Giovanni,
Though I still consider the American Grand to be the finest Steinway sample library for the Montage, I have to confirm that I can hear the hiss that you are talking about in element 1. This is the AG PPP element so no surprise that the gain must have had to be pretty high to record the nuances of this keystrike. I had to turn my headphones all the way up, and I must admit I hadn't tried that before, because I'm trying to preserve what's left of my hearing. One thing that you can try is to use equalization to attenuate this, such as the VCM EQ 501 under MISC effect. I think the hiss is in the 3.75 kHz range. You can try the Dance SD/BD preset, then turn all the other equalization to zero, and set the 3.75 kHz to -1.5 dB or less. I hope that helps!

Hello everyone, I come from Slovenia (EU) and I am new to this forum (sorry for my english 🙂 ). I bought my Montage 8 back in the first months of the relise last year.

I agree with Giovanni.

I like pianos, and the CFX is stelar, the Bosendorfer is fabulous. But... when Yamaha released the AG piano (in february) I was excited to try it but the noise was there... Giovanni is right. There is too much noise in the background. I also contacted the Yamaha support. My letter:
Subject: American Grand
Description: Hello,
I have just instaled the American Grand on my MONTAGE, but I have to say that there is too much noise in the performances (if compared with CFX and others). The basic sound is OK, but in the background, if and only when I play softly, there is always to much noise (I have HS 7 and HS 8S monitors). If that is normal, I will live with it, but I think that this is not ok. Could you check if others have the same issue?
Thank you.

They didn't give me any technical explanation but just refund my purchase.
I use my Yamaha 2x HS7 + HS8 sub + yamaha mg10xu and the Beyerdynamic dt 1990 pro headphones (which are realy great btw). I tried the same technic with the CFX, Bosendorfer, AG, Pop Upright and some other pianos... and all except the AG were noiseless. I have to say that I like the basic sound of the AG a lot, but the noise is just there (for example, pressing the sustein pedal and playing high notes on - particulary the AG Rock... not good), while when listening to it on MusicSoft where the sound is clear - like the CFX or the Bösendorfer on Montage.
As I said, the basic sound is great, but the noise is just annoying if you play just the piano very softly and gentile. So I basically dont use it, becouse it is just wasted 600 MB of memory. I wish Yamaha would take a detailed look on it, or relise some other new great pianos for Montage.

Best regards,
Marko

The American Grand is not a Yamaha product, in that the soundset is from another company, Synthogy. Please understand, any one, even you, could make, package and release software (Sample sets) for the Yamaha MONTAGE. Many companies got started making sounds for the DX7 many years ago. It's sort of like not all software that runs on your computer is necessarily from Apple or Microsoft.

I've only heard raves reviews from those who are familiar with this same data as "Ivory II" - we at Yamaha are proud to have this stellar piano sample set available for the MOXF, Motif XF and MONTAGE.

The company that makes the "American Grand" is www.Synthogy.com - they are a well known and a very experienced maker of sample Libraries.

You may have purchased it from the Yamaha online store, but if you want to alert the manufacturer directly, please contact them through the website link above. And since not all users have this complaint, it may be something that they can easily rectify. I'm certain that they would appreciate hearing from you directly.

for example, pressing the sustein pedal and playing high notes on - particulary the AG Rock... not good)

Pressing the notes, specifically from G#5 and above, where the Acoustic Piano has no felt dampers, you'll notice the Damper Resonance Effect (it's an Insert Effect) is often used to create the resonances inside the piano box, its function is programmed to the Sustain pedal.

Also the amount of Effect is programmable. I'm wondering if what you are describing as unwanted noise, is something purposely added by the programmer. Especially since you say Sustain pedal and high (probably undampered) notes - the fact that this Effect is directly controlled by the Sustain pedal - is NOT a coincidence in my humble opinion. Did you try bypassing the effects?

... unless things have changed:

I suggested:

I'm not sure if that library has damper resonance - which is an effect - so you can turn this off. As an experiment - press the "FX" icon in the upper-right of your touchscreen - then turn OFF all 3 effects levels. This will produce a "dry" sound meant only for experimentation. See if the background noise goes away.

And got the virtual hand.

No way.

At least now there's a better description of the issue: high noise floor at low volumes. That's something that makes sense and can be evaluated easily both absolutely and relatively (to other libraries and internal samples). Taking it up with Synthogy is the best route. I know this route was taken - but I would not pose a question to Synthogy - I'd make the statement that you believe the sample set falls short with respect to the low velocity samples having too high of a noise floor unlike the competing sound libraries.

A spectrum analyzer should uncover how the set fares in an objective manner. Combined with subjective listening.

1. Synthogy's response to Giovanni:

/../ The samples in Montage were encoded using Yamaha's proprietary encoding. Only they can tell you if the samples are being played back correctly in Montage.

You'll have to ask Yamaha Tech Support about this issue.

As I understand, the Montage AG is a new implementation of old samples to the Montage technology, otherwise why would Yamaha release the AG for Montage only in February 2017? Maybe the Motif AG is better implemented? I will not go into that. I don't have the Motif AG.

2. As I wrote

for example, pressing the sustein pedal and playing high notes on - particulary the AG Rock... not good

and

if you play just the piano very softly and gentile.

, I was suggesting to do the same thing. When I was reffering to "high notes", I did it because at those hights (frequencies) the noise is more noticable (C6 up), but the noise appears on all notes, when the keys are played (softly). And with the sustain pedal, the noise become even more noticable, becouse it is accumulating (for example try to press gently the same notes multiple times with the sustain pedal pressed). And I don't confuse the "noise" with the "Damper Resonance Efect" - all pianos are realy nice sounding with that effect and I like to play pianos with the sustain pedal pressed. This is one of the reasons why the "noise" is so noticable to me.

3. I disabled all FX on Montage, but the noise remains.

4. I watched on screen (PERFORMANCE CONTROL) which elements were triggered when playing and my thoughts are that the 1st element is not implemented as it should be.

And btw, I noticed the noise the first 10 seconds of playing, when I installed it. When it comes to sounds like piano I am very critical, specialy if compared to other pianos on Montage with the same settings. If the CFX is to me cristal clear, the AG is just too noisy.
Those are my thoughts.

As I understand, the Montage AG is a new implementation of old samples to the Montage technology, otherwise why would Yamaha release the AG for Montage only in February 2017? Maybe the Motif AG is better implemented? I will not go into that. I don't have the Motif AG.

Montage has scenes, motion control, etc. Many items which are not related to the sampling. This is a primary difference in sample library releases which target Montage vs. Motif XF. Yamaha can chime in here - but I believe the underlying sample playback algorithms and core(s) that play these back are the "same". "Core(s)" meaning copied blocks of ASIC definition that remain unchanged from chip to chip (chip inside Motif vs chip inside Montage).

There's one corner case here - to my knowledge, Montage still has problems with certain encodings from the XF. Something seemingly first identified with the incompatibility with the "Inspiration In A Flash" set and certain voices (XF) not playing after going through the conversion process. There are not a lot of details here if the problem is with the conversion, the sample playback engine, both, or neither (something else).

That said - I think that pointing towards sample playback is barking up the wrong tree. That's just a gut opinion (not a hard fact). I would push back against this line from Synthogy because it is unlikely that the sample playback engine is injecting noise to this sample set while others have not seen this as an issue. Maybe Synthogy got unlucky and picked an encoding scheme that no other library picked (AND that unique encoding method has problems) -- I just see that as unlikely. Often you have to stick to your guns when citing an issue in order to be sure the manufacturer/coder/producer/... does real testing and owns up to the possibility that they can be fallible.

Giovanni wrote:

Hi,
today I have tried the American Grand Piano Library on the Monty of my friend.
I liked the piano sound, very much! I would buy it, but I was especially annoyed by a background noise when the notes were backed up.
Have you also found it?
Thank you.

Acabo de comprar la librería de sonido y me pasa exactamente lo mismo que a tí; aparece un ruido de fondo continuo muy molesto (una especie de siseo)

Un saludo

I bought American Grand Piano Library from https://www.yamahamusicsoft.com/synth/american-grand-9 and installed to my Yamaha Montage8.
I met the same problem.
If you press some key notes and hold, then press some lower tone, the noise can be heard obviously.

Would suggest that all who identify some issue with the set inform the content producer so they can properly address this user feedback.

I have looked at this thread a few times over the last year, and I have also experienced this same issue; I reached out to Synthogy in an email for support. Hopefully, they will take some action on this, as it's quite an obvious artifact in the sound especially when sustaining the more quiet waveforms (ppp, pp, mp, etc). It sounds similar to microphone hiss when the gain is raised.

I heard back from Synthogy today. Kudos to them for the quick turnaround. They wanted to clarify one point that I mistook from Bad Mister in my inquiry: The American Grand for Montage is not a product sold by Synthogy (Sorry Bad Mister, I may have misquoted/misinterpreted your earlier response from this thread when I wrote my email to them). Synthogy Support stated that it is a sample set that was licensed to Yamaha and sold by Yamaha. The sample set delivered to Yamaha was encoded by Yamaha for their platform (the Montage in this case).

They also stated that they have reached out to Yamaha to look into this issue, and determine if anything went wrong in the process. Their bottom line answer was: "We have concluded that everything with respect to this content is functioning properly on the Montage platform."

They advised I contact Yamaha for a refund if dissatisfied which is unfortunate. I'm still left with some unanswered questions as to how they came to the conclusion that it's functioning properly. They didn't say whether they had someone listen to a Montage or recording of a Montage playing notes in the low velocity range both with and without sustain to confirm they didn't find an issue; or if that was the response they received when they reached out to Yamaha themselves.

I want to circle back and explain what I did to reproduce the issue (besides just playing and noticing something definitely noisy and not befitting the quality of the rest of the pianos on-board). First, I selected the 2-part AG Concert performance. Then I selected Edit - Part 1 - All Element. I muted all elements except element 1 which has the AG PPP sample. Then with the sustain pedal down I played middle C to G repeatedly in the velocity range of the element. I did the same thing for Part 2 on the high register of the keyboard without the sustain pedal to eliminate the extra effects of damper resonance. Part 2 is note limited to G# 5 and above, and is simulating the strings with no damping so the effect is still pronounced in the AG PPP waveform even with no sustain pedal. I also experimented with the element EQ by attenuating the element 1 EQ Hi Gain to -12.00dB in the 3 kHz range, and noticed a drastic reduction in the unwanted noise (while also obviously softening the tone of the piano). For reference, I am listening through a pair of Yamaha HS8 monitors that otherwise have no noticeable noise/interference audible through the speakers with any of the other performances on the Montage.

I realize that sound is generally a subjective topic, so please take what I'm stating with a grain of salt; I'm only providing another data point as someone who believes there is an issue with this particular sample set.

Here another deeply unsatisfied customer of American Grand 🙁
Bought just yesterday, played at least 6 hours (not consequentially) and realized that there's too much background noise in the pp and ppp dynamics for my taste.
I asked YamahaMusicSoft a full refund and I hope they'll take my request into consideration.

Functioning properly is probably an objective statement. When we press a key - sound comes out. When we press it with low velocities - the intended sound triggers. Other velocities and the right elements sound. Check, check. Works.

The sound quality is a subjective evaluation that seems to have fairly widespread agreement there's some issue. I do not see sufficient care taken with the subjective evaluation of this set by Synthogy. I'm not sure it matters what the paper trail is of license and contracted recording/engineering. Synthogy puts their name on this product and should address why the lower velocity samples do not measure up to expectations by many users with demonstrable tests to hear artifacts using approved sound reinforcement (Yamaha HS series studio monitors). I have no leverage here as a bystander - I don't own this product.

Functioning properly is probably an objective statement. snip I have no leverage here as a bystander - I don't own this product.

Well, after having received the refund I erased completely American Grand from my Montage7. Period. I'll keep playing Bösendorfer :p
There's no reason keeping a series of waveforms and keybanks that make me nervous everytime I come across with those background noises. Playing a sampled piano (with all its limitations) is done to avoid issues during recording... but what can I do if the sound is already noisy?

I want to circle back and explain what I did to reproduce the issue (besides just playing and noticing something definitely noisy and not befitting the quality of the rest of the pianos on-board). First, I selected the 2-part AG Concert performance. Then I selected Edit - Part 1 - All Element. I muted all elements except element 1 which has the AG PPP sample. Then with the sustain pedal down I played middle C to G repeatedly in the velocity range of the element. I did the same thing for Part 2 on the high register of the keyboard without the sustain pedal to eliminate the extra effects of damper resonance. Part 2 is note limited to G# 5 and above, and is simulating the strings with no damping so the effect is still pronounced in the AG PPP waveform even with no sustain pedal.

Here are my 2 cents. If you bought the American Grand and really love the main piano sounds, but do not like the noisy part, then if it were me, I'd find what element(s) of what parts are causing it. Reading some posts, it appears that a few have figured out which elements are causing the issue. So what I would do is mute those elements, and find the same type of element from the CFX Grand and add it in to the AG performance. You would still have the main sound of the AG, but the noisy elements would be replaced.

The Synthogy Ivory C7 Grand is actually my favorite piano and I have the VST, but they don't make a Montage library yet, so I plan to use SampleRobot Montage Edition to capture the main sounds, and borrow the "key-off release" and other parts from the CFX piano elements/parts to complete it! At least I'll have the main sample layer sounds, and the rest will not matter as no one is going to know the difference between a subtle CFX or C7 key-off release sample... 😉