[quotePost id=115333][quotePost id=115332]And it has a nice sequencer...a REAL sequencer for writing and constructing full, detailed songs. I have been upset about the sequencer ever since I bought my Montage almost 2 years ago. Having come from a MOX6, I was so disappointed. I think I may buy this Fantom 0 and try to get something out of my Montage that I've been staring at for so long.[/quotePost]
Not really. In fact in some respects I understand it's inferior to the one in the MODX (at least that's what I understand from forums and reviews, no first hand experience). The guys in the Fantom world seem to complain just as much as those here about the sequencer.
There are tons of very good sequencers that you can attach to your Montage, like the MPC One discussed above.
Or just use a DAW.

[/quotePost]

You're right. I spoke too soon. Still no linear sequencer. I just don't get it. I think I may pull out my MOX 6 again. As I've stated before, due to a spinal cord injury, I record by playing one note at a time with a typing stick. I can't handle external sequencers or laptops/iPads with software while I'm trying to write. It was so much simpler to just convert my 16 patterns into a song, then have the ability in the linear sequencer to change tempo or time signature, or edit single measures or even notes to add variety throughout the song. I'd sometimes have long sections where I had a different drum fill every measure or two. Have ritardandos and accelerandos. Go in and out of time signatures. There was no limit. Now they promote how you lay a drum beat down for one measure and you can loop it for a whole sequence or song or whatever. That's so boring.

[quotePost id=115338] I'd sometimes have long sections where I had a different drum fill every measure or two. Have ritardandos and accelerandos. Go in and out of time signatures. There was no limit. Now they promote how you lay a drum beat down for one measure and you can loop it for a whole sequence or song or whatever. That's so boring. [/quotePost]
Over the past decades, popular music has generally gotten more and more repetitive. Chicken or egg? Is it because people started composing with loops, because it was so much easier? Or did the music hardware/software companies start emphasizing building songs out of loops because that's where modern music was going? I think it was probably a feedback loop between the two. But I agree with you that it's kind of unfortunate. Pop music used to be more adventurous. At least sometimes. 😉

[quotePost id=115341][quotePost id=115338] I'd sometimes have long sections where I had a different drum fill every measure or two. Have ritardandos and accelerandos. Go in and out of time signatures. There was no limit. Now they promote how you lay a drum beat down for one measure and you can loop it for a whole sequence or song or whatever. That's so boring. [/quotePost]
Over the past decades, popular music has generally gotten more and more repetitive. Chicken or egg? Is it because people started composing with loops, because it was so much easier? Or did the music hardware/software companies start emphasizing building songs out of loops because that's where modern music was going? I think it was probably a feedback loop between the two. But I agree with you that it's kind of unfortunate. Pop music used to be more adventurous. At least sometimes. ;-)[/quotePost]

Reason caused all of this.

It was too good, too accessible, too easy and worked too well. Changed music even more than resonant filters.

[quotePost id=115341]
Is it because people started composing with loops, because it was so much easier? Or did the music hardware/software companies start emphasizing building songs out of loops because that's where modern music was going? I think it was probably a feedback loop between the two.[/quotePost]
I do think it has to do with hip hop becoming so mainstream.
The interesting thing is that the recent wave of hip hop musicians are going more and more into elaborate stuff, so this might influence the tools as well.

It might also be that most if not all musicians doing elaborate stuff switched to DAWs as they are superior for such things, leaving the hardware to deal with simpler and more interactive stuff.

I blame EDM's ubiquity and lockstep reliance on 4/4 timing and B minor.

But their filter sweeps got us to the Montage and MODX, so not all bad.

It's an interesting discussion about how popular music has changed and also how people have decided to do more with DAWs when it comes to writing. I know nothing about developing software, but how hard can it be to put a linear sequencer in the Montage? I mean it's not a totally new concept. Seems to me like they would have it there for people who still like everything in one unit. When I went searching for more info on the Phantom forums, there were lots of people upset that Roland still didn't include a linear sequencer with the new Phantom 0. There were lots of people wishing for one on the whole series of keyboards. I guess it just frustrates me that Yamaha is bound to know there is some demand for it (just like with Roland) yet they can't throw one in on a $3000 "workstation"? Sorry, I don't get it.

[quotePost id=115388]I know nothing about developing software, but how hard can it be to put a linear sequencer in the Montage? I mean it's not a totally new concept. Seems to me like they would have it there for people who still like everything in one unit. [/quotePost]
Besides not being that easy, also take into account that it takes resources and time that can be put elsewehere.
We don't know how Montage/MODX might have looked today if they didn't put the time and resources into the sequencer.
We also don't know how many people use it in real life vs making noise online.
Maybe there would have been some synth engines updates that would be beneficial to most of the users as opposed to a sequencer that is beneficial, I strongly suspect, to a small percentage.

[quotePost id=115388] I know nothing about developing software, but how hard can it be to put a linear sequencer in the Montage? ... yet they can't throw one in on a $3000 "workstation"? Sorry, I don't get it.[/quotePost]

Sequencers are one of the easier things to program, far simpler than surfacing control of DSP (synths and effects), as they're what's called "event sequencers" in that they only do something when an event occurs. Almost all computing devices are purpose built to be ideal for this, and DSP focused platforms even more so, as they have near impeccable sense of time.

That thing that is events, in the case of MIDI sequencer, is to record (and playback) MIDI note and settings events. In this sense, it's just a programmatic recording of user's inputs, and then the playback of those recordings. Almost as easy to do as it sounds, especially when you've already got (in the OS of MODX/Montage) an incredibly accurate clock for recording when things happen and therefore able to be used for when to play things back.

So the creation of the Pattern Sequencer is one of the simplest aspects of programming the MODX/Montage. The difficulty comes in making a Note Sequencer, because editing is required/expected, at a note level, which requires both the ability to present the notes (which requires design consideration) and the ability for users to select and then edit individual, grouped, portions and ranges of notes, and their associated events, which requires design and user considerations.

For programmers, especially those in teams that have achieved some autonomy from design obligations, this is very difficult, because they're socially, biologically and philosophically opposed to working with designers. That's only partially a joke, and only part of the problems of getting a programming team to take onboard the creation of user centric empowerment.

Most programmers self select for their field of endeavour, for reasons usually associated with a desire to not engage much with humanity. This is widely known, but little acknowledged, and much of the reason for the problems societies currently face, in that programmer centric "designs" have fuelled the creation of, and belief in, technocracy and its tools absent any and all accountability.

Be that as it may...

The even bigger problem is that of scrolling the presentation of these notes and events in realtime. If you've noticed the pauses and general slowness of the UI response on the MODX and Montage, you'll see/sense that it's impossible for this system to visually scroll, in realtime, any kind of complex visual presentations. This is a limitation of the hardware, and no software programming skills can get around this.

This means the only real options are what's known as Step Sequencers and TR Sequencers, which have a limited, non-scrolling presentation to show, such that there's no significant visuals and animations required to convey meaning and timings, only lots of On/Off and states/values, mostly static, that both present and act as the means to select and edit by the user - hence them being Sequencers of worth, despite not scrolling through time like a piano roll style linear sequencer.

Both of these types of sequencers (Step and TR) are ideally suited to seeing and editing and creating arpeggios of both types the MODX/Montage are highly suited to: namely note and parameter/controller arps. Arps made in this way are really just small sequences in their own right, that play according to note inputs, so they're kind of like mini dynamic sequences, which with editing of this kind, becomes super cool, and fun (to use technical terms).

Either (or both) a Step Sequencer and TR style sequencer would massively open up the MODX/Montage as both a production and live tool by making both Patterns Sequences and Arpeggios highly editable, fully powerful predictable and discoverable, too.

And both these styles of sequencer are within the CPU/GPU power constraints of the MODX, the lessor powered of these devices, and therefore able to work on both. It can only be that Yamaha has chosen to not do this for reasons... that probably (I'd guess) pertain to an unreleased product that was/is to be differentiated by its fuller sequencing capabilities, but was held back for both reasons of production difficulties and market conditions having significantly changed.

Whilst they're somewhat successful in their markets, neither of these products have set the world on fire, so Yamaha would likely consider anymore focus on the Motion Sequencing and SuperKnob to be a waste of time, as they're the primary gimmicks that were gambled on to make these sing and swing in the market. The market said "meh" to that, and yet another rendition of FM that's not immediately sonorously wondrous.

Korg, meanwhile, has released software versions of their WaveState and OpSix, that are fully compatible with their hardware synths, further reminding us that that 8 operator FM-X is still heavily limited by the shoddy design of the touchscreen interface and its quite bizarre byzantine ways of getting at all it offers and the integration with effects and Motion Sequencer and Modulation Controls.

If any synth has ever needed a computer or iPad editor, it's this one!

Yamaha has a broad portfolio of their own flavor of a sequencer. As recent as the last generation, there was a more fully-featured sequencer for both the flagship (Motif) and low-cost sister product (MO). Motif is based on a similar underlying operating system as current day Montage/MODX.

Enhancing the sequencer to at least the "Yamaha way" is not a stretch nor does it pull from something the interface cannot do. I can understand that if the sequencer was at a feature parity as the previous sequencer instantiation that users would still want more -- which is fine. And, although I do understand the notion that other styles of sequencer interfaces would be nice to entertain (and, by some, imperative due to successful use other products): as a baseline it would be better, if improving the sequencer is a pursuit worth taking, to get the one that's currently a subset of the previous "Yamaha way" sequencer would be nice to polish.

I'm not really dictating what "should" be done here. I'm in the camp of users that do not use the sequencer except for on-the-go user ARPs. For this, I was happy when the Performance recorder added the feature to convert songs to ARPs. And recent additions for more control is gravy (although I still do not utilize this much). I don't let my bias against the feature salt anything about "should", though. I'm fine with my particular sets of wishes being washed away by progress on a feature I won't use much -- if that's the will of the project.

I just wanted to weigh in that improving the existing sequencer within the "lane" of how it functions currently is not exactly ground-up work given the legacy solutions already provided under similar architectures.

Hi everyone. I would say that if people dont use the onboard sequencer, then please do not add your thoughts on it. For those who do then we know what we want. Roland did it right, Yamaha did not. simple

[quotePost id=115410]Hi everyone. I would say that if people dont use the onboard sequencer, then please do not add your thoughts on it. For those who do then we know what we want.[/quotePost]
People discuss whatever they want about the product, your approval is not required.
[quotePost id=115410]Roland did it right, Yamaha did not. simple[/quotePost]
Even simpler, you have no idea of what you are talking about.

I use many sequencers, I have a digitakt as well. so yes I do know. What Yamaha did is a shortcut method to try and appease us, but it is only an idea sequencer. not something to really use for making songs

The interface proves it

[quotePost id=115410]Hi everyone. I would say that if people dont use the onboard sequencer, then please do not add your thoughts on it. For those who do then we know what we want. Roland did it right, Yamaha did not. simple[/quotePost]
A lot of Roland folks would disagree with you. There are lots of people who have complained that the Fantom (and now Fantom-0) lack the desired fully editable multitrack linear sequencer, just like Montage/MODX do.

For now, if you want a "traditional" sequencer from Roland, you'd buy the old FA. And if you want the same from Yamaha, you'd buy the old MOXF6 which is still available (and a strong value at $999). For whatever reason, neither company thinks this is where the market is going, in terms of next generation products.

[quotePost id=115413]The interface proves it
[/quotePost]

Correct!
As does the timing, limited integration and bare minimum feature set.

They knew the Fantom was coming, and what was on it, and were concerned its sequencing was a significant USP, and countered with the Pattern Sequencer in the hope it would keep the Montage relevant and give the MODX a sales boost.

It probably worked, a little, as a quick shop demo they might appear to have similar feature sets.

They don't, the Fantom's sequencer is worlds better, despite not (yet) being Kronos levels of capable.