The supplementary manual has more detail specific to the pitch bend - but not really specific enough to know that external MIDI events can utilize this resolution. Thus far, I've seen users proclaim that their physical pitch bend controller is more smooth now - but have not seen reports of MIDI control taking advantage of this.

@Blake

Just to let you all know: The development team is aware of this. I have been in meetings for the last part of the week and we discussed this issue along with many others. We ABSOLUTELY do listen to you and we most certainly do our best to implement reasonable requests. OS v3.0 introduced the Pattern Sequencer to the Performance Recorder. This feature alone was among the top requests from our customers. The new Hybrid Mode and Keyboard Control features were also added, along with other cool things like new DSP effects, Global Tuning and USB MIDI host.

I can assure you that there is more to come. I will say it again: We really do listen. Implementing these requests take time, and apologies if they cannot happen as fast as many would like.

So after having updated to 3.5 and tested Pitch Bend, I am a little disappointed, because it's still NOT smooth and has that stepping sound to it.
I was even fair and only set the bend to 10 or 12, but when compared to my DX7-II, the DX is as smooth as butter with zero stepping even at the max bend allowed, whereas the Montage is still not smooth at all! Whatever improvements they made to Controllability and playability, it definitely has not improved in the sound of the pitch bend ... specifically removing the stepping and make it smooth. It simply didn't happen yet 🙁

I'm hoping this is just normal, that they didn't fix the stepping issue, and are still working on it for the next OS release, but I thought I would post this so that if anyone from Yamaha is listening, they might be able to provide an update on whether they think this was fixed in OS 3.5 or not. If they are under the impression it was fixed, then it would be good for them to know and go back to the drawing board. If they know it wasn't yet fixed, at least we could remain hopeful for the next update...

Here's hoping for the next OS release and for an update/clarification on this from someone at Yamaha! 🙂

hie, i receive form Yamaha this notification. ''We would like to inform you that the pitch bend steps detection have been increased on last Montage OS update V3.5''
but absolutely:( no change at all???? still this awful stepping> disappointing.......:o

Kind of want to keep the pitch bend discussion here, so I guess I'll keep going here ...

The latest official "documentation" from Yamaha has dug-in on the resolution story and have said that even from external controllers that pitch bend is improved.

Source: https://www.yamahasynth.com/synths/introducing-montage-os-v3-5-and-modx-os-v2-5

Improved Pitch Bend Resolution
Pitch Bend resolution has been improved both internally and from and external controller. It is smoother and just responds better.

I'm not saying the testing is wrong - only that before the documentation was ambiguous about if the improvements were both internal and external. Now there's explicit mention of both.

The only "gotcha" I can think of is that if PB is the source controller for pitch in the Mod/Control-Control Assign matrix. Then I could see that perhaps this part hasn't been plumbed out for higher resolution and you're back to 7-bit. But I think the testing thus far has been using PB in a normal way - just native pitch bending.

It's also, I suppose, possible that we went from 7-bit to 8-bit (not all the way to 14-bit. Not to 10-bit) - so the stepping is "better" in a way that can't necessarily be perceived easily - but not yet up to snuff vs. either competition or earlier products. I myself don't know first hand yet from testing. Just saying it's possible that it's "difficult" to perceive better if better is only the smallest incremental improvement.

@Jason

Source: https://www.yamahasynth.com/synths/introducing-montage-os-v3-5-and-modx-os-v2-5

Improved Pitch Bend Resolution
Pitch Bend resolution has been improved both internally and from and external controller. It is smoother and just responds better.

I'm not saying the testing is wrong - only that before the documentation was ambiguous about if the improvements were both internal and external. Now there's explicit mention of both.

It's also, I suppose, possible that we went from 7-bit to 8-bit (not all the way to 14-bit. Not to 10-bit) - so the stepping is "better" in a way that can't necessarily be perceived easily - but not yet up to snuff vs. either competition or earlier products. I myself don't know first hand yet from testing. Just saying it's possible that it's "difficult" to perceive better if better is only the smallest incremental improvement.

It's good that they clarified the documentation. And I think that your theory is right on the money regarding it being "possible that we went from 7-bit to 8-bit (not all the way to 14-bit". At this point I think that they will need to go all the way to 14 in order to have the Montage/MODX pitch bend sound as good as it did on previous synthesizers, such as the DX7-II.

Please listen to the comparison in this SoundCloud audio link below between my Yamaha DX7-II and my Yamaha Montage OS ver 3.5 synthesizers, and let me know if you can hear/perceive any difference in smoothness (or stepping) of the Pitch Bend functionality. Spoiler alert: After recording & listening back on this comparison demo, I personally would be quite embarrassed to show off the Pitch Bend functionality on my Montage to anyone, if set to more than 2 notes up/down!

I plugged the DX7-II audio Outputs(L/R) into the Montage A/D Inputs(L/R), took a single voice sound "SongFlute" with a 1 octave pitch bend on my DX7-II, and the same single PART sound with a 1 octave pitch bend on my Montage OS 3.5, and recorded the 'digital' audio of them both in ProTools via the USB Output (Yamaha Steinberg USB Driver) of the Montage, to demonstrate the pitch bend smoothness (or stepping) of them both for comparison. To make the FM sound comparison as even & close sounding as possible, I changed the DX7-II voice from the Key Mode "Unison Poly 'detune 4'" to "polyphonic", and used only PART 1 of the 4 PARTs that make up the sound on the Montage.
[Note for those who are either new to FM-X synthesis or have never tried a DX7-II, the "Unison Poly" mode on the DX7-II (&/or 4 PARTs detuned on the Montage/MODX) literally makes it sound over 4 times as big & more awesome than just the single voice/single PART audio you hear in this audio clip ... just so you don't think this is what the actual DX7-II/Montage SongFlute sounds like]

The first part you hear in the audio clip is the DX7-II and the second part is the Montage:
https://soundcloud.com/dclowe/dx7ii-vs-montageos35-pitchbend

** What I noticed most is that the faster the pitch bend, the more stepped/worse it sounds on the Montage. Whereas on the DX7-II, the faster the pitch bend, the smoother it sounds!

@Blake and @BadMister Please consider having Yamaha's engineers revisit the Pitch Bend stepping issue on the Montage/MODX, if you hear a noticeable difference!
30+ year old pitch bend technology should not be/sound better than the Montage OS 3.5 pitch bend technology! It makes it very difficult to use the Montage for Synth solos, Guitar solos, or anything that might require a pitch bend or more than 2 notes up or down. I hope you will agree that this is basic functionality that should just work & sound awesome on the latest OS version of the Montage/MODX. If you don't think the Montage's pitch bend sounds nearly as smooth as the 30 year old DX7-II's pitch bend when listening to my audio clip above, and/or if you would be even a bit embarrassed to demo this difference between the two to potential new Montage/MODX owners, please re-submit to have this fixed on the next OS update! I hope this doesn't come across as being overly critical, as I know that an effort was made on your guys part to have the Pitch Bend issue fixed, and just knowing that you're listening to us is an honor & we are grateful! And I personally love the new Smart Morph technology you added to the Montage, and that you decided to add this new feature to enhance the FM-X engine! Thank you!!

i will be curious to know what is the technical issue that avoid to get a "normal" ptchbend in montage.;)

@Darryl

The first part you hear in the audio clip is the DX7-II and the second part is the Montage:

Could you please post that MONTAGE sound we cannot replicate your sound - would love to see why you are getting that result. Thank you!

** What I noticed most is that the faster the pitch bend, the more stepped/worse it sounds on the Montage. Whereas on the DX7-II, the faster the pitch bend, the smoother it sounds!

I know the data dial has this feature. Where precision is a function of speed. Something like the pitchbend shouldn't work like this since it always has a fixed range physically and also fixed range numerically. And data dial is variable since it's continuous. But the underlying issue may be the scan rate of the controller itself. How frequently the hardware asks the PB "where are you at?". If it scans too infrequently, then you'll miss the intermediate steps. And this would be exacerbated by moving PB very quickly. On the other end, if you scan too fast then you may constantly flood the bus with values. And this is a problem for MIDI 1.0.

Standard MIDI you have to compromise a bit between the flood issue and granularity. I believe MIDI 2.0 helps solve this issue by having more native support for higher resolution controllers - so I believe the throughput of the bus can be larger making "flooding" less of an issue as long as all connected devices are MIDI 2.0.

And my understanding of some features of the DX7 series are that MIDI was not relied upon for all features. Some things like perhaps pitch bend are internally managed and do not try to conform to MIDI "limitations" when it comes to the pitchbend controller's relationship to the tone generator. And Montage/MODX is placing a higher priority on living in a MIDI-connected world.

Good to see that Yamaha is digging into this one - at least to gather the data to understand what generated your soundclips. This is encouraging.

@BadMister

Could you please post that MONTAGE sound we cannot replicate your sound - would love to see why you are getting that result. Thank you!

Thanks for checking on this!
The sound I used is not a Montage preset. It is a DX7-II preset that I exported from the DX7-II as a .SYS file, converted to .X7L and imported that library into the Montage. I have shared both the .sys and .x7l files from my google drive for you to download:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1LnVidcRHVfwenKoJVEbCSonZCM_bCmVs?usp=sharing

Search for 'SongFlute'. You can leave all 4 PARTs and set the pitchbend to +/-12 on each PART, or to be the same as the audio file, just Mute or delete PARTs 2-4 and just use PART1.

In searching for that same sound in the Montage presets (which I didn't find), I came across these Performances, which all exhibited the same 'stepping' behavior when testing the pitch bend on them (I set PB to +/-12 on each); the faster the more noticeable overall:

FM Pan Flute
FM Harmonica
Recorder
Mini Soft
Panflute

is the pitchbend enquiry going on???

is the pitchbend enquiry going on???

I haven't heard anything, but I hope so!
I found it interesting that that said they are having a hard time reproducing it when it's so easy to reproduce with most sounds, especially simple ones that are straight forward without much waviness

@Bad Mister or @Blake are the engineers looking at this &/or making any progress? Thanks!

found it interesting that that said they are having a hard time reproducing it when it's so easy to reproduce with most sounds, especially simple ones that are straight forward without much waviness
i think this is not sincere from Yamaha, or they don t have proper ears that i doubt, 🙁

I'm not sure it takes ears necessarily. They say for internal and external. So the MIDI output should have more unique values than before. And this should be demonstrable through a MIDI dump of old vs. new firmware and should not depend on the Performance necessarily (except pitch bend range may make things easier to demonstrate).

I'm not sure it takes ears necessarily. They say for internal and external. So the MIDI output should have more unique values than before. And this should be demonstrable through a MIDI dump of old vs. new firmware and should not depend on the Performance necessarily (except pitch bend range may make things easier to demonstrate).

I get what you're saying. Yamaha want this to be a measurable fix via MIDI output. I unfortunately am fairly new to MIDI and don't really understand the Language/Output.
I can just tell by ear. Just like I don't read sheet music all that well (slower than a snail), as I've always learned & played by ear.

In the end, it doesn't matter how good the numbers look...it's gotta sound great!
It doesn't get any more clear than this (at least to my ears): https://soundcloud.com/dclowe/dx7ii-vs-montageos35-pitchbend
If the pitchbend doesn't consistently have that 'W-like' sound to it and instead has stepping at times, then it is not fixed & doesn't sound great...

Hopefully Yamaha are working on this and soon verify a fix via both MIDI output & by Ear! 😉

@Darryl

The first part you hear in the audio clip is the DX7-II and the second part is the Montage:

Could you please post that MONTAGE sound we cannot replicate your sound - would love to see why you are getting that result. Thank you!

Hey @BadMister or @Blake is there any update on this?