The first time I saw Bad Mister, I knew I was watching a legend. @Bad Mister, it is people like you who are the definition of what great looks and sounds like. I have the utmost respect for you sir as a person and as an expert and I thank you for your help and effort since I met you on this forum. You will be sorely missed, that is for sure! God's blessing to you with your next chapter in life.

Hello Phil aka Bad Mister,

we were touch in different forums - beginning in 2001 on the motifator platform - for many many years! Thx for teaching me so much and thank for your support over the last 20 year beeing with Yamaha!

All the best for you future!

regards
Werner

Thank you Phil for all knowledge and experience you have share with us all along this years, for me since 2003 and my first Motif ES.

All the best and take care of you.

Joël

Now that Bad Mister has retired from Yamaha my concern now is the future of this official Yamaha Synth Forum,
As numerous people have stated and thanked him for it, Phil was a font of knowledge and always willing to help with timely and quite detailed responses. This also applied back in the day since the introduction of the Motif where he was a regular contributor on the Motifator.com website.
I've noticed recently that most questions raised have been answered by regular non-Yamaha people who have a more extensive know-how and experience and obviously time to respond. Yes the Forum is here to provide help and answers which it does, however it appears to be moving towards a self help one with little official responses from Yamaha.

I just wonder who will fill Bad Mister's shoes? - Blake is busy with his podcasts and other features of this website. I may be mistaken as I'm on here quite regularly, but I think his last actual post was back in early March on Forum Etiquette??
Unsure if "Catherine" is a Yamaha employee, the one who posts the articles on the subjects that appear in the top RH box- Learn More About Yamaha Synths. However I've noticed that the topics have already been posted for at least several days before she "officially" notifies us 😮

Anyhow Yamaha US, food for thought and consideration.

Great kudos to Bad Mister for his enormous insights and the unvaluable help he gave us during all these years, even though I wouldn't have expected certain answers, such the one which defined the Montage fixed MIDI channels as a feature, not a limitation.
Certain replies resemble more a response from a public defender than those of a deep connoisseur of the product who cannot admit its limitations.

Although new to this forum, new to synth, and also new to Yamaha products, here are My Thanks to @BM. In the last couple months (since I joined) he was very helpful and impressive with his clarifications and step by step guides!

Happy Retirement!

Hello Everyone,

I’m happy to see this thread. I’ll tell you all this: Phil is among the great mentors in my life. He is incredibly smart, quick witted, a great musician and above all an exceptionally kind and generous soul. I have learned much from him on many subjects and he is a very close friend. And let’s be clear, he’s just retiring from Yamaha—after 35 years! That says something right there. I am quite certain you’ll see him in the forum again. His words: “Oh yeah, man, I’ll show up as a civilian…”

I certainly monitor the forums daily, but it is true I don’t post as often as I'd like. Phil was on it, and there are several regular, frequent contributors that make this forum great (Jason is one example). I think it will continue to be a great place. I’ll be a more frequent contributor when needed. I’ll continue to post articles, contribute to our Tech Talks, podcasts and other content as always.

Getting back to Bad Mister, Bill makes some great points in this thread that I definitely agree with. This is spot on:

It isn't clear just what role you think BM was trying to fill but I can offer my opinion of that:

1. IMO he was trying to help users understand how the product works. Not how it 'could' have been made to work. Not how it 'should' have been made to work. But how it DOES work.

2. IMO he wasn't necessarily trying to 'defend' design decisions so much as he was trying to explain how that design impacted the way you needed to work within that design to achieve your goals.

3. IMO he well understood that ANY implementation/design can be considered to have 'limitations'. There are things it CAN do as well as things it can NOT do.

Yes: That is the goal of the forum. To help people get the most out of what they have. If you have a suggestion for updates, improvements, feature requests, etc. We have YamahaSynth IdeaScale. There are lots of posts up there and we try to review every one on a weekly basis. Bill made this observation:

My reading of that is that he isn't so much defending the design as he is saying that the design 'is what it is' so let me help you learn how to work with it.

I think the forum is to provide a way for users to

1. discuss the product - including its 'limitations'
2. get input from others about using the product and finding info about it
3. get help from others working around those 'limitations'

Bad Mister more than fulfilled my expectations!

...And that to me is the exact point of the YamahaSynth Forum. In fact, Bill's entire thread is a nice analysis of Bad Mister's approach. The first sentence from my Forum article says this: "The YamahaSynth forum is a place where we are all united by a love of music, synthesizers and music production. The goal of the forum is to help people get the most from their Yamaha Synthesizer or Stage Keyboard."

Thanks you all for being members of the YamahaSynth community.

Bad Mister's portfolio of contributions to the end-user is massive. What a powerhouse of knowledge and insight. Such a strong work ethic clocking in at all hours of the day (week AND weekends). Hip video tutorials. What an interesting arc of a career and personal story. I've finally listened through the interview.

Certainly a big thanks to Phil for his dedicated support given to the Yamaha user community.

Although I can't imagine a replacement, I do believe Yamaha support will continue to deliver great hands-on service one way or the other.

Thank you, Bad Mister.

Your "what's and how's" of The Yamaha Way were incredible. Unmatched in support and community channels for the many fields of endeavour I've seen. I hope Yamaha finds appropriate ways to honour your invaluable contributions to their instruments' usages and musical presences.