Does the Montage have a drum machine?

For all intents and purposes, yes it does.

When I get to playing around in the Performance mode (Montage) are they just drum arpeggios like the MOTIF ES?

There are 10,231 Arp Phrases, over 3,440 of them in the Drum/Perc Category. Plus you can record 256 of your own Arpeggios, and store a total of 2048 of your own Arp Phrases in the onboard Library area. Among the 3440 Drum/Perc Preset Arps you’ll find Main sections, Breaks, Fill-ins, etc. To create an Arp Phrase: Record directly to the Sequencer and use the Convert to User Arp Function.

These Arp Phrases can be adjusted as feel and attitude in realtime via the Arp Play Effects, They can can transferred to the Pattern Sequencer: when you select a Drum Kit and assign an Arp phrase, set “KeyOn Start“ = On and “Loop“ = Off — this will write out the selected Arp Phrase as MIDI Events. Each of the 16 Performance Parts has its own dedicated Track.

Instead of using just 5 arpeggios on the MOTIF ES, there are 8 I can now use on the Montage?

There are five Arp Select buttons on the Motif ES in Performance Mode. There are eight Arp Select buttons on the MONTAGE. These are useful in creating musical backing that you can control (select) manually as it plays. Or... because you can print (transfer) these Arps to the Sequencer, you can control them in a flexible fashion, even automate when they are to play.

Does the Pattern Sequencer (Montage) have a Drum Machine? If so, What kind of options are there in the Pattern Sequencer? Could I set up the sections like I can with my MOTIF ES?

Absolutely. And as mentioned there are more ways to do this type of thing... the MONTAGE is built upon the foundation introduced by the Motif series. Combining a MIDI Sequencer with both a linear (Song) function, and looping Pattern function... linked by a Pattern Chain function that lets you assemble your musical sections, now called “Scenes”, in the playback order you require.

I am just trying to find out as much information as I can (getting a heads up) before I make my purchase.
Can anybody give me any advise about this post or where I can get information about using all the DRUM features on the Montage?

You have found the place (YamahaSynth.com) where you can ask, research and find this type of information about the MONTAGE. I’ll assemble below some links to articles with points of interest about programming Drums and using the tons of data that MONTAGE provides.

Additionally, you can load MIDI (.mid) data from a USB stick directly to a linear Song or to the looping Pattern; you can import .wav data that can be used to create looping drum grooves (although you cannot edit audio in the MONTAGE, you can prepare it in your computer and then import it). The Drum Kit will be very familiar as it is the same as in the ES... 73 Keys, C0~C6, each Drum Key is autonomous (this means each Drum Key can be tuned separately, has its on Volume and Pan position, its own routing through the Kit’s two Insertion Effects and/or the System Effects, it’s own Filters, and on the MONTAGE each can be routed to any of the 32-bus Outputs, as necessary, when recording via USB.

Other Points of Interest Concerning this topic:
MONTAGifying Motif XF “Rule the Earth” _ How to select and Edit Drum Kit Parts in a MONTAGE Performance.
MONTAGifying Motif XF “Smooth it Over” _ Realtime Control over your Drum Kit, Arp Play FX (Swing, etc.)
MONTAGifying Motif XF “Smooth Guitar” _ More on using Swing Quantize and Drum Kit mixing.

Mastering MONTAGE Quantize

Thank you Bad Mister for your response and info. Since the Montage is from the foundation of the Motif series it shouldn't take long to get used to.
Off the subject in a way using Yamaha Connect when connecting to my computer's DAW, will Cubebase or Logic automatically recognize or (better put) create the tracks and settings I'm using on the Montage? Example: From Performance and Pattern if I am using 8 tracks on the Montage will it sync and create those same 8 tracks on/in the DAW's. So I won't have to set up the tracks before hand or not? Will I have still set them up myself first? 8 tracks on the Montage to 8 tracks in the DAW's.

Yamaha purchased Steinberg back in December of 2004, so the integration between Yamaha hardware and Steinberg software I can address. If you create your tracks with the on board MONTAGE sequencer, the results will automatically appear in the corresponding Folder in the MONTAGE internal memory. You can open MONTAGE CONNECT as a VST plug-in inside of Cubase, where it can capture, store and retrieve your MONTAGE Performance Settings.

You can drag and drop your sequence data from the MONTAGE directly into an open Cubase Project (MONTAGE stores the sequence data as a .mid file in the [UTILITY] > “Contents” > “Data Utility” area). Each Part will be sent to it own MIDI Track. Cubase allows you drop a .mid file into an open Project where you can have it explode each MONTAGE Part to its own Track.

This is actually a preferred workflow — as you can avoid all the head scratching involved in recording MIDI to a DAW when dealing with Multi-Part MONTAGE Performances - where you might be simultaneously transmitting on multiple MIDI channels; especially when you are playing some Parts live and other Parts are generated by one or more of MONTAGE’s eight Arpeggiators...! By using the MONTAGE’s own built-in Performance Recorder, which is designed to record everything you might do, and then moving that to your DAW by a simple drag n drop, this makes getting from A-Z easy-peazy!

MONTAGE CONNECT can run as an AU plug-in inside of programs like Logic (that don’t support VST protocol). This means you move data over to almost any DAW via a simple USB connection.

MONTAGE CONNECT can run in the background and can be set to automatically capture, store and then restore all the edits you make to the MONTAGE Tone Generator.