elements, includes VRM (virtual resonance modeling) for emulation of piano/clavi*/Rhodes and plucked string instruments, and reed (wind, brass) instruments. Articulation switching with continuous controllers and/or Super Knob 
• FM-X: 8-operator FM synthesis, formant synthesis and vocoder/harmonizer modes
• AN-X: virtual analog/wavetable synthesis, 3 morphing oscillators (40 types, 200 waveforms), 3 morphing LFOs, 2 morphing filters (20 types), 3  modulation envelope generators. Parameters/modes to emulate classic analog synths (Yamaha CS-80, MiniMoog/MemoryMoog, Prophet-5, Oberheim OB-Xa, Roland Jupiter-8, Juno-106, ARP Odyssey)
• Plyphony 320 voices (240 AWM-X + 64 FM-X + 16 AN-X)
• MIDI 2.0 Protocol with per-note articulation etc., MIDI-CI Profiles 
• Analog Devices A2B MIDI 2.0 physical interface over DIN5 connectors
• Phrase sequencer, MIDI 2.0 Clip File format (with key/time signature, chords, lyrics etc.)
• 20 out / 4 in class-compliant USB-Audio interface
• Gigabit Ethernet port, Network MIDI 2.0, 32-channel Ethernet audio
• External 'programmer' control surface, knobs/sliders/switches/displays organized in OSC/LFO/FLT/ENV groups for AN-X parameter tweaking, auto-configuration with MIDI-CI Property Exchange

Nah, who am I kidding... nothing of the above is going to happen. In a typical Yamaha fashion, hardware specs will be marginally better in comparison to the original Montage, though total sample ROM could be increased to 8-10 GBytes (after decompressing) and user ROM to 2-4 GBytes (uncompressed).

 

 

[Konnector]

Hoping I'm wrong, but if Yamaha sticks to the tradition all the big boys follow, the new Montage will probably have "incremental" updates only. (and 200 new accordion patches!)

 

I'm not in the market for a new Montage. What I'm hoping for is an awesome, knobby AN-X powered VA synth from them. If and when that happens, they better provide at least 49 keys otherwise it's a bust for me. A desktop/rackable module would be OK, but I'm not holding my breath on that ever happening.

[Keyboardplayer]

DmitryKo, that is one fine list of specification upgrades. If something like that showed up on the Yamaha Montage M specification webpage, it would undoubtedly enthrall keyboardists around the world. I would buy one in a heartbeat as long as the key-action and everything else passed muster. The reason Yamaha tends to do incremental hardware upgrades instead of big time substantial upgrades is marketing. If they give consumers the bee's knees, people who buy the product(s) would be satisfied and tend to keep it for longer periods of time, depending on how future-proof and reliable they turn out to be. In other words, Yamaha wants customers to buy their products on a more consistent basis to increase profit. Just like Smartphone manufacturers like Samsung, Apple, Motorola, etc., want people to keep upgrading to the latest/greatest cell phone models for the same reason. Even though, many times, they're just incremental updates to the previous model(s). Personally, I usually only buy a new keyboard if and only if it meets my strict criteria. The prices of flagship keyboard products are getting very expensive, so it pays not to be trigger-happy. Clavia's new Nord Stage 4 is a prime example of a company capitalizing on its Brand name recognition and popularity. I heard through the grapevine, Yamaha was going to keep the prices very much in line with the previous Montage-series. Kudos to Yamaha, if in fact that's accurate. But if it had all the upgrades you listed, it would be quite understandable if Yamaha jacked up the prices several hundred dollars. We'll know in October, or maybe sooner.  

[David Emm]

On 9/1/2023 at 3:58 PM, CHarrell said:

Could you expand on what you mean by buying outwards?

 

Sure. By outwards, I mean that a mid-line synth and two modules can sometimes be more powerful than the "upwards," all-in-one flagship. You may have a few added hassles as a result, but your sonic range will be expanded, too.

 

In the old days, before all reverbs became pristine, one of the cheapo pedals or mini-racks would sound pretty grainy, but two in series became a lot more Tangerine-Dream-y. Today's flagships will generally provide both sampled and synth strings, but the best orchestral whoppers come from blending them for their relative strengths. It makes perfect sense to me when someone is using a Novation Summit to partially drive a couple of Roland Boutique-style synths and a Yamaha TG33. 

 

Synth setups are generally subjective, but even when I was mostly living within a Korg flagship, I had channels assigned to outboard pieces like an E-mu/Proteus-1. Synthesize means "to assemble from varied components." The added colors tend to pay off.    

[Julius D Majestic Studios]

On 8/26/2023 at 8:14 AM, ElmerJFudd said:

New Wood Graded Hammer - their better action.  Rather than GHS or Standard.  

I told someone that too.  Took a page out of Roland's book!!!

[zephonic]

But Montage never had GHS though, it was the Balanced Hammer action, and FSX.

[DmitryKo]

On 9/2/2023 at 11:27 PM, Keyboardplayer said:

The reason Yamaha tends to do incremental hardware upgrades instead of big time substantial upgrades is marketing. If they give consumers the bee's knees, people who buy the product(s) would be satisfied and tend to keep it for longer periods of time, depending on how future-proof and reliable they turn out to be. In other words, Yamaha wants customers to buy their products on a more consistent basis to increase profit.

I don't get it -  are Yamaha marketing their products by not including features that users want? Then customers will ultimately flee to the competition. Korg Nautilus AT is a fully functional equivalent of Korg OASYS/Kronos at a much lower price (though with less front-panel controls), and recent Roland Fantom / Fantom-0 also look much more interesting than previous incarnations, having expandable synth engines and hands-on synthesis controls.

 

Even if Yamaha included a VCM organ mode in the Montage m, it's unlikely to cannibalize sales of YC-series because of their very different hands-on user interface based on knobs/switches, obviously inspired by Clavia Nord series, which is a great selling point for a gigging musician. Or take AN-X engine - even if they release a standalone AN-X keyboard, it would need to have a very different user interface based on lots of knobs and sliders that has become typical of analog  and virtual analog synths, not a touchscreen UI typical for a synth workstation that allow efficient realtime control of filter/EG/LFO parameters. 

 

 

On 9/2/2023 at 9:12 PM, Konnector said:

if Yamaha sticks to the tradition all the big boys follow, the new Montage will probably have "incremental" updates only.

Montage m8X as shown on these leaked photos would have made a perfect sense in 2020 as a replacement to Montage 8 from 2016, with a few tweaks to front-panel controls and incremental updates to the ROM size. But in 2023, with all these stunning analog, FM and VA/wavetable synths from Korg, Novation, Waldorf, Modal, Behringer, ASM, Arturia etc., and replicas of classic Moog, Oberheim and ARP analog synths introduces by several different manufacturers all at once... it would be the last on my personal list.

 

[ElmerJFudd]

21 minutes ago, DmitryKo said:

I don't get it -  are Yamaha marketing their products by not including features that users want? Then customers will ultimately flee to the competition. Korg Nautilus AT is a fully functional equivalent of Korg OASYS/Kronos at a much lower price (though with less front-panel controls), and recent Roland Fantom / Fantom-0 also look much more interesting than previous incarnations, having expandable synth engines and hands-on synthesis controls.

 

Even if they included the VCM organ mode in the Montage m, it's unlikely to cannibalize sales of YC-series because they have very different hands-on user interface based on knobs/switches, obviously inspired by Clavia Nord series, and that's a great selling point for a gigging musician. Or take AN-X engine (which could be an improved Reface CS engine, or an entirely new development) - even if they release a standalone AN-X keyboard, it would have a very different user interface based on lots of knobs and sliders that has become typical of analog  and virtual analog synths, not a touchscreen UI.

 

 

Montage m8X as shown on these leaked photos would have made a perfect sense in 2020 as a replacement to Montage 8 from 2016, with a few tweaks to front-panel controls and incremental updates to the ROM size. But in 2023, with all these stunning analog, FM and VA/wavetable synths from Korg, Novation, Waldorf, Modal, Behringer, ASM, Arturia etc., and replicas of classic Moog, Oberheim and ARP analog synths introduces by several different manufacturers all at once... it would be the last on my personal list.

 

Has there been any significant jump or even incremental advancement  since Covid and the supply chain disruption?  Korg stopped making the 2014 flagship Kronos 2 entirely and put out a trickle down Nautilus instead.  Roland released Fantom in 2019 and has only trickled down to Fantom 0.  Yamaha put out Montage in 2016 and trickled down twice with MODX and MODX+.  Things haven’t been moving forward for a while.  An incremental Montage update is a welcome sign.  We'll rip it of course for what it's lacking  , but it's nice to see regardless.  Like there's a chance for better times ahead.  

[Docbop]

1 hour ago, ElmerJFudd said:

Has there been any significant jump or even incremental advancement  since Covid and the supply chain disruption?  Korg stopped making the 2014 flagship Kronos 2 entirely and put out a trickle down Nautilus instead.  Roland released Fantom in 2019 and has only trickled down to Fantom 0.  Yamaha put out Montage in 2016 and trickled down twice with MODX and MODX+.  Things haven’t been moving forward for a while.  An incremental Montage update is a welcome sign.  We'll rip it of course for what it's lacking  , but it's nice to see regardless.  Like there's a chance for better times ahead.  

 

I'd say Covid created a situation for lots of software R&D.  Look at the new things in general most have been incremental software.  Even the new Nord Stage 4 was mainly a software update and a few control panel changes.   When economy a mess software is more time consuming to make but less risky.  With software if it sucks you can always roll it back. 

[DmitryKo]

On 9/3/2023 at 9:26 AM, zephonic said:

Montage never had GHS though

 

It's not Montage, it's the new Montage m8X. Why can't they make 61-key Future System Basic (FSB) semi-weighted action, 73-key Balanced Hammer Standard (BHS) action, and 88-key Natural Wood Graded Hammer 3 (NW-GH3) action versions, like they did in CK61/YC61, YC73/CP73, and YC88/CP88 keyboards?

 

On 9/2/2023 at 11:27 PM, Keyboardplayer said:

if it had all the upgrades you listed, it would be quite understandable if Yamaha jacked up the prices several hundred dollars 

 

I don't think Gigabit Ethernet port and A2B serial interface (which I believe MMA/AMEI are promoting as a data bus for the MIDI 2.0 Protocol) would cost several hundred dollars. Multi-channel USB Audio probably would; not so sure about NW-GH3.

 

 

Regarding Yamaha's proprietary processing/synthesizer ASIC chips for FM-X/AN-X engines, it's just a matter of using a recent and more efficient semiconductor manufacturing process. If they would integrate several of their SWP/SWX/SSP etc. processors on a single die of much smaller size, overall system cost would be lower even with a significant increase in processing power.

 

I recall Yamaha sold their Kagoshima fabs to Phenitec Semiconductors in 2014, so they are fabless now and don't have to use 1990s technology anymore. Even going with quite old 65 nm process node from 2003 would be much better than sticking to 500 nm (0.5 micron) process on 100 mm (4 inch) wafers.

 

 

The rest of these features will be implemented by software - and synth engines would have to be refactored anyway to implement features required by MIDI 2.0 Protocol (which should finally get a Windows 10/11 preview stack by the end of this Fall).

[DmitryKo]

 

 

 

2 hours ago, ElmerJFudd said:

 Korg stopped making the 2014 flagship Kronos 2 entirely and put out a trickle down Nautilus instead.  Roland released Fantom in 2019 and has only trickled down to Fantom 0.  Yamaha put out Montage in 2016 and trickled down twice with MODX and MODX+

 

I see it in a different light - after Montage was released in 2016, Roland finally made a relevant top-end workstation synth in 2019, then re-used their Zen-core engine in a top-end synth in 2020 and trickled it down to an identically featured mid-end workstation and syntesizer in 2022, while Korg trickled down their top-end synth engine to a mid-end synth workstation in 2020 (which may indicate they're working on a new top-end, or they are done with the top-end altogether) and updated it with channel aftertouch in 2022, but Yamaha delayed mid-life refresh for Montage and MODX until 2022/2023 to work on CP/YC/CK series, losing quite a bit of competitive edge by now.

 

Here's the timeline of workstation, synth and stage piano products - note how it took Yamaha about the same time to progress from the original Motif (2001) to Motif-Rack and S90 (2002), Motif ES (2003), Motif-Rack ES (2004), MO and S90ES (2005), CP33/300 (2006), MM and Motif XS (2007), Motif-Rack XS (2008) to S90XS, S70XS, and CP1 (2009), as it took to progress from Motif XF and CP5/50 (2010) to MOX (2011), MX (2012), MOXF (2013), CP4/40 (2014), Reface DX/CS and YC/CP (2015), Montage (2016) to  MX88 (2017).

And then it took the same time to progress from Montage (2016) to MX88 (2017), MODX (2018), CP73/88 (2019), YC (2021), CK and MODX+ (2022), and presumably, Montage m (2023).

 

 

So to me, it looks like Yamaha spent most of their resources on CP73/CP88 and CK61/CK73/CK88 with a Clavia Nord-inspired  interface, which was a mildly successful attempt to disrupt the market and take on the Nord Stage/Piano, then refactored Reface YC/CP and MX series into CK61/CK88, and then finally got to make an incremental update to MODX and Montage, much later that it shoud have been.

 

I would rather see them spend these resources on the AN-X engine (which could be updated FM-X engine, if you condiser how Reface CS/DX use the same SSP2 processor) and another Nord Wave/Lead inspired take on hands-on realtime control interface with lots of knobs/sliders/switchs and miniature displays, which is a must for analog or virtual analog synthesizers nowadays - but what do I know...

[Mighty Motif Max]

https://www.yamahasynth.com/news/new-yamaha-synthesizer-sneak-peak?fbclid=IwAR3QXVJaRwh0QPIxLlyTD5stbdJzJ6G2vAMvw7Crlfx8G2F8Nj9DmGVg26k

 

 

 

 

 

 

[counterpoint]

Went to the link and listened to the "Organ 1" sound clip.  It sounds to me like the organ modeling technology from the YC has been somehow incorporated...time will tell, I guess.

[zephonic]

looks like a new GUI

[CHarrell]

Yeah it looks hot.

[vonnor]

Plastic case.

 

If they're throwing a wall-wart at me too, they can keep it.

 

~ vonnor

[Mighty Motif Max]

Very curious to see if they figured out a way to have a 9th drawbar control (i.e. assign to a knob), fixed the midi channel assignment programming, and reduced the weight significantly while still having a good keybed. I think I said this before but I could still be swayed from a Stage 4 if Yamaha makes this a good enough board.

[vonnor]

I only count 8 sliders, M³

 

EDIT: I see now what Max was talking about. 

[Mighty Motif Max]

7 minutes ago, vonnor said:

I only count 8 sliders, M³

 

Right, hence my comment about having the option to use a knob for the 9th drawbar...or at minimum a touchscreen interface like the Nautilus has.

[ElmerJFudd]

New sound demos.

 

New Yamaha Synthesizer Sneak Peak - Yamaha Synth

https://www.yamahasynth.com/news/new-yamaha-synthesizer-sneak-peak

 

Grand Piano I sounds quite good.   And the FX section on the EP is crazy.  

[Docbop]

and still has the Big Throbbing Knob!

[Bobadohshe]

Oh baby!!

[Theo Verelst]

I'm pretty sure there's hardly a sound there that I covet, or will require in some edited form.

 

T

[Chummy]

I'd assume this board is already at the hands of YouTubers like Woody, Loopop (Ziv), BoBeats etc.

@konaboy Woody is dying to show us the demo he made of the new Montage but he can't until the date Yamaha allows in the contract.

[Keyboardplayer]

These are teaser sounds, so I doubt Yamaha is putting its best foot forward quite yet in the run-up to the official launch. The sounds in this demonstration are excellent, make no mistake. But I think going forward, Yamaha will incrementally up the ante, giving people a more vivid and clear picture of what this Beast can really do soundwise. What stood out for me in these sound demos so far is the Orchestral and Percussion instruments that to me sounded fantastic. The Ac. Pianos also sounded very good, and it will be interesting to hear more of them going forward. Btw, Piano 1 isn't necessarily the pick of the litter, if you know what I mean. Yamaha said we'll be getting more information and hopefully more sounds very soon. The hype and excitement are gaining steam and hopefully if the AN1-X virtual analog engine is really onboard this Beast we'll get a glimpse of it before the official launch. But perhaps Yamaha will save the best for last. In October, that is. Where do I get in line to get one? Hopefully, they'll be available shortly after the official launch. Just in time for the holidays. 👍 

[ProfD]

1 hour ago, Theo Verelst said:

I'm pretty sure there's hardly a sound there that I covet, or will require in some edited form.

 

T

Reads like someone just saved $4k USD from buying a new Yamaha KB.😁😎

[Keyboardplayer]

Here are two new sound demos from the new Yamaha Montage M. The first is called Drums II and the second is called Imperial Guitars. I combined the two files together into one file. I found these on the Yamaha Synth SoundCloud website. PS: The Imperial Guitars demo was uploaded 26 days ago, but I'm almost certain it's an early demo of the Montage M. The Drums II demo was uploaded 9 hours ago. Maybe it was an oversight by Blake Angelos to add it to the list on the Yamaha Synth website. Btw, you'll probably want to keep the volume down somewhat for the Imperial Guitars demo, which is a layered voice from what I can tell. But it sounds like the person who recorded it was angry about something, and they took it out on the keys. 😂 Enjoy!

 

 

[jazzpiano88]

I thought the PianoEffect demo sounded nice.  Piano with strumming guitar type of sound.