Rumors: Yamaha Montage successor

[CyberGene]

5 hours ago, AnotherScott said:

Behaving like VA to some degree is not the same as being VA, though. And I don't know that the people who want to see VA in a Montage merely want "a VA-style interface" as opposed to actual VA.

I didn’t say that’s what Yamaha should do or is what customers wanted, but rather it’s what Yamaha will probably do 😀 Knowing how they usually take baby steps with their instrument evolution…

[Keyboardplayer]

10 hours ago, CyberGene said:

I didn’t say that’s what Yamaha should do or is what customers wanted, but rather it’s what Yamaha will probably do 😀 Knowing how they usually take baby steps with their instrument evolution…

Yamaha and the rest of them want to remain in business for the long haul, and incremental upgrades are probably the best way of achieving that goal. Yamaha, Korg, Roland, Clavia (Nord), Casio, etc. are trying to give consumers the best bang for the buck in order to gain customers, retain customers, for the purpose of creating repeat customers. I heard through the grapevine that Yamaha was going to introduce the Montage M at around the same price point as the original Montage. Although, if the new Montage has an AN-x virtual analog synth engine plus MIDI 2.0 compatibility, it would be more than just an incremental upgrade in my opinion. Therefore, if Yamaha raises the price(s) $500-$700 (all things considered) I think it would still be quite acceptable because of what you'd be getting for the price of admission. We'll know the answer to these and other questions very soon.    

[CHarrell]

Yamaha tech takes so long to evolve, it's actually banned in Oklahoma.

[ProfD]

1 hour ago, Keyboardplayer said:

Yamaha and the rest of them want to remain in business for the long haul, and incremental upgrades are probably the best way of achieving that goal. Yamaha, Korg, Roland, Clavia (Nord), Casio, etc. are trying to give consumers the best bang for the buck in order to gain customers, retain customers, for the purpose of creating repeat customers.

Bingo. 

 

The manufacturers are not interested in giving the consumer everything all at once. 

 

Manufacturers are keeping customers on the hamster wheel of upgrading KBs every so many years.😎

[Docbop]

19 minutes ago, ProfD said:

Manufacturers are keeping customers on the hamster wheel of upgrading KBs every so many years.😎

Henry Ford said he'd go broke if he ever made another Model T Ford, they last too long. 

[ElmerJFudd]

5 hours ago, ProfD said:

Bingo. 

 

The manufacturers are not interested in giving the consumer everything all at once. 

 

Manufacturers are keeping customers on the hamster wheel of upgrading KBs every so many years.😎

Oh without a doubt - they will never ever build an instrument with everything their customer research has informed them of.  To do so would be the last keyboard we need.  
 

Not that’s not to say they don’t make great things. But they are very careful to leave something out that arrives in the next model (minus something we already had 😂😂😂😂).  
 

Laptops, MainStage, Tablets and Phones complicate matters, however.  We all pass on an instrument that lacks a usb audio interface.  

[Julius D Majestic Studios]

On 8/27/2023 at 5:36 PM, Keyboardplayer said:

There will be 3 versions of the Montage M. This is another leaked photo showing all three versions. Notice also that Yamaha kept the mod/pitch bend wheels and the ribbon controller.  

These pictures look ultra fake.    I know the board is official but these pics look like photoshop specials lol

[Julius D Majestic Studios]

On 8/27/2023 at 10:00 PM, Bobadohshe said:

I can only speak for my very specific purposes.

 

But I'm bummed on the loss of the 8 x 4 button grid on the right. The way I have my sounds organized on the Montage makes it so I can get to any of my sounds lightning quick with 2 button presses. This is an indispensable part of my Top 40 gig flow. 16 patches per page x 16 pages and I really need 'em all that quick. Not sure how it'll work in this new one. Maybe you just have to use the touchscreen. I avoid using it as much as possible. Durable tactile buttons are more responsive and reliable in the heat of battle.

 

Other than that I wonder what this upgrade is all about. Right now there is a limbo where the old Montage is discontinued and whatever this product is isn't available yet. That's not usually how Yamaha rolls.

You don’t like set list on the keyboards?

[jerrythek]

10 hours ago, ProfD said:

Bingo. 

 

The manufacturers are not interested in giving the consumer everything all at once. 

 

Manufacturers are keeping customers on the hamster wheel of upgrading KBs every so many years.😎

From my experience, this is not true. Manufacturers aren’t deciding to withhold things for such crass reasons. Features take time to develop and implement. And the more complex the system, the more time needed to debug and test those systems. The more time/man hours put into a project the more cost you need to recoup. Each company decides how long they are willing to amortize their development costs over. And based on current and future sales projections, companies decide how much time they can spend to develop new products. These are the factors that come into play.

 

Then there is the issue of what tech they already have developed, and what tech they need to research and then develop/implement. Some companies don’t have a wealth of synthesis technologies, or they have some that are current, and others that were developed a while ago, on different than current platforms etc. It’s not like everything is just sitting on the shelf ready to be pasted in and go to market. So more often than not these are the types of reasons.

 

it is true that sometimes the product definition and target audience will be a reason for not including something. I’ve been part of projects where the charter was not to make it too complex. And right or wrong, that would cause features to be left out. But more often than not it is the development costs and material costs versus the target street price that dictates the decisions. Not some “evil” intent to withhold things to create obsolescence.

[ProfD]

11 hours ago, jerrythek said:

From my experience, this is not true. Manufacturers aren’t deciding to withhold things for such crass reasons.

 

But more often than not it is the development costs and material costs versus the target street price that dictates the decisions. Not some “evil” intent to withhold things to create obsolescence.

Brotha JK, I respect your position since you have spent decades in those trenches.  Thanks for providing that perspective to us. 

 

Admittedly, I haven't spent any time on the R&D side and/or in the factories of the manufacturers.  I'm just a musician who shows up in the music store and plays and buys KBs.

 

Having laid hands on many KBs over several decades, from *my* perspective as a musician, the changes in KB technology from one iteration to the next seem to be incremental.  Maybe its manufacturers recycling the same sounds that leads me to believe it's more of the same.😁😎

[Julius D Majestic Studios]

On 9/1/2023 at 3:51 PM, David Emm said:

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.    

Which keyboard are you referring to coming the closest to doing it all?

 

what do you mean by buying outwards?

[Julius D Majestic Studios]

On 9/2/2023 at 5:45 PM, David Emm said:

 

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.    

Nevermind.  I get what you mean now.

[Docbop]

Whatever they put out will be interesting from viewpoint of where Yamaha sees the music biz going for next five years. 

[Keyboardplayer]

In discussing the new Montage M synthesizer there's been a lot of speculation that it will include a new analog synthesis engine e.g. AN1x/VL1/CS-80, etc. Here is a YouTube video showcasing the Yamaha AN1x analogue physical modelling control synthesizer, released back in 1997. This demo is by musician, music producer Katsunori Ujiie. It's in Japanese, but there is closed captioning available. If you need to, in your browser click the CC icon next to the Settings icon to turn Closed Captions ON if it isn't already, then go to Settings/Subtitles/CC/Auto-translate/... then choose your preferred language in the list. Viola!

 

Some of the new sounds released of the new Montage M sound somewhat familiar to the AN1x. There is also a chance the new Montage will be expandable to add additional sounds and possibly new synth engines? The Roland Fantom (2019) is sound expandable via software updates. Will Yamaha go in the same direction? Time will tell. PS: The AN1x only had 10 voice polyphony. If Yammie adds an AN1x engine, I expect it to utilize more polyphony, e.g. 24/32 with updated technology to outperform the original. Hopefully. 😉 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m6J3q7orgVA

 

[David Emm]

27 minutes ago, Docbop said:

Whatever they put out will be interesting from viewpoint of where Yamaha sees the music biz going for next five years. 

 

This, very logically. Let's think objectively and fairly. Just imagine an independent company trying to keep up with OUR cranky crowd! Jerry nailed most of the pragmatic points. I'm thinking more of people trying to second-guess the next popular trend. The abstract nature of it is a lot of what fuels MPN. Over the years, many odd instruments have appeared, some being white elephants and others being major hits. Yamaha put in several careful years before releasing the DX7, but did they *expect* its wild success? Or was it just sensible faith in good engineering? Magic 8-Ball says "Ask the fly on the wall." 🤔

[jerrythek]

7 hours ago, ProfD said:

Having laid hands on many KBs over several decades, from *my* perspective as a musician, the changes in KB technology from one iteration to the next seem to be incremental.  Maybe its manufacturers recycling the same sounds that leads me to believe it's more of the same.😁😎

Thanks. But notice I didn’t argue that it isn’t incremental… or what you may feel is incremental. 

 

That’s a whole different issue, right? 

 

 

Jerry

[ProfD]

1 hour ago, Docbop said:

Whatever they put out will be interesting from viewpoint of where Yamaha sees the music biz going for next five years. 

Slow down mayne. KB manufacturers have never been ahead of the music business or music production.

 

Musicians have made interesting use of KB by programming or using sounds that became popular on recordings. 

 

After the fact, manufacturers would incorporate popular recorded sounds as presets.

 

That's how we ended up with brass patches, mono leads, Moog bass and scat samples.🤣😎

[jazzpiano88]

1 hour ago, ProfD said:

Slow down mayne. KB manufacturers have never been ahead of the music business or music production.

 

Musicians have made interesting use of KB by programming or using sounds that became popular on recordings.

 

I disagree.  GS1 as an example.  Huge sound on Toto, Yellowjackets, etc.

[ProfD]

40 minutes ago, JazzPiano88 said:

I disagree.  GS1 as an example.  Huge sound on Toto, Yellowjackets, etc.

While Yamaha created the synth, I contend the sound was popularized by the musicians who played it on their record.

 

Oberheim didn't create the brass sound knowing EVH would make it Jump and become one of the most loved/hated sounds in a KB. 😁😎

[jazzpiano88]

11 hours ago, ProfD said:

After the fact, manufacturers would incorporate popular recorded sounds as presets.

This is what I was commenting on.  The GS1 was presets to begin and end with, no editing.

You could argue that the experience with this synth helped pave the way for the presets of the follow on FM synths like the DX7.    But even these basically stayed as presets on records and weren’t modified from the initial release, as all those famous FM sounds of the records in the 80s were stock presets from the DX7.  

[jazzpiano88]

This is fun to watch:

 

 

[ProfD]

The DX7 EP and bass are great examples of KB presets being recorded so much that they became presets in future KBs. 

 

I doubt that anyone could name a popular recording that uses a preset from a Montage or any other modern KB.😁

 

That was my point in response to "where Yamaha sees the music biz in 5 years".

 

IMO, KB manufacturers are recycling the sounds of yesteryear. They aren't coming up with anything new that will shape the future of music.😎 

[ElmerJFudd]

48 minutes ago, ProfD said:

The DX7 EP and bass are great examples of KB presets being recorded so much that they became presets in future KBs. 

 

I doubt that anyone could name a popular recording that uses a preset from a Montage or any other modern KB.😁

 

That was my point in response to "where Yamaha sees the music biz in 5 years".

 

IMO, KB manufacturers are recycling the sounds of yesteryear. They aren't coming up with anything new that will shape the future of music.😎 

I’m certain there are presets from workstations, other hardware instruments and software instruments in every pop recording.   What there is less of is live playing of anything - unless it’s been cut into a loop and groove quantized.  We wouldn’t recognize a preset because current pop throws plug-in fx on every track - mangling the “recycled” sounds of yesterday into something new.  I’m certain that’s why Yamaha chose to do a modern FM synth with this glowing super knob to highlight the manipulation potential of the instrument.  
 

That said - from a live player’s perspective.  Having sounds of every era is the reason to select digital boards.  Otherwise you always need a laptop to supplement. 

[AnotherScott]

On 9/22/2023 at 12:01 PM, ProfD said:

Maybe its manufacturers recycling the same sounds that leads me to believe it's more of the same.😁😎

3 hours ago, ProfD said:

IMO, KB manufacturers are recycling the sounds of yesteryear. 

 

To me, this has been a benefit that came with the lowered costs of increased storage capabilities. It would always irritate me that, if I bought a company's new model, I not only got their new stuff, but I would likely lose some of their older sounds that I really liked. If you moved from a Yamaha S30/S80 to a Motif to a Motif ES to a Motif XS, you'd get new sounds, but you'd also lose old ones. That finally changed with the much higher sample storage capacities of the XF, which included new sounds but also still included all the sounds from the previous XS; and then the Montage which included lots of new sounds and new capabilities, but still included all the sounds of the older Motif XF. Yay!

 

In fact, one of the irritations I have with the current Fantom series is that, while it has its own new sounds/capabilities AND includes all the sounds from the 20+ year old SV-X080, it is missing lots of great sounds from the Fantom S/X/G that came in between. 😞

[johnchop]

I’m increasingly interested in this as a studio brain.

 

I need to dig into the Montage manual and see what’s up with external device control.

 

I’m hoping the display above the knobs can show custom info, not just MIDI channel and CC#.

[pjd]

"Motorized faders" -- Just felt like saying that.

 

I think Jerryk is generally right on with his remark. Hardly anybody in marketing/engineering sits around like Dr. Evil plotting to take your money away. 🙂 Jeez, most of these damned meetings are boring as hell. 😬 Glad to be retired. 😌

 

Not musical instruments, but we had periodic meetings to discuss "what is and what isn't", the features to be included and excluded in a given release . Nobody has the staff to do everything. Yeah, Yamaha is relatively large, but they are still finite.  The trick is scheduling feature release against available staff (both development and QA). With hardware, you get a raft of additional problems which software development teams don't face (e.g., tooling, scheduling product mix, etc., etc.) It's no wonder that progress is incremental -- nobody has the resources to have a revolution every few years.

 

The only place where a customer might get shortchanged is feature tiering -- how to differentiate product tiers in a family. Montage (gen 1) vs. MODX (gen 1) no doubt had this kind of internal discussion. MODX was a damned good value.

 

Just random thoughts while I caffeinate -- pj

 

[DmitryKo]

On 9/22/2023 at 7:41 AM, jerrythek said:

Features take time to develop and implement. And the more complex the system, the more time needed to debug and test those systems. The more time/man hours put into a project the more cost you need to recoup.

 

 Then there is the issue of what tech they already have developed, and what tech they need to research and then develop/implement. Some companies don’t have a wealth of synthesis technologies, or they have some that are current, and others that were developed a while ago, on different than current platforms etc. It’s not like everything is just sitting on the shelf ready to be pasted in and go to market.

 

On 9/23/2023 at 8:02 PM, pjd said:

 Hardly anybody in marketing/engineering sits around like Dr. Evil plotting to take your money away. 🙂 Jeez, most of these damned meetings are boring as hell.

 

Nobody has the staff to do everything. Yeah, Yamaha is relatively large, but they are still finite.  The trick is scheduling feature release against available staff (both development and QA). With hardware, you get a raft of additional problems which software development teams don't face (e.g., tooling, scheduling product mix, etc., etc.) It's no wonder that progress is incremental -- nobody has the resources to have a revolution every few years.

 

No, you can't counter the notion of "evil greedy corporations" by arguing the complexities of electronic engineering and product marketing, it's forbidden by the rules... or so I think. 😁

 

 

But seriously, looking back at the last 40+ years of modern music production technology, I cannot stop thinking about the vicious cycle that besieges even the most successful electronic musical instrument companies :

 

1) a visionary engineer or founder develops some clever and well-received technology, paving the way for a break-through product or market distruption

2) after initial success, he stumbles with developing a new break-through, faces production quality problems, or encounters competition from another visionary

3) as income from old product dries up and new products never materialize, the company either goes bankrupt, or gets sold to a new owner who winds it down after a few more years of trying to return to profit

 

This is particularily true for Sequential Circuits and E-mu, as told in various interviews by Dave Smith and Dave Rossum. But look at the list of defunct US companies that used to make synthesizers - Moog Music, Sequential Circuits, Oberheim, ARP, New Englad Digital, E-mu, Ensoniq, Linn, Buchla, Simmons, Alesis... Only the Big Three Japanese companies survived throughout 1990s mostly uscathed - that is, Roland, Yamaha, and Korg. As of today, only nine other companies still make hardware music synthesizers: Clavia (Sweden); Novation, Modal (UK); Behringer, Waldorf, Access/Kemper (Germany); Arturia (France); Moog/InMusic, Sequential/Focusrite (USA). Access is dormant for a long time though, and this week brought sad news of Modal declaring insolvency and Moog closing down the production site just two months after the company was sold to InMusic Brands.

So maybe Yamaha Corporation does know a thing or two about designing succesfull products and making enough sales to avoid bankruptcy - something that other synth manufacturers seem to always struggle with...

 

 

I also cannot agree more with the notion that each sucessful company has to have key competencies in certain areas which give them an advantage to the competitors. Yamaha is arguably the biggest and most divercified out of the Big Three, and the only one which builds actual acoustic instrumentsand a range of pro-audio products. All three had a break-through synthesizer product that made a lasting impact, i.e. Roland TR-808 (1980) and Jupiter-8 (1981), Yamaha DX7 (1983), and Korg M1 (1988), but they've gone in different directions since then.

Yamaha's key competencies seem to be in VLSI chip design. Yamaha made a big bet on purchasing the FM synthesis patent and investing in chip manufacturing - John Chowining recalls how Yamaha's initial implementation in GS1  had 50 different chips, and  for DX7 they reduced it to only 2 VLSI chips. Their OPN/OPM/OPZ/OPL etc. series chips were used everywhere from Yamaha's DX/TX syntehsizers to PSS/PSR home keyboards, game arcade machines and gaming consoles, 8- and 16-bit home computers, and Ad Lib/SoundBlaster sound cards for the PC. They also produced digital mixers such as DMP, 02R, DM, PM and Rivage PM, and other pro audio gear like DS2416 digital mixing card, REV / SPX digial effects processors etc. So they developed their in-house AWM tone generator chip, as well as additional effects/DSP chips, and they use these chips in a broad range of products from PSR keyboards to digital pianos to music synthesizers. They also used to produce these chips in  their own fabs, but they sold them in 2016.

 

 

So for Yamaha to mimic Korg and go full software route, somehow capitalizing on their ownership of Steinberg and the VSTi specification, does not make much sense to me. It simply amounts to discarding Yamaha's competencies in hardware design, which Korg Japan didn't have in the first place (just look how their current chips are a recycling of their 1990s technology, while new products like the Korg opsix have to use a Raspberry Pi board to implement the FM synthesis). 

 

Therefore  I would expect Yamah to continue to rely on a inhouse, dedicated hardware DSP for most tasks, though would love to see more programmability, something like Roland's plug-in synth models for the ZenCore.

 

Maybe some crazy stuff for the new AWM iteration to host analog emulation, like vastly increased polyphony and independed "oscillator" wave generators, where up to four could be chained in parallel or in series,  and provide the ability to seamlessly morph into a different oscillator type; a bank of digital VCM filters that could be stacked in a groupd 8 to make a large 16-pole filter, and the ability to morth foilter types across the Z-dimension, much like Z-Plane filters in E-mu Morpheus, Ultra Proteus and Emulator EIV/E4 Ultra. 

 

 

 

.

 

 

[jerrythek]

3 hours ago, DmitryKo said:

<snip>
Yamaha's key competencies seem to be in VLSI chip design. Yamaha made a big bet on purchasing the FM synthesis patent and investing in chip manufacturing - Dave Chowining recalls how Stanford's initial implementation had 57 different chips, and Yamaha's enginers reduced it to only 2 VLSI chips. Their OPN/OPM/OPZ/OPL etc. series chips were used everywhere from Yamaha's DX/TX syntehsizers to PSS/PSR home keyboards, game arcade machines and gaming consoles, 8- and 16-bit home computers, and Ad Lib/SoundBlaster sound cards for the PC. They also produced digital mixers such as DMP, 02R, DM, PM and Rivage PM, and other pro audio gear like DS2416 digital mixing card, REV / SPX digial effects processors etc. So they developed their in-house AWM tone generator chip, as well as additional effects/DSP chips, and they use these chips in a broad range of products from PSR keyboards to digital pianos to music synthesizers. They also used to produce these chips in  their own fabs, but they sold them in 2016.

 

<snip>

So for Yamaha to mimic Korg and go full software route, somehow capitalizing on their ownership of Steinberg and the VSTi specification, does not make much sense to me. It simply amounts to discarding Yamaha's competencies in hardware design, which Korg Japan didn't have in the first place (just look how their current chips are a recycling of their 1990s technology, while new products like the Korg opsix have to use a Raspberry Pi board to implement the FM synthesis).

 

 

Hi Dimitry:

 

An interesting commentary, but you have an few inaccuracies in your comments.

 

Dr. John Chowning is the inventor (he prefers discoverer) of FM, and before Yamaha licensed the technology (not purchased it), it was running on mainframe computers. Not running on 57 chips. Not sure where you got that from…

 

And Korg doesn’t “have to” use Rasberry Pi to do FM, they have done various forms of FM on the Oasys PCI card, and  the Kronos. But to relate to what I think is your point, in todays world you don’t need to develop custom chips to do synthesis and DSP. I’m not sure it is still a significant advantage, but I’m not an expert in that field.

 

Jerry

[AnotherScott]

3 hours ago, DmitryKo said:

All three had a break-through synthesizer product that made a lasting impact, i.e. Roland TR-808 (1980) and Jupiter-8 (1981), Yamaha DX7 (1983), and Korg M1 (1988)

 

Jupiter 8 made a lasting impact artistically, but had nowhere near the market impact of the DX7 or M1. Roland's equivalent to that would have been the D50.

[jerrythek]

36 minutes ago, AnotherScott said:

 

Jupiter 8 made a lasting impact artistically, but had nowhere near the market impact of the DX7 or M1. Roland's equivalent to that would have been the D50.

And the TR-808 was a failure in its lifetime. It only gathered influence when it could be had for so cheap after its discontinuation that young music makers could afford them and started using it to make dance music/EDM etc. I wouldn’t call that Roland having/making a breakthrough instrument.