What a silly question, really. Have you played the Montage yet, no? Wait until you do, then form your opinions. No one can tell if your shoes fit your feet (means: what you like or will suit your specific needs)

Sorry, but we catch the music with our ears, and what I heard with my headphone in all demo available is very clear about this precise topic, until somebody maybe will program a violin or cello sound that will speak to me, that is not the case till now. About shoes, that is true, if you don't t try....but I can have an aesthetic point of view about a shoes without trying !
Violin is very difficult to reproduce, personnaly I never heard something a minimum realistic and expressive till kapro...
The great point of montage should be its ergonomy but sound never lie to my hear, I don't need finger for that and the violin solo is desesperating, but may be you know a good one in montage? Regards

Violin is very difficult to reproduce, personnaly I never heard something a minimum realistic and expressive

And I'm convinced you never will.

No sample based synthesis will ever sound like a bowed string instrument. How do I know? My ex-wife is a cellist.

Listen to the kapro dimensional cello, at least it give enough expression and texture for get the mood of a bowed string. I played myself bowed string, too, delruba and cello.

If you really need convincing strings, probably a dedicated software library (featuring several 100 GB of samples) like VSL would be the way to go, rather than any hardware synth.

I agree that even the best sample based solutions will be limited when it comes to strings (I play the violin and I am a big fan of classical music...), but some of the VSL demos sounded quite convincing to me, from a pragmatic point of view 😉

https://m.soundcloud.com/kapro_hits/sets/revolutionary-dimensional-cello

From yamaha

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jObR8avIAkY

natalini wrote:

Sorry, but we catch the music with our ears, and what I heard with my headphone in all demo available is very clear about this precise topic, until somebody maybe will program a violin or cello sound that will speak to me, that is not the case till now. About shoes, that is true, if you don't t try....but I can have an aesthetic point of view about a shoes without trying !
Violin is very difficult to reproduce, personnaly I never heard something a minimum realistic and expressive till kapro...
The great point of montage should be its ergonomy but sound never lie to my hear, I don't need finger for that and the violin solo is desesperating, but may be you know a good one in montage? Regards

Reminds me of back in 1983: I was auditioning for a local band with my Yamaha SK20. They evidently were split whether they needed anyone. Had to jump through a series of useless hoops. Finally one of them says; "It doesn't sound like my piano..." I immediately retorted; "NO! your piano doesn't sound like this synth!"

And here we go again: Does the Montage sound like strings? Yes? No? Maybe? Only after 6PM? Only if you're sober? Blindfolded?... blah, blah, blah...

In 1992 I played a solo violin track from my SY77 to an acquaintance. He happens to be OCD about music & one of the finest & most versatile guitarists in the world, with ears to match. He was amazed and asked "Who is the violinist? I replied, it's me. "I didn't know that you play the violin... and so well!" I assured him it was the SY77. He couldn't believe it.

The moral of the story: Maybe it's not the size of the tool, but how you use it? Go to videos & audio tracks of various synthesizers, say, post 1985. If you're honest & not snobbish, you'd be hard put to tell if some are not the actual acoustic instrument. Then try to do that on your synth. Did you succeed? No? Then don't blame the instrument. Look at the video of those who did make it sound real. And LEARN. Practice again & again & again, till you get it right.

Maybe you'll never get the hang of it. But so what? Why must your synth sound exactly like a piano...or violin...or saxophone...or...or...? Simply revel in the joy that you have one of the finest synths ever made, and be glad it sounds like that particular model of synth, make the most of it, and never look back. And if anyone dares to say it doesn't sound like their violin. Tell them where to stick their violin, and retort: "NO! Your violin doesn't sound like my Montage.... and NEVER will!"

This is not fair. This library is not a preset sound. Also for $125, you can get:
Embertone's Blakus Cello
and works with Free version of KONTAKT player.

Not saying Kronos is bad but this VST IMHO leaves it in the dust...

Kronos string ensembles are really out of this world, not the standard ones, but espescially the content created by KA pro... However, not the solo strings, only the orchestrall sounds... And there is absolutely no reason why this should not be possible on the AWM part of Montage, as its all sample based... ( tough there might be a limitation where it comes to use sampling)

When you want small string ensembles, it seems the ensemble feature on Yamaha Tyros is probably ahead of anything else (tough jupiter80 has comparable technoloogy and comes really close to Tyros5)

Solo strings like a violin is a different story, so far everything sample based will have a hard time to come close... Virtualisation technollogy is the way to go, Yamaha VL technollogy And espescially the Roland V-synth gave me atleast the feel of playing a violin...

Thats why i was really hoping for an adavnced VLX engine in the Montage, not only playing a violin, but also using the violin characteristics with different sounds... No wthat would be so much fun.. Playing violin on a string sounding like a sawtooth... Maybe one day we will see VLX, VPX, ANX, SCX in future versions of the Montage...

To Sam.
I don't know who is the snob, the one who just make a simple inquiry about the possibility of a synth or the one who call the another a snob without knowing absolutely nothing about him ! That s is funny because this is a pure snobbish attitude.

Instrument musical brands are not sacred temples, just the concept of the synth can be a sacred temple. Ingeniors and designers have a problem, they don't have a Steve jobs as boss but shareholders, that's why you can find so much greedy things on high brand. I am living in a island where I have no chance to try these machine and I have only one shot due the high cost of the engine.

Otherwise, I agreed what say Sam, in general speaking, not address to somebody particularly. Whose musician will not agree that? It have happen that I spent whole night playing on a frypan with fingers and another percussionist friend but what is the difference between a frypan and a montage?
_ Some will answer maybe nothing, both can provide music enjoy...
_Some will answer keep your frypan if you enjoy it, I keep my montage because I have a little more possibilities.... Then we can start speaking about possibilities.
_And some will answer, the price .

Unbertone's very interesting, I would like to have this in a hardwar synth with maybe a less tricky way for left hand and pitching action too, joystick and rubber should be good at this job?

natalini wrote:

To Sam.
I don't know who is the snob, the one who just make a simple inquiry about the possibility of a synth or the one who call the another a snob without knowing absolutely nothing about him ! That s is funny because this is a pure snobbish attitude.
....I am living in a island where I have no chance to try these machine and I have only one shot due the high cost of the engine.

I didn't know there was another Sam on this forum, because your post certainly has nothing to do with my earlier post.

In the early 1980's when CDs were taking over from 33 1/3 LPs, there was a fierce resistance from the die-hards who swore that the CD sound quality was inferior. They swore they could tell the difference. There were tests done by music magazines to check this out... using the best turntables... that most people did not have! The results were that the CD had the better reproduction. I'll get to that soon.
The same argument raised its ugly head when studios started using digital recording. "Oooh, not as good as the trusty old reel to reel!". Yeah, the reel to reel costing thousands of dollars 30 years ago.
Again... ad nauseam; Valve amps vs transistor amps. To the extent that some manufacturers have bowed to superstition & included a valve stage in some of their amplifiers.
The cause of the above is a combination of nostalgia & technical ignorance. LPs and tapes suffer from wow, flutter, rumble, and a constant hiss. The records also have a nasty habit of clicking every 2 seconds.
Let's add the valve amps to the mix: They, in common with records & tapes have a built in filter. Now, if you like to have ALL your music go through a compulsory filter, be my guest. I prefer to filter it if & when I want to, and in the way I want. What filter am I talking about? The valve amps, LPs, & tapes have a longer response time to fast transient signals, such as high frequencies, so they 'smooth' them out. Yes, the highs are not so crisp and bright. If you like that, OK, but don't confuse it with better reproduction.
Now, back to snobbishness. It is one thing to reject something because we don't like it (that only has to do with our personal taste). But when we try to rationalize our decision by making false accusations, then that is snobbish.
I mentioned before that in 1992 I did a solo violin on a Yamaha SY77 that fooled people into believing it was an actual violin, on a synth of 25 years ago! The converse of that is when people do hear a real violin on the radio and swear that it is a keyboard imitation... I have seen that happen too.

Natalini, you live on an island. But even if you lived in a huge city with a hundred music shops, you will not find the PERFECT synth. There is no such thing. There is no perfect piano or violin or sax. Everything is relative. The 'perfect' synth or piano or violin or sax, is the one you enjoy playing, and use the most often. So don't be worried about buying the wrong synth. All any of us can do is do our research, take the plunge, learn to use our instrument as best we can, and be content, whether it is a Casio VL Tone or Yamaha Montage.

By the way, the Montage is not too expensive. If you can't afford it, wait a couple of years and there will be some on the second hand market.... I had to wait 50 years.