ASM has that long ribbon over the keys so I'm kind of surprised Yamaha (who had it on the CS80) hasn't brought it back in a more useful form. We'll see if the system is MPE or poly touch or has wiggle keys although the presence of the traditional controls doesn't give one confidence of that upgrade however Osmose has both MPE and global controls.

I agree @Jason, the ribbon controller is a non-issue on the Montage/Montage M.
I've never used it, but it's definitely not in the way and I've never come close to accidentally touching it. Maybe I'll make use of it for something someday 😉

One thing that stood out to me in Scott's Synth Stuff video on the Montage M teaser info and sounds is that he says "The one thing they didn't change ... I was hoping that these Octave buttons were going to move from this area to over to this area" (over to the area next to the left hand controllers, which he says is the case on pretty much every other synthesizer). Maybe it's because I have a Montage 8, but I've actually never used the Octave buttons or had a need to yet. But I would think having them more central like they are on the Montage / Montage M is better because usually an octave change is something you would do quickly and then possibly set it back to the previous octave setting quickly as well. I know when I was first gigging with the Montage and using the Audition button to start Song sequencing, it was quite a stretch to get to it while playing, as some songs I do start out without the sequencing, then ~1/3 into the song I hit the button. Of course that was before they added Songs to Live Set in an OS update, and now I use the Play button instead, and find it much better because it's central and very easy to get to quickly. Kinda like the Hazard lights button in vehicles. It better if it's in the centre of the car than trying to find it way off somewhere else as was the case with one vehicle we used to own... :p

There is one interesting knob on the far left side above the modulation wheels that doesn't seem to get much attention so far...

I also agree about the ribbon. I’ve never accidentally hit it and like yourselves, hardly ever used it.

I've never figured out how to post photos on this forum. Tried everything in all formats and sizes it doesn't matter it won't work.

So your photo took a while to appear it was only an icon. Maybe that's why mine never worked I never gave it time to appear.

Isn't that the volume knob or input volume etc.?

Oh down low is very blurry? That's a morph or something. Funny that it's cut off in every view.

It's something either insignificant or part of the new system they don't want us to see yet.

The octave key thing comes from a school of synth playing (typically small number of keys) where you would play and repeat a run and hit octave up/down during play. On a 73 key keyboard I do these runs by crossing hands and playing all the notes but there are examples in tunes where you can hear it's either sequenced or (as is also often the case) played with the octave key "cheat".

So I can get the preference of putting octave shifts there for certain things. As you start appealing to crowds that have used synths in this way, your features start being seen through a different kind of player's lens. It's all good.

For more or less static shifting, the placement is fine. With a 61 key keyboard I would use the octave keys to get to splits I put too far from the available keys to get to without shifting octaves. This matches the kind of usage you allude to but there are other differing ways octave keys are used.

I think if momentary assign 1 and 2 could "add X" to parameter every time you press them then that would pretty much satisfy that request since the Assign buttons are already there and two makes for a good up/down pair. I'm not expecting a lot in this department of rethinking the possibilities of how buttons or foot switches work.

... and this would mean we could also get a true note shift destination parameter instead of the current ability only to pitch stretch using control assignments.

I like the presets

[quotePost id=123246]There is one interesting knob on the far left side above the modulation wheels that doesn't seem to get much attention so far...[/quotePost]

That knob could be what in the PSR series is referred to as Live Control. You can assign it to a large variety of parameters of your choosing. I would doubt that is part of the audio signal flow, it's too close for comfort and that area is reserved more for performance control. Of course, just a guess.

I've never figured out how to post photos on this forum

Just right-click on the image and use 'Copy Image Link' then paste that link into
a text editor and you will see how it was done.

The link you use needs to be to a site on the internet that is public.

The thing to keep in mind with the Octave button is that is does a 'transpose' and not a 'shift'.

MIDI note C3 becomes MIDI note C4 if you use '+' to go up an octave. Using it will affect any range settings you have.

So if you don't design your ranges and arps/drums triggers properly you can start triggering things you don't mean to.

I only use it at the performance level to free up one end or the other of the keyboard for specialized programming.

Having it where it is, or the new location is fine for me.

Yeah, my last octave key post had a paragraph talking about how adding transpose in addition would be useful but there are a few problems with that in the context of using this feature for the "cheat" described:

1) Something localized in one Part reaching out to another Part isn't exactly in the architecture except for envelope follower. So if there really was a transpose that could trigger some other part - it'd be overly complicated to implement if I have a reasonably accurate understanding of how this system works (now and in next gen).

2) And, more importantly, for the type of usage described you'd want note shift and not something that would play a different key on the keyboard.

... so I erased the mention of transpose as not to muddy the waters.

For synth sounds you could probably get away with pitch (stretch) shifting but I've always had applications for a true note shift that had a way to get chromatic notes from the control matrix.

There is one interesting knob on the far left side above the modulation wheels that doesn't seem to get much attention so far...

It's been discussed some here. There aren't that many misc. knobs on the box and my initial count was to not "see" this knob since it was pretty blurry in all the "leak" photos.

On the left hand side I only see two knobs. The top one is master volume. The one right under it could be either A/D input gain (like today) or USB volume (like MODX has without having to menu-dive in Montage for this). I'm assuming this is A/D input and USB volume doesn't have a knob just like the last. I always thought this was a great feature introduced by MODX (USB volume knob).

... and with this 3rd knob (now confirmed) that could be USB volume (to have Montage get Parity with the previous gen MODX) or it could very well be something different. Adding AN-X doesn't change the game completely since FM-X could sure use a bunch of modulation knobs to shape the sound similarly to how you'd want this kind of stuff for analog(simulated). But maybe adding AN-X got the wheels turning that right hand and left hand knobs would be good for the soul (of Montage). Wait for the manual I guess.

This still applies for posting inline images:

https://www.yamahasynth.com/forum/question-about-screenshots-on-the-montage#reply-26558

... follow the links in this message to get more detail.

Even though this was 5 years ago I still use imgbb as my image hosting site.

1) imgbb.com
2) Upload image
3) Copy link after upload finishes
4) Put that copied link in your browser
5) Right click on the image and copy the image link ("Copy image address" is how Chrome phrases this)
6) Paste that image address into your message and surround with [img][/img]

Before the teaser "sneak peek" content came out - I had some wishful thinking on those 8 buttons below the sliders and how they could relate to the two buttons nearby and under Super Knob. I had wished that one button was for select 1-8 and the other was select 9-16 and that pressing either of these buttons wouldn't do anything until you pressed one of the 8 under-slider buttons. Well .. the button labeling is clear now. I was half-way right. There's a button for selecting Parts but it looks like only 1-8. I can't see from the collection of pictures we have thus far how to bank to 9-16. I'll reserve judgement but if you run with that ball you may encounter disappointment. The other button lets these 8 under-slider buttons toggle keyboard select. [SHIFT]ing each of these buttons will let you use the 8 under-slider buttons as mute or solo. So 9-16 isn't a shift function as those are already taken by mute and solo.

... I actually wasn't hoping for Part select but more of a "sliders and knobs get associated to Part" selectors. The "big deal" I was hoping for was a way to modulate or volume adjust Parts 9-16 without actually selecting any of these Parts. This, however, was under the paradigm where Parts 9-16 can't have keyboard control turned on like today and selecting any of these Parts would disconnect Parts 1-8 from keyboard control. So ... all hope isn't lost but it's speculatively dissipating a bit.

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