Montage M - Is it Me?

[Macsaint777]

I have had my Montage M6 since December. It SOUNDS amazing.. but I cannot bond with it. It doesn't inspire me. Its beautiful.. but...I play my Stage 4 almost constantly.. and leave the Montage M6 sitting under... its dust cover. I might sell it. It has severe polyphony issues that I don't think should be there - I cannot for example have a beat playing, while the full drawbars of all the new organs are pulled out, without dropping serious notes and the whole board seeming to "cough" trying to get those hi hats out. 

 

 

[AnotherScott]

30 minutes ago, Macsaint777 said:

It has severe polyphony issues that I don't think should be there - I cannot for example have a beat playing, while the full drawbars of all the new organs are pulled out, without dropping serious notes

Remember, even though it's got the updated rotary, Montage still lacks an actual organ engine. If you use the "9 bars" performance, you get individual drawbar control, but it's still just using plain looped AWM2 samples. So each key you hit takes 9 instances of polyphony... actually more, because besides the 9 drawbars, there are also elements for key click, leakage, and possibly other things, I don't remember for sure. But at, say, 11 elements per key, a "palm" where you hit (for example) 6 keys will use up 66 instances of polyphony. There are a number of organ "combination drawbar" sounds that can use polyphony more conservatively, but of course, at the expense of complete individual drawbar control. But the "9 bars" performance should be reserved for when it's the only thing playing, and even then, you may need to be aware of its limitations.

 

Montage remains a board whose organ sounds are often suitable for a supplemental role, but if you want a clonewheel, it's not the board to choose. It's a shame Yamaha didn't include the YC or even CK organ in the Montage M, especially since it's an area where the Montage lags the competition (i.e. Fantom, K2700, Nautilus). That said, you can add VB3m from a smartphone, or some other organ app, and get high quality organ sounds there without impacting your polyphony at all.

 

 

[Macsaint777]

2 hours ago, AnotherScott said:

Remember, even though it's got the updated rotary, Montage still lacks an actual organ engine. If you use the "9 bars" performance, you get individual drawbar control, but it's still just using plain looped AWM2 samples. So each key you hit takes 9 instances of polyphony... actually more, because besides the 9 drawbars, there are also elements for key click, leakage, and possibly other things, I don't remember for sure. But at, say, 11 elements per key, a "palm" where you hit (for example) 6 keys will use up 66 instances of polyphony. There are a number of organ "combination drawbar" sounds that can use polyphony more conservatively, but of course, at the expense of complete individual drawbar control. But the "9 bars" performance should be reserved for when it's the only thing playing, and even then, you may need to be aware of its limitations.

 

Montage remains a board whose organ sounds are often suitable for a supplemental role, but if you want a clonewheel, it's not the board to choose. It's a shame Yamaha didn't include the YC or even CK organ in the Montage M, especially since it's an area where the Montage lags the competition (i.e. Fantom, K2700, Nautilus). That said, you can add VB3m from a smartphone, or some other organ app, and get high quality organ sounds there without impacting your polyphony at all.

 

 

RIGHT... and this makes it almost always the one I ignore in favor of my Stage 4. 

[DeltaJockey]

12 hours ago, TJ Cornish said:

but the extra elements per voice that make the primary piano not take up four slots

Yeah, agree there. I hated the way pianos were split like that. I did though, use the damper noise included with the Bose on one of my own piano libraries, which was kind of convenient.

[DeltaJockey]

9 hours ago, David Emm said:

I wish I could un-read that. I wanted to continue laboring under the illusion that the band was an endless fount of godly sound design on the fly. 🤨🤓

Sorry to burst your bubble

but they have gone through many phases in the life of the band. The improv days you talk of certainly were the original 70's era of the Froese/Franke/Baumann times.

The period I'm talking about was after Franke left, and from what I understand the band then became a trademark business venture, which I guess, it still is today, with Froese's son continuing the legacy.

 

Anyway, I have to wonder how many synth big name bands have techs to do the hard yards for them. Like every passion in life, once it becomes a big time career, it's more about the business and less about playing with toys.

 

[jerrythek]

On 3/7/2024 at 6:35 PM, David Emm said:

I think the issue could be summed up by something I heard a short while ago. The statement was that Japanese people are highly fond of puzzles, which shows quite clearly in X number of hardware synth GUIs. Far more people than not see a synth as another piece of consumer tech, whose job is to make fun noises. Those of us who are serious, furrowed-brow keyboard players take a more serious view of it.

I can’t speak to their love of puzzles, but in my long experience I do know that they are not put off by long, multi-step processes to achieve an end result. They don’t suffer from the impatience that so many of us do. 
 

I was able to address that in a lot of features we put into KORG gear after I started there. Things in the Triton were my first visible examples of that. Not meaning to make this about me, just sharing some first-hand observations/knowledge.

[Stokely]

If I was going to commit to a two-keyboard rig moving forward, the Montage 6 or 7 would be on my radar for sure.  Universally it seems the sound quality is amazing.  I have the Modx and it's no slouch, but having the analog engine and better build does appeal to me at this point in my life!   That said, I love my light load-in with one keyboard and might get the gumption up to bring out a guitar and no way I'll want 2 keyboards and a guitar.  That'll be my personal "Mr Holland's opus", senior citizen finally gets the courage up to play power chords at a bar gig after regretting not learning 50 years earlier  

[CyberGene]

A bit of on-topic and off-topic but how many of you struggle with memorizing things like dates, numbers, names, etc? I’ve been like that since a very small kid. I couldn’t remember a single f***n date in history, or geography facts, etc. It’s why I only liked math and physics because I could basically solve and deduce everything from the basics. No need to remember a lot of stuff. 
 

Fast forward. I can’t remember any workflow on a workstation/synth unless it’s something obvious and self-describing such as a Nord or my Yamaha CK61. Even the latter, there are some shortcuts requiring Exit or Settings button + something else and for the life of me I can’t remember what was what.

 

How many of you are like that? I know people who remember things forever. Maybe those people see no issue with cryptic and long workflows like on the Montage/MODX. 

[Daniel71]

I sold my Stage 3 88 three months ago, ordered a week ago a M8X…

don’t know when I’ll receive it…hopefully in a couple of weeks max

 

 

[David Emm]

7 hours ago, CyberGene said:

A bit of on-topic and off-topic but how many of you struggle with memorizing things like dates, numbers, names, etc? I’ve been like that since a very small kid. I couldn’t remember a single f***n date in history, or geography facts, etc. It’s why I only liked math and physics because I could basically solve and deduce everything from the basics. No need to remember a lot of stuff. 
Fast forward. I can’t remember any workflow on a workstation/synth unless it’s something obvious and self-describing such as a Nord or my Yamaha CK61. Even the latter, there are some shortcuts requiring Exit or Settings button + something else and for the life of me I can’t remember what was what.

How many of you are like that? I know people who remember things forever. Maybe those people see no issue with cryptic and long workflows like on the Montage/MODX. 

 

I'm like that! TJ Cornish succinctly made the flip side of my earlier point about the right synth(s) for your personal mindset. He's the kind of player who truly meshes with a big honker like the Montage and thus gets the most from it. Its no small venture, as Our Kind knows. I admire his tenacity and even envy it a bit. Some of us are more tech-adept; others lean towards the "creative" (*cough*) abstract side of things. 

 

I once took comfort from Todd Rundgren saying (loosely) "I learn what I need to know to address the work at hand and then I forget a lot of it, because I'm off to a new song." You have to keep the nuts and bolts properly lined up to reach sensible goals, even while trying to retain that first wild idea that got you rolling. I became pretty intimate with my old Korg 01Wfd, but I still had oddball Post-It notes on it, to help my bucking bronco of a brain along. It was, er, pre-iPad set lists. 😛

 

Several cost/benefit command decisions about a grant led me to a bigger Mac and some key software over a Korg M3. Instead, I bought a TR61. It had the same problem as the Karma: a display so pixelated, programming it was like building a ship in a bottle. Ugh! I Autosampled the heck out of the ample classy presets, so now, they're at my fingertips within Logic. There are numerous paths to the right hybrid approach for YOU, so don't worry unduly. As the Oblique Strategies card states "Honor thy mistake as a hidden intention." Anything creative involves some stumbling.  

[Aynsley Green]

Been using the Nord Stage 4 Compact a fair bit - it is a deep machine, but it's still fundamentally not a Workstation.

There's quite a few limitations:

• Splits can only be where Nord says you can have them (a serious problem)
• 'Scenes' are not really Scenes at all (a serious problem)
• Patch management is still fiddly, and Set List mode is now gone (a serious problem)
• There is User Sampling but it's not great, no multisampling - I haven't had much success with it
• Multi-oscillator Synth sounds are limited - if you want to fake a Juno, it'll cost you all 3 layers
• Hammond is pretty good for Rock, but too aggressive for Jazz/Gospel
• The Synth Section is still a bit polite - it won't replace your Analogs

If it's a fiddly gig with lots of patch changes/splits/bullshit I'll use the convenient-but-average Roland Fantom-06 up top, and occasionally connect the Laptop to it if I really need something specific, but I try to avoid that Pandora's Box. Would definitely consider the Montage M6 if I were doing more of those kind of gigs.

[Aynsley Green]

15 minutes ago, David Emm said:

 

I'm like that! TJ Cornish succinctly made the flip side of my earlier point about the right synth(s) for your personal mindset. He's the kind of player who truly meshes with a big honker like the Montage and thus gets the most from it. Its no small venture, as Our Kind knows. I admire his tenacity and even envy it a bit. Some of us are more tech-adept; others lean towards the "creative" (*cough*) abstract side of things. 

 

I once took comfort from Todd Rundgren saying (loosely) "I learn what I need to know to address the work at hand and then I forget a lot of it, because I'm off to a new song." You have to keep the nuts and bolts properly lined up to reach sensible goals, even while trying to retain that first wild idea that got you rolling. I became pretty intimate with my old Korg 01Wfd, but I still had oddball Post-It notes on it, to help my bucking bronco of a brain along. It was, er, pre-iPad set lists. 😛

 

Several cost/benefit command decisions about a grant led me to a bigger Mac and some key software over a Korg M3. Instead, I bought a TR61. It had the same problem as the Karma: a display so pixelated, programming it was like building a ship in a bottle. Ugh! I Autosampled the heck out of the ample classy presets, so now, they're at my fingertips within Logic. There are numerous paths to the right hybrid approach for YOU, so don't worry unduly. As the Oblique Strategies card states "Honor thy mistake as a hidden intention." Anything creative involves some stumbling.  

 

Saw Todd Rundgren just the other week, he still sounds great!

[TJ Cornish]

1 hour ago, David Emm said:

 

I'm like that! TJ Cornish succinctly made the flip side of my earlier point about the right synth(s) for your personal mindset. He's the kind of player who truly meshes with a big honker like the Montage and thus gets the most from it. Its no small venture, as Our Kind knows. I admire his tenacity and even envy it a bit. Some of us are more tech-adept; others lean towards the "creative" (*cough*) abstract side of things. 

 

Thank you for the kind words. Every product on the market has a target audience; the Montage M has sold above expectations (it’s still constrained in Europe), so there are more than a few people who have grokked it, but it isn’t for everyone. I would say the Montage M and Nord Stage are pretty opposite products (though even the Nord is starting to get complicated in its own ways). 

 

The Montage is not an organ (though it can sort of awkwardly do it if that’s the only thing you want to do with it at a time and if you don’t need to adjust the 1’ drawbar very often). The Montage is not targeted at being a stage piano, though if all you need is a piano sound, it can certainly do that with excellent results. In my opinion, the Montage’s sweet spot is as a platform with soft-synth-like power, but with the rock solid operation of a purpose-built, mil-spec, single-vendor system. 

 

Why it works for me:

- No PC required. I do IT as a day job. I don’t need that headache in my music. I have hired and fired MainStage 3 times. I want my keyboard rig to work the same way every time I power it on, and not worry about USB connection issues, glitching due to background tasks, software updates, etc.

- IMO the sound quality is 6 out of 5 stars good. OMG does it sound good. Love the CFX piano, love the Rhodes. Love the ANX. Love the EasySounds Analog sample library. 

- The control surface is better than anything else on the planet - sliders with LED ladders, endless rotary encoder knobs with position indication, scene buttons, Super Knob, etc. The second screen can be very helpful.

- I can get more sound out of the Montage simultaneously than any other means I have tried - my standard template performance has the CFX piano, a pad I made from built-in samples, a pad I made from the EasySounds Analog library, an FM pad, and another synth sound either from ANX or the EasySounds library in the user sample range. All of these run all the time, and can be morphed between with sliders, have the filter cutoff adjusted by knobs, have the parts labeled on the second screen, and I have zero polyphony trouble due to spreading this between the 4 engines (400 stereo voices). There is no other keyboard on the planet that can handle this. In one patch, I can have a large number of detailed, dynamically changing sounds that can go from whispery-background to 50’-wide mix domination.

- This is part and parcel of the sound quality, but the massive amount of effects power - the ability to have two IFX channels per part plus all of the insert and master stuff is more than any other board on the planet.

- Being a Yamaha, this thing is bomb-proof.

- I use a different board for organ (XK-5).

- It is luxurious to play. It feels great, and my fingers connect with the dynamic range of the keyboard. I believe I play better because of this instrument.

 

This comes at the cost of a need to understand the Yamaha way. It will not bend to you; you need to bend to it.

[Motif88]

18 hours ago, Aynsley Green said:

Been using the Nord Stage 4 Compact a fair bit - it is a deep machine, but it's still fundamentally not a Workstation.

There's quite a few limitations:

• Splits can only be where Nord says you can have them (a serious problem)
• 'Scenes' are not really Scenes at all (a serious problem)
• Patch management is still fiddly, and Set List mode is now gone (a serious problem)
• There is User Sampling but it's not great, no multisampling - I haven't had much success with it
• Multi-oscillator Synth sounds are limited - if you want to fake a Juno, it'll cost you all 3 layers
• Hammond is pretty good for Rock, but too aggressive for Jazz/Gospel
• The Synth Section is still a bit polite - it won't replace your Analogs

If it's a fiddly gig with lots of patch changes/splits/bullshit I'll use the convenient-but-average Roland Fantom-06 up top, and occasionally connect the Laptop to it if I really need something specific, but I try to avoid that Pandora's Box. Would definitely consider the Montage M6 if I were doing more of those kind of gigs.

Thanks for your real world experience with your Nord Stage 4. Besides the issues you list, I find it odd that at roughly $5k+ there's no built in audio interface and only 2GB for piano memory.

[Motif88]

If we could just get Matt Johnson to do tutorial videos. Matt's approach and explanation in mere a demo helped more than most.

 

 

 

 

[Aynsley Green]

On 3/11/2024 at 6:22 AM, Motif88 said:

Thanks for your real world experience with your Nord Stage 4. Besides the issues you list, I find it odd that at roughly $5k+ there's no built in audio interface and only 2GB for piano memory.

 

Agreed, even cheap keyboards have a built-in interface, if not DAW integration, these days.
The External Section (the master controller features) on the NS4 uses 1 Synth Layer, and still has the same Split limitations (which is absurd).
The Yamaha YC88 plays much nicer with others (submixer, proper MIDI features, USB interface, XLR outs) and is half the price.

 

The 2GB of Piano Memory is disappointing in 2024, but it's not really an impediment. Once you load on the important stuff - White Grand XL (the Steinway), Bright Grand XL (the Yamaha), Stockholm XL (the Rhodes) and Wurlitzer 2 XL (the Wurly) - there's still a fair bit of room for the 'character pianos'.

 

On 3/10/2024 at 1:27 PM, TJ Cornish said:

Thank you for the kind words. Every product on the market has a target audience; the Montage M has sold above expectations (it’s still constrained in Europe), so there are more than a few people who have grokked it, but it isn’t for everyone. I would say the Montage M and Nord Stage are pretty opposite products (though even the Nord is starting to get complicated in its own ways). 

 

The Montage is not an organ (though it can sort of awkwardly do it if that’s the only thing you want to do with it at a time and if you don’t need to adjust the 1’ drawbar very often). The Montage is not targeted at being a stage piano, though if all you need is a piano sound, it can certainly do that with excellent results. In my opinion, the Montage’s sweet spot is as a platform with soft-synth-like power, but with the rock solid operation of a purpose-built, mil-spec, single-vendor system. 

 

Why it works for me:

- No PC required. I do IT as a day job. I don’t need that headache in my music. I have hired and fired MainStage 3 times. I want my keyboard rig to work the same way every time I power it on, and not worry about USB connection issues, glitching due to background tasks, software updates, etc.

- IMO the sound quality is 6 out of 5 stars good. OMG does it sound good. Love the CFX piano, love the Rhodes. Love the ANX. Love the EasySounds Analog sample library. 

- The control surface is better than anything else on the planet - sliders with LED ladders, endless rotary encoder knobs with position indication, scene buttons, Super Knob, etc. The second screen can be very helpful.

- I can get more sound out of the Montage simultaneously than any other means I have tried - my standard template performance has the CFX piano, a pad I made from built-in samples, a pad I made from the EasySounds Analog library, an FM pad, and another synth sound either from ANX or the EasySounds library in the user sample range. All of these run all the time, and can be morphed between with sliders, have the filter cutoff adjusted by knobs, have the parts labeled on the second screen, and I have zero polyphony trouble due to spreading this between the 4 engines (400 stereo voices). There is no other keyboard on the planet that can handle this. In one patch, I can have a large number of detailed, dynamically changing sounds that can go from whispery-background to 50’-wide mix domination.

- This is part and parcel of the sound quality, but the massive amount of effects power - the ability to have two IFX channels per part plus all of the insert and master stuff is more than any other board on the planet.

- Being a Yamaha, this thing is bomb-proof.

- I use a different board for organ (XK-5).

- It is luxurious to play. It feels great, and my fingers connect with the dynamic range of the keyboard. I believe I play better because of this instrument.

 

This comes at the cost of a need to understand the Yamaha way. It will not bend to you; you need to bend to it.

 

It does look fantastic, but how do you fare with the weight/bulk?

Even the M6 is a bit heavy for flying around, it's nearly a dealbreaker.

[TJ Cornish]

39 minutes ago, Aynsley Green said:

It does look fantastic, but how do you fare with the weight/bulk?

Even the M6 is a bit heavy for flying around, it's nearly a dealbreaker.

There is no doubt it is huge. If Yamaha didn’t have smaller than normal keys on the 6 and 7 I might have gone with the 7. It’s my bottom board, so was never interested in the 6.

 

In the Gator plastic case, the M8X is actually lighter than my XK-5 in a plywood case. Wheels and never playing gigs where stairs are a problem, and the fact that I have a full-size Ford Transit cargo van make the bulk manageable. Ironically, the thickness is the biggest issue for me - my rehearsal desk at home is not adjustable, and the extra thickness of the board means I have to sit on a pillow on my chair to get my elbows in the right place.

 

For quick stuff the Fantom7 goes, as it’s the “good enough” all-in-one board.

 

I’m hoping someone posts pictures or video of the inside of the M8X to see what (if anything) requires all that space. I suspect the action takes up the bulk of the bulk.

[Aynsley Green]

5 hours ago, TJ Cornish said:

There is no doubt it is huge. If Yamaha didn’t have smaller than normal keys on the 6 and 7 I might have gone with the 7. It’s my bottom board, so was never interested in the 6.

 

In the Gator plastic case, the M8X is actually lighter than my XK-5 in a plywood case. Wheels and never playing gigs where stairs are a problem, and the fact that I have a full-size Ford Transit cargo van make the bulk manageable. Ironically, the thickness is the biggest issue for me - my rehearsal desk at home is not adjustable, and the extra thickness of the board means I have to sit on a pillow on my chair to get my elbows in the right place.

 

For quick stuff the Fantom7 goes, as it’s the “good enough” all-in-one board.

 

I’m hoping someone posts pictures or video of the inside of the M8X to see what (if anything) requires all that space. I suspect the action takes up the bulk of the bulk.

 

A lot of flights won't take anything above 33kg in weight, so that's out. I used to fly with a NS2-88 (32.9kg in the flight case) - never again.
The NSC4 is much easier at about 18kg, but still a pain. M6 would be 5kg more than that - so that's an issue.

On the other hand, Yamaha's tend to be quite easy to backline, and unlike Nord, you can bring your show on a USB stick and quickly load it up (you can sort of do that on Nord but it requires a MacBook and it is slow) - so that may be a viable solution once Montage M's start proliferating. 
 

And I agree, the Fantom-06 is a very portable 'good enough' board for nearly any gig. I don't use it often, but it has saved my arse several times.

[TJ Cornish]

The Montage line - M or original, are not slimline instruments. The ESP software that gives you the sound engine of the Montage M on a PC could be used with a controller du jour, but some of the magic would be gone without the control surface and keyboard action. Backlining sounds like a good option.

[dsetto]

6 hours ago, TJ Cornish said:

There is no doubt it is huge. If Yamaha didn’t have smaller than normal keys on the 6 and 7 I might have gone with the 7. It’s my bottom board, so was never interested in the 6.

 

In the Gator plastic case, the M8X is actually lighter than my XK-5 in a plywood case. Wheels and never playing gigs where stairs are a problem, and the fact that I have a full-size Ford Transit cargo van make the bulk manageable. Ironically, the thickness is the biggest issue for me - my rehearsal desk at home is not adjustable, and the extra thickness of the board means I have to sit on a pillow on my chair to get my elbows in the right place.

 

For quick stuff the Fantom7 goes, as it’s the “good enough” all-in-one board.

 

I’m hoping someone posts pictures or video of the inside of the M8X to see what (if anything) requires all that space. I suspect the action takes up the bulk of the bulk.

 

roc n soc nitro gas drum throne with original saddle and backrest 

 

A (pricey) alternative to a pillow, good for elbows and wrists, but not good for far ends of an 88.  

 

 

[Analogaddict]

I really hope Yamaha will consider implementing the whole YC organ engine in the Montage. Having the organ sounds "stealing" so many voices isn't really optimal - and they have a virtual model ready for implementation. Sometimes it's as if Yamaha make things very difficult for themselves. And us. 😅

[Sunlight2]

I'm looking forward to the 'MODX' variant of the M, which I'm hoping will be released in around a year. I'll get the 7 of that, for sure.

[CyberGene]

10 minutes ago, Sunlight2 said:

I'm looking forward to the 'MODX' variant of the M, which I'm hoping will be released in around a year. I'll get the 7 of that, for sure.

I’d probably reconsider it too. I loved the sounds on mine but the lack of good enough and varied analog type of sounds was the final straw for me (with the cryptic and non-intuitive WTF interface being my main gripe).

 

Having FM-X and AN-X in a MODX form-factor, as well as sampled instruments contained entirely within a single part, that’s enough for me to warrant a MODX-M6 purchase. 

[AnotherScott]

Picking up from my earlier comment about how Yamaha's repurposing of words that normally mean something else makes their terminology more confusing...

 

I mentioned how a Montage "Waveform" is something that, itself, contains a number of what we normally call waveforms and how the board requires you to employ both meanings, a complication that could easily have been avoided by not using a word to mean something that already means something else. (What they misleadingly call a Waveform could have been called, say, a Waveset or something along those lines.)

 

Similarly, I've also remembered that, not only do they use "Performance" in what I think is an odd way (to refer to a combination of sounds, as I mentioned), but they also use the word in its more traditional meaning, since they have a feature called "Performance Recorder" which of course has nothing to do with the thing they call a Performance. 🙂

 

 

[HammondDave]

1 minute ago, AnotherScott said:

Picking up from my earlier comment about how Yamaha's repurposing of words that normally mean something else makes their terminology more confusing...

 

I mentioned how a Montage "Waveform" is something that, itself, contains a number of what we normally call waveforms and how the board requires you to employ both meanings, a complication that could easily have been avoided by not using a word to mean something that already means something else. (What they misleadingly call a Waveform could have been called, say, a Waveset or something along those lines.)

 

Similarly, I've also remembered that, not only do they use "Performance" in what I think is an odd way (to refer to a combination of sounds, as I mentioned), but they also use the word in its more traditional meaning, since they have a feature called "Performance Recorder" which of course has nothing to do with the thing they call a Performance. 🙂

 

 

Trying to make sense out of the language that Yamaha uses in its OS is like trying to decipher Ancient hieroglyphics written by a drunk prophet. 

[dsetto]

I am enjoying the conversation. It helps sort things out, and reminds me of things I've forgotten. Waveform nomenclature was confusing when I was putting together a lot of new info. Particularly, the highlighting of Performance as not what it is, but where it is used. 

 

This is my current take: 

(I'll be redundant not for those participating, but for the chance of someone learning.) 

 

An Element is a single oscillator synth. It is the playback and modulation vehicle for one thing. An oscillator. 

 

In an analog synth, one chooses the waveform the oscillator projects. 

 

Sine, Triangle, Sawtooth, Square, Noise. 

 

Imagine, in a digital synth, adding "Sample" to the list of available waveform types. 

 

-

Let's Monday-morning armchair reverse-engineer the thinking. 

It's the dawn of AWM. Whenever that was. 

 

I've got this element, driving an oscillator.   One oscillator. What do i call the entity that is the container for what the oscillator projects? 

 

On the analog synthesizer the choices for the thing the oscillator projects are called waveforms. 

 

That's a good name. A good name for the selection choices that the AWM oscillator can project. 

 

An AWM2 Waveform is not a one-to-one, waveform in the way the word is used outside AWM2. But, their usage is the same. 

 

The usage of the AWM2 term, Waveform, is similar to the usage of a general-usage term, waveform. 

 

The selection choices the oscillator can project. 

 

 

 

 

[Stokely]

I don't recall "waveform" in the Modx but it may be there to describe the Element choices.

In the Modx, and older Montage, it is Elements that make up Parts, which make up Performances.  I don't find it all that confusing, my weakness is toward Kurzweil's VAST which I find impenetrable.   In patches I made on the Modx I preferred to keep the number of elements (oscillators) down to a manageable number, and same for Parts.  Makes it much easier to include existing performances in new ones, because Yamaha copies existing parts into the new performance when you add one (vs linking to a patch like a lot of keyboards do with their multi modes).  Less is often more, you can get a giant mush with too many things happening, and it gets hard to know which filter to control etc.  Makes it much more of a chore to set up splits also.   

[DeltaJockey]

9 hours ago, AnotherScott said:

I mentioned how a Montage "Waveform" is something that, itself, contains a number of what we normally call waveforms and how the board requires you to employ both meanings, a complication that could easily have been avoided by not using a word to mean something that already means something else. (What they misleadingly call a Waveform could have been called, say, a Waveset or something along those lines.)

 

I suppose you could argue that the "collection" of waveforms is a complex waveform in the same context as a complex waveshape can be broken down into a fourier series of sinewaves

🤫

[AnotherScott]

6 hours ago, Stokely said:

I don't recall "waveform" in the Modx but it may be there to describe the Element choices.

 

"Waveform" is used multiple ways in the MODX manual, sometimes the way you'd probably expect. But the Yamaha-specific use of it is this one:

 

 

See, a Waveform contains Key Banks, which in turn contain waveforms. All clear? 😉

 

 

6 hours ago, Stokely said:

In the Modx, and older Montage, it is Elements that make up Parts, which make up Performances.  I don't find it all that confusing

 

Yeah, that part is sensible, except, as I said, I don't like calling the part combinations "Performances." The words that other companies used for that (combi, multi, setup, registration) are all more descriptive of the function, and don't create the conflict with another musical use of the word (leading to the fact that the MODX has a feature called "Performance Recorder" which has nothing to do with the thing that Yamaha oddly calls a Performance).

 

[dsetto]

My vantage point is the XF. I'm aware it's all Performances and Parts, and no more Voices.