Montage M - Is it Me?

[Stokely]

Yeah, it's different from the old Motif (I owned the original Motif).  Iirc, the big difference is that the Motifs did the Performances via reference, so you'd assemble Voices into a performance.  Change the original Voice, and any Performance using it would be affected.  This could be both a pro or a con depending on your point of view.  It's how Kurzweil and others do it.   I think overall I like the "by value" (to use an old C programming term) way of using the patches, they get copied in and now the copy is independent from the original.

Not sure if this new Montage has changed up the OS at all.   I'm pretty used to it from the Modx if not.

Having owned the Modx, I'd want to go for the upscale model at this point in my life.  My ideal Montage would be a 7 octave weighted Montage with poly AT and a compact shape and weight similar to the Forte 7 (compact enough to fit in some 61-key cases, and 41 pounds).    One can fantasize!   Realistically it will likely be the 6 or 7 if anything.  I just wish they had Poly AT.

[TJ Cornish]

The Montage M works ‘by value’ using your vernacular, but there is an additional wrinkle - there is no difference between a voice and a performance/combination in the underlying structure (as far as I can figure out anyway). You can make a “patch/tone” with one sound and save it as an object, but it’s still an 8-part (actually 16-part if you don’t need SSS or local control of the back half) thing. You can “import” these tones into another patch/tone, where they work like a “performance/combi” as other keyboards call it, but this new object is still in the same list of sounds as your original single tone.

 

Additionally, you can import multiple multi-part “patch/tone/combi/performances” into another multi-part “patch/tone/combi/performance”, depending on how many slots you need to use.

 

This is extremely powerful as you can (within the limits of 8 parts of 128 elements each) combine several full-featured sounds together, but it’s a little odd to not have a hierarchy like pretty much every other board uses. You can still (as I do) have a workflow of lego sounds that you can recombine as needed; the main adjustment is that both your legos and your performances all show up in the same list.

 

The Fantom structure is significantly easier to understand - tones combine into scenes and everything is the same size. There are a few limitations of which slot certain things have to live (VPiano must be in slot 1, tonewheel organ must be in slot 2, I IIRC the new ACB models have to run in slot 1), but other than that you’re not going to get lost; the downside is the Fantom doesn’t sound as good - the additional complexity/capabiltiy of the Montage makes a difference in the musical output.

[AnotherScott]

23 minutes ago, TJ Cornish said:

the main adjustment is that both your legos and your performances all show up in the same list.

though they appear in different colors (blue vs. green), and you can filter to see just the legos, so in that respect, they do facilitate continuing to work as you're used to.

[TJ Cornish]

3 minutes ago, AnotherScott said:

though they appear in different colors (blue vs. green), and you can filter to see just the legos, so in that respect, they do facilitate continuing to work as you're used to.

You can filter single part vs multi, however I’m not positive the blue vs green always works. There are reports of phantom objects and settings even in the template objects; I wonder if even Yamaha struggles keeping things straight. 

[Keyboardplayer]

There are apparently bugs in the Montage M that need to be addressed. Not the least of which is a polyphony note drop out issue. Yamaha touts the Montage M's "400" note polyphony, but the fact is the AWM2 engine, FM-x engine, User performance Section, & AN-x engine each have their own polyphony. So it's divided using separate chips with 128 notes each. And of course, 16 note polyphony for the AN-x engine. So, for instance, if your performance only uses AWM2 voices (patches, parts) you'll only have access to a maximum of 128 note polyphony. Same with the FM-x engine and the User section. The ONLY way to access more than 128 notes of polyphony is to use other voices (patches, parts) from other engines (and/or User section polyphony), simultaneously. My Yamaha Genos has "256" note polyphony, but it too is divided on separate chips, i.e., 128 notes for Preset/Legacy and 128 notes for the Expansion section. And I didn't discover that until after I purchased the Genos. We all hear 400 notes of polyphony, and we say, gee, I'll never have another issue with note drop out ever again if I just get the Yamaha Montage M? Oops! Not so fast. It pays to read the fine print. In the case with my Genos I was one of the first ones in the country to get one and at the time Yamaha kind of hid that fact until users pressed Yammie employees to fess up. Which they did finally but left Genos owners seething in many cases. I imagine there are a good deal of Montage M owners that still don't realize 400 doesn't necessarily mean 400 unless you access other sound engines and/or the User section polyphony all at once at the same time. The first keyboard manufacturer to release a keyboard with 400/512 notes of polyphony on ONE CHIP so you have access to all the polyphony no matter what sound engine(s) you're using will become an instant success and a huge market grabber from the competition, in my opinion. It shouldn't be that difficult. A keyboard is basically a computer with keys. Computer technology has advanced significantly in just the last 5 years. Why is the music gear industry always 10 or more years behind the computer industry? In my opinion, it's because they want to milk older technology for all it's worth. And then use marketing 'gimmicks' to try and hoodwink consumers?? You decide.

 

 

[TJ Cornish]

9 minutes ago, Keyboardplayer said:

There are apparently bugs in the Montage M that need to be addressed. Not the least of which is a polyphony note drop out issue. Yamaha touts the Montage M's "400" note polyphony, but the fact is the AWM2 engine, FM-x engine, User performance Section, & AN-x engine each have their own polyphony. So it's divided using separate chips with 128 notes each. And of course, 16 note polyphony for the AN-x engine. So, for instance, if your performance only uses AWM2 voices (patches, parts) you'll only have access to a maximum of 128 note polyphony. Same with the FM-x engine and the User section. The ONLY way to access more than 128 notes of polyphony is to use other voices (patches, parts) from other engines (and/or User section polyphony), simultaneously. My Yamaha Genos has "256" note polyphony, but it too is divided on separate chips, i.e., 128 notes for Preset/Legacy and 128 notes for the Expansion section. And I didn't discover that until after I purchased the Genos. We all hear 400 notes of polyphony, and we say, gee, I'll never have another issue with note drop out ever again if I just get the Yamaha Montage M? Oops! Not so fast. It pays to read the fine print. In the case with my Genos I was one of the first ones in the country to get one and at the time Yamaha kind of hid that fact until users pressed Yammie employees to fess up. Which they did finally but left Genos owners seething in many cases. I imagine there are a good deal of Montage M owners that still don't realize 400 doesn't necessarily mean 400 unless you access other sound engines and/or the User section polyphony all at once at the same time. The first keyboard manufacturer to release a keyboard with 400/512 notes of polyphony on ONE CHIP so you have access to all the polyphony no matter what sound engine(s) you're using will become an instant success and a huge market grabber from the competition, in my opinion. It shouldn't be that difficult. A keyboard is basically a computer with keys. Computer technology has advanced significantly in just the last 5 years. Why is the music gear industry always 10 or more years behind the computer industry? In my opinion, it's because they want to milk older technology for all it's worth. And then use marketing 'gimmicks' to try and hoodwink consumers?? You decide.

 

 

 

The polyphony structure of the M isn’t a bug; it is the architecture of the board. The M takes nothing away compared to the previous Montage; Yamaha has cleverly rearranged the same hardware - the dual DSPs - such that they now can produce 128 polyphony each, with the limitation being needing to use the other sample RAM bank.

 

This thread goes into great detail on the steep learning curve of the M. Anyone not able to parse the very verbose description of this architecture in all the presales literature will surely have a hill to climb in using the M at a high level. This is absolutely true of the YouTuber you have linked - this person routinely posts videos showing frustration at “bugs” when they are a result of his misunderstanding of the board.

 

As to “this shouldn’t be this hard” - well, apparently it is, or someone would have figured it out. Korg went the general purpose CPU route with the OASYS/Kronos/Nautilus, and those products have similar polyphony limitations to ASICs used by Yamaha and Roland. Would it be nice if Yamaha developed a new generation of ASIC that was 4X as powerful as the current chips? Yes; have they done the math to believe that the millions of dollars of R&D and possibly semiconductor fab updates will produce a financial return on their investment? I’m sure they have, and at the moment that answer is no.

 

Polyphony issues are far worse on other platforms - there is a 400 page thread over at GearSpace about the Roland Fantom that claims 256 note polyphony. The amount of hand-wringing there for 150 pages is enough to give any sane person an aneurism. 

 

I’m not trying to pick on you particularly - lots of people feel similarly, but the belief that “this should be easy, why is vendor XYZ so dumb” doesn’t hold water.

 

There are two paths: 1. Do less - limit the keyboard so it works the same at a level of lowest-common-denominator. This is how Nord works and a lot of non-flagship keyboards. 2. Release the power and complexity to users complete with caveats and try to educate. The Montage M is a product on path 2. If that isn’t your thing, there are other choices.

[Motif88]

Again, as the originator of this thread, I do love my M8x. With limited time to devote to understanding the workflow, controller assignments, etc. the 5 months I’ve owned it may not be enough but still brings me joy when I “just play”.

 

There may still be a Nord Stage 4 or a UDO Super Gemini in my future to satisfy my need for greater direct control, those would be in addition to, not replacement of the M8x.

 

Life is too short to drink cheap scotch.

 

Breathe…

[AnotherScott]

On 3/19/2024 at 2:44 PM, TJ Cornish said:

As to “this shouldn’t be this hard” - well, apparently it is, or someone would have figured it out. Korg went the general purpose CPU route with the OASYS/Kronos/Nautilus, and those products have similar polyphony limitations to ASICs used by Yamaha and Roland.

and the clarity of Kronos/Nautilus polyphony specs are far worse than Yamaha's. Yamaha says, 128 for the first AWM2 section, 128 for the second, 128 for the FM engine, 16 for for the VA engine... and that's what you get. Korg says this:

 

So for example, Korg's HD1 engine (their equivalent to Yamaha's AWM2) says it has a polyphony of 140, but note 2 tells you that as soon as you split or layer an HD1 sound with a sound from another engine, that 140 will drop. Yamaha starts with 128, but it stays at 128 regardless of your use of the second AWM2 engine, FM engine, or VA engine. Similarly, Korg's MOD-7 gives you 52 voices, which will drop if you split or layer your MOD-7 sound(s) with some other non MOD-7 sound(s), whereas Yamaha's equivalent FM-X engine gives you 128 voices regardless of whether you add AWM2 or AN-X sounds as well.

 

On 3/19/2024 at 2:44 PM, TJ Cornish said:

Polyphony issues are far worse on other platforms - there is a 400 page thread over at GearSpace about the Roland Fantom that claims 256 note polyphony.

 

Yes... Roland's polyphony varies a lot, you won't get that maximum if your sound combinations include SuperNATURAL or VA sounds.

 

Simply... of the "big three," Yamaha's polyphony spec is the most useful and most "legitimate," in terms of being predictable in what you can actually expect.

 

 

[RABid]

Had the original Montage 7 and got rid of it after a couple months. All that massive reverb was a turn off, but it was the MIDI implementation that caused me to quickly sell. Got a Roland Fantom 7 upgraded to EX and honestly I think the overly complicated interface is, well, both companies could use some assistance designing a more elegant interface. Same with the Jupiter X. Love the sound and the options, really wish the interface was more intuitive. Bought a MODX+ 6 and am fine with it. Use it as a preset machine and organized my favorites. I don't worry about creating my own splits or layers. I mostly wanted the DX engine.