I just reorganized my User Bank. The Total Librarian is so beautiful I could cry. Thanks so much for the update, John Melas! You Rock! And it was only €5 for the upgrade!

Very awesome

“Awesome” indeed! Just got it today, very pleased with it.

Is there also an indicator that shows if a performance uses flashrom-waveforms?

If not, what is the fastest way to see which performances uses flashrom-waveforms?

I want to keep the performances with flashrom-waveforms in user memory to be free to edit them.
The other performances are ok for me to store in a library-file.

Hi Jeroen, unfortunately that’s not possible as far as I can see. I made the very same request to John in a mail yesterday. I think that would help a lot. Now we are two, already...

Stefan wrote:

Hi Jeroen, unfortunately that’s not possible as far as I can see. I made the very same request to John in a mail yesterday. I think that would help a lot. Now we are two, already...

+1 from me too

Great news from John Melas:

Hello Jeroen,

> Is there also an indicator that shows if a performance uses flashrom-waveforms?

Thank you for your suggestion! This is a great idea and I will add this in the next version
of Total Librarian! BTW do you need different colors if the Performance uses Waveforms
from User area or Library area?

Best regards,
John Melas

Great news, indeed! Thanks! And yes, the colors would help a lot!

Just to explain my use case: I have in the user area lots of (>200) performances created for my bands' set lists. I have no idea currently which of them use no user waveforms and which use user waveforms from the user area and which ones use waveforms from which library. That means I really don't dare to throw out any library anymore, lest I damage some of my performances. There is unfortunately no warning when this happens. So seeing this in the Total Librarian would allow me to dive in those which actually do use waveforms from libraries and try to investigate this. It would of course even be better, if I could actually identify which performance from which library I have to import. However there are probably only a few which actually do that, so even the colors would help.

The real solution (which is a feature request I have made before) is of course to have this in the Montage directly: Some way to import from a library all waveforms which are needed in the user area...

And yes, Bad Mister now tells you to use a certain workflow to avoid the mess that I have. But of course I did this before the warning came. And in addition it requires a lot of planning and discipline. And my thinking is that this somehow collides with the kind of intuitive workflow you want from a musical instrument.

NOTE: The real real solution would be that this all happens behind the scenes. The Montage should know which waveforms are used from which performances. That way it could just keep a waveform in flash, if it is used by a user performance, even if the library is thrown out. Also when you load a library and the waveform is already loaded, it would not load it again. Should be easy nowadays using a hash over the waveform. Dreaming :-).

Excuse me Stefan, the MONTAGE does “know” which Performances are using which Programs. Please take full credit for your own mess, you created it before understanding how to use your instrument. You can seek to blame everyone and everything but I’m afraid creating your own workflow sometimes means you guessed wrong. The good news is even if you made a mess, MONTAGE can capture and restore it just as you made it!

In general, and I still see many Users not “getting” the fundamentals concerning AWM2 Waveform storage.
The USER BANK includes 640 Performance locations, 256 Arp Phrase locations, 2048 User Waveform locations, 8 Micro tunings, 2048 Live Set slots (8 User Banks, each with 16 Pages, 16 slots per Page).

When you have fashioned a USER BANK, It can be self-sufficient, it can contain everything you need to make the sounds you’ve included in it, work.

A USER Bank can be SAVED as a Library file .X7L, allowing you to reinvent your MONTAGE eight more times, taking all of those sounds with you.

Accounting for people like you, who either don’t or can’t read manuals, if you went ahead and combined Library Waveform and User Waveforms, without using the IMPORT LIBRARY FUNCTION, that repoints your data... well, you simply have to create a BACKUP (.X7A) file which will capture your data just as *you* constructed it. No one will judge you, nothing bad happens to you. Your MONTAGE is your MONTAGE. So what, you could have been smarter (wiser), more efficient, about how you compiled your data, but at the end of the day, the firmware serves the efficient user and those who “get creative”, let’s call it getting creative instead of “didn't read the manuals” or didn’t understand the architecture before they created hundreds of Performances.

And as far as me telling anyone about a workflow, you can certainly develop your own (you did!) You can tell us if you’d recommend yours to anyone else. But I base my recommendation based on how the MONTAGE firmware works at the time I suggest it. You say the MONTAGE doesn’t know where the Waveforms are, I totally disagree! Of course, it does. Or, I guess it’s been making very lucky guesses, then, huh?

It is typically the user that doesn’t know where to look. So if you assembled work mostly done by others (Yamaha or third party programmers) maybe you never looked at the OSCILLATOR screen in the AWM2 engine. It would tell you everything you need to know to make a smarter informed decision. You couldn’t NOT know where the Source Waveform is located, if you had actually selected the Waveform (there’s that and you probably just ignored the IMPORT LIBRARY, because you didn’t understand it, or you thought you knew better, or some other reason that I can’t even guess why... I like the one you offer that it is not the kind of intuitive workflow you expect from a musical instrument (translation: I didn’t know, I guessed wrong)

But the good news is it’s a tangled web of your own making... a Backup file will keep your web tangles and all just as you constructed it. And you can restore it and go to work.

Concept and suggestions:
make your User Bank self sufficient. This way it is fully transportable as a separate entity.
Think of a Library as a ‘semi-permanent’ Read Only Memory copy of one of your USER Banks.

Say you play in four different bands... you could have a Library or two for each band.
You get a call, band number three is going to tour the world and is going to rent you backline MONTAGES on the tour, so all you need is your suitcase and usb sticks.
The wise MONTAGE User can simply go to the Library and take just the Library reference books referring to that particular band.

The user who doesn’t know where the Waveform dependacies are (Stefan), simply has to take their entire Backup File.
That’s the big impact. It’s not that fatal, it’s just there is a more efficient way than Stefan’s guess at how it actually worked.

Intuitive- as a supporter of technology, I start with, very few things are actually intuitive. If things were intuitive I wouldn’t have a job. The toilet seat is intuitive but only once some explains the device it is attached to... when you were born, you didn’t even know what to do with air, until the doctor smacked you on the bottom to get you to try it (try it, you’ll like it). Intuitive is a goal, mostly unattainable... but I understand... Flash for portions of the data is not going to be intuitive... but the engineers have made it a no-brainer. You don’t really have understand it (of course, it can help) but even if you understand none of Waveforms, Keybanks, Elements, etc. you still can operate MONTAGE

It’s a CS80 concept.... (for those challenged by the lack of years)... back in 1976 the CS80 introduced a kind of Preset memory... you had a bunch of sliders on the front panel, then under a little panel door was the front panel in miniature eight times....this was how you could instantaneously Switch sound setups.

In MONTAGE you have the User Bank, and under the panel you have eight different copies of the User Bank ‘frozen’ in one of eight ROM Library locations.

USER is where you work. Waveforms should point to Waveforms in the current User Waveform Bank. Why? Only so that you maintain the fundamental concept: to keep everything you need so that you don’t ever have lost data: “NOT FOUND”. If you wind up with NOT FOUND, as a thing in your Live Sets... you owe it to yourself to try to get into the workflow where it Always Finds your data. It is possible!

If you owned an XF or MOXF, it was possible to have Voice data loaded, and not have the Waveform data in place on the Flash and conversely, to have the right Waveform data on Flash but the wrong Voices loaded into the User.

To eliminate that ever happening in MONTAGE, you simply have to have understood what happened with Flash in the XF.
As I said, even if you understand NONE, of what I’m saying... you can ignore it entirely and make up your own workflow... just save a BACKUP FILE (it will faithfully restore your setup in whatever it’s mangled condition happens to be).

And it really really does happen behind the scenes. And when you “know where to look” you can see it happening!

The MELAS TOOLS - to your rescue. It will help those who did speed ahead without knowing the repercussions of their actions. And being able to see an overview... Performances can be 16 Parts, so it really make being a power user more powerful, but the better you u derstand the basic concept, the better the software will serve you!

Hope that helps.

Bad Mister wrote:
...
USER is where you work. Waveforms should point to Waveforms in the current User Waveform Bank..

I agree. And that's why I am very happy that John Melas will show us (in the near future) which Performances have references to User Waveforms.

Jeroen wrote:

Bad Mister wrote:
...
USER is where you work. Waveforms should point to Waveforms in the current User Waveform Bank..

I agree. And that's why I am very happy that John Melas will show us (in the near future) which Performances have references to User Waveforms.

Short answer: I agree 100% to that. And Bad Mister gave a +1 as well.

Longer answer to Bad Mister (sorry, it is very long, but yours was as well 😉 ):

Bad Mister wrote: Excuse me Stefan, the MONTAGE does “know” which Performances are using which Programs. Please take full credit for your own mess, you created it before understanding how to use your instrument. You can seek to blame everyone and everything but I’m afraid creating your own workflow sometimes means you guessed wrong.

Thanks for your answer. I agree that my current setup is a mess. I agree that it was me creating that mess. I am not blaming anyone, I just try to find a way out of that mess. But to be honest your sentence above is incomplete:

you created it before understanding how to use your instrument.

Yes, but, when I started with the Montage the function to import performances from a library including the waveforms did not even exist. So it should be "you created it before understanding how to use your instrument and before the possiblity to avoid the mess existed". If you are unsure about that, please look at the new functions manual coming with Montage OS 2.0. "You can now copy Performances from the Library memory to the User memory." is part of the description for OS 1.1. Most of the mess comes from that time. So Yamaha saw that there was apparently no way to avoid said mess and corrected. Thanks a lot to whoever saw that and advised to fix it!!!

But even for a while after that it was not fully clear to me what the best (or only working) workflow is which keeps you safe from such a mess. The manual (which I read at the beginning from start to end) does not mention that, I believe. It was thanks to you Bad Mister pointing that out several times and explaining it in detail that I now have a good workflow. That's what I pointed out in my post:

And yes, Bad Mister now tells you to use a certain workflow to avoid the mess that I have. But of course I did this before the warning came.

Still sometimes in the heat of some editing session it happens to me that I don't adhere to the strict rules needed to avoid that mess. In many cases I start from some interesting library performance and edit it to my liking or combine parts from a library to a performance I created from scratch. And then I have to remember which performance from the library I have to import. Otherwise ... mess. That's what I mean that it is not as intuitive as one might wish for. In an ideal world all this would happen behind the scenes.

My goal is now to clean this up in the very way you suggest to make sure all my performances are self contained in the user area and they do not depend on the libraries at all. Why? Simply, because all library slots are full. And of course, also sample RAM is full with stuff from libraries I don't really need. And I would like to try out new libraries. Not least the Motif XF preset performances. Can't at the moment.

Now, please believe me that I now understand very well how the Montage does things. And yes it knows where the waveforms are located. Sorry for using a wrong choice of words. First, what I meant is that it does not tell me (there is a second part to that below). So it does not help me how to correct my mess. So if I want to load a new library I have to unload a library and might damage my performances while doing that. And as far as I know there is no easy way back once that happened. The obvious way would be to use a backup file (and yes, I do regular backups), restore to the point where I lost some performances and start over. But of course that would require me to notice that I lost something. So I have to check all my performances to see if they are not damaged. Then I would have to locate the performances I have to import (how?) and fix everything. New backup. Remove next library. Rinse and repeat. That would have me busy for days - remember that backup and restore are slow. Because Montage currently does nothing to help me (or I am missing something and would be very glad if you could advise me to do this in the best way. I am looking forward to any advise you can give which is not "start over from scratch"). The Melas tools will hopefully help me in the future with that! That's what my comment was about. That started this discussion.

Note that one of the nicest improvements of the Montage over the Moxf which I owned is something you also point out a lot: In the Moxf, and also the Motifs, the performances referenced the voices. So by removing a voice or changing it or moving it you could damage your performances. I hated that. Thankfully the Montage has the voices embedded in the performances (and yes, I know its now called parts). That completely solves that problem. That's one of the things I love about the Montage. See the similarity??? Now we have the same problem with the waveforms.

But while we are at it, there's a second part: To my knowledge (and please correct me if I am wrong), if I import a performance from a library, it will copy the necessary waveforms into user waveform memory. What that means (good) I no longer depend on the library. What it also means (bad) is that the waveforms are now in memory twice - as long as I have the library still loaded.

For example take the Bosendorfer library. I use the piano in many of my performances. However I also use some other performances from that library from time to time, still finding some stuff which is interesting which I did not use before. So I did not want to throw out the library. Could do it now, if I can find out what I have to import. But actually I am not sure I could import them even if I wanted, because the flash ROM is not emtpy / big enough for holding the piano twice. But even if it works and even if all waveforms from the library would be in user area and I unload the library, I might later not be able to load the library ever again. I might have imported other waveforms at that point, filling the flash to the point where it can no longer hold the second copy of the waveforms.

But let's assume I follow your suggestion and have one library for each band I am playing in (3). Now, I might never go on the world tour you have in mind for me ;). A more realistic scenario for me would be to play today with band 1, rehearse tomorrow with band 2 and have a gig a day after with band 3. So either I have to constantly juggle libraries or I have to have them in memory all three at the same time. Now suppose they all use waveforms from the Bosendorfer library and I have imported all necessary wavforms as you suggested. I am pretty sure that the flash of Montage cannot even hold them all at the same time. So then it becomes tedious.

Advanced: This is the second part of the above comment about Montage not knowing what it has loaded. Yes, it sort of knows what it has loaded. But to my very knowledge it does not know if some of the waveforms in different libraries are in fact the same. So that it can omit loading them in the first place. If it would it would solve all of the above problems. In an ideal world, the Montage would deal with the waveforms in a more advanced way: Each waveform would have some globally unique id (GUID). So whenever a libray (or a user file) is stored on a USB disk it would reference the necessary waveforms by this GUID. And it would of course still export the waveforms with the library as it does now. Now when loading the waveform it would check for the existence of a waveform with the GUID it needs. In that case it would not import the waveform at all but just point to the already loaded one. Also it would keep a reference count to waveforms. Whenever a newly loaded or edited performance references a waveform, the reference count is increased by one. Whenever a performance does not longer reference a waveform, the reference count is decremented. So when unloading some library the Montage can unload only those waveforms which are no longer needed. And when loading a library it only loads those waveforms which are now needed in addition.

This mess would be gone immediately. No need to import anything, no need to know what is there etc. This kind of dealing with resources is now pretty standard in many computer applications. Note that the counterargument could now be made that there is no such GUID for waveforms. But that's easy even for user created waveforms: A so called hash function can be calculated from the waveform's data which is basically its fingerprint. That's for example a 32 byte number which uniquely identifies the waveform. It is practically guaranteed that no two waveforms can have the same hash. Those hashes are industry standard in many applications and are very safe. Without them the internet would not be a safe place. And even things like Bitcoin could never exist (wow, never thought I could put Bitcoin in a forum comment for a synthesizer forum 😉 ).

EDIT: Okay, the Internet is no safe place. And the world would probably be better without Bitcoin :). Still...

Yes, you do what you have to do for your situation.

My job is just to clarify things, if I can, as they become available. I am, of course, aware of the timeline, I’m an active participant on the manufacturer side of things, interacting with musicians using it. You were here, so was I. This is why it is always curious when folks want to argue or get angry (@ me), I just have to ignore that angst/passion (or whatever you want to call it), as perhaps they just never will “get it”...

you make all valid points, but the function of the web presence is to have a living breathing relationship with an instrument/the folks who make it/and the folks who play it, this is necessary as features are added. The BACKUP developed specifically for those who don’t always know how it works... it just saves everything efficient, non-efficient. The IMPORT LIBRARY was developed to accommodate those who travel and do not always take their personal instrument.

If you don’t want to go on the world tour I was sending you on ;), the purpose of that story was simply to talk about making your Data “transportable”, separate from your instrument. Was I not clear?

If you want to leave your instrument at home, (you are just taking your data), packing up your Files can be surgical or you can simply duplicate your Montage in the rental Montage...

If your concern is duplicating data, and you always are concerned with “just” your personal instrument, the solutions for YOU are going to be different from the traveling/renting musician. Try to recognize *your* situation is yours, not everyone’s.

If you are stuck with “how to” best find a solution with the current firmware, with the data you are working with, that’s why we participate. You may think “everyone” works like you, I don’t, it does not matter if you are the only one working the way you do or thousands of users are working as you do. I’m here to help you find a solution that works for you.

How often do I read, “I have the same problem...” only to find it is NOT really the same at all.

No, the MONTAGE didn’t have many of the features/functions initially... four updates now, new features each time. Lamenting about what trouble it is for you and creating endless wishlists are fine... we may create a forum heading for this kind of thing and keep the product heading for “how to” and operational solutions... Q&A.

And as to suggestions on what engineers should, could do, and/or how they should have done it... well, while always interesting to discuss (truly, I love to imagine and spend time in sci-if land)... they would want to know from me that you had a vision of different use cases they are trying to address, they would want to know if you understand that there is more than one way to work. And while all of the above maybe true with your suggestions and recommendations, still there is a method for such communications if you want them taken seriously.

My recommendation: Wait for and embrace the software editing tools from third party folks like John Melas. Yamaha will work with John to better your MONTAGE experience. Communicate about how you are using the instrument, what you find difficult, or tedious to do. Try to recognize that what you are asking may or may not be something that is necessary, needed, wanted or even possible... but in spite of some people’s approach, we try to pass along those that are important to the community as a whole. Thanks for participating.

Oh and another option is buy another MONTAGE, one per band (lol).
On the serious side: A Backup (.X7A) for each band, ...boom!
No doubt, the Tools from Mr Melas will greatly assist both the novice and the power user.
Thanks for being a power user!

Bad Mister wrote: My recommendation: Wait for and embrace the software editing tools from third party folks like John Melas. Yamaha will work with John to better your MONTAGE experience. Communicate about how you are using the instrument, what you find difficult, or tedious to do. Try to recognize that what you are asking may or may not be something that is necessary, needed, wanted or even possible... but in spite of some people’s approach, we try to pass along those that are important to the community as a whole. Thanks for participating.

Hi Bad Mister, I think we agree on pretty much all points. I don't believe that my needs are the needs of everyone else. I think my posting history shows that I always try to give constructive critique and always stay on the calm side. That's the only way things can be improved over time. I very much appreciate the updates which have come over time. And as I wrote in a recent thread: Even if Montage was still at OS 1.0 I would immediately buy it again, if it was stolen today. And I believe that the Montage tools from John will help me a lot. And I had no problem paying for them - I get a lot of additional functionality from them. Also, I made the request to John to add the display of which performances need which waveform just yesterday as written above. That would help a lot and from the other post above John took that up pretty much immediately. Great! Looking forward to that update. Also looking forward to the SampleRobot Montage Edition. That's a great addition as well!

The thing with the Montage is that it is such a great instrument, it is for me so close to perfection. I don't need the big stuff some people are asking for: I don't need an additional virtual instrument, no full blown sequencer, no huge memory upgrade and so on. On the other hand it really puzzles me that some little things which could be done with relatively low cost are not there. They seem so obvious that it almost hurts. So I will continue making feature requests, trying to describe the use case and giving good reasons. If they are picked up - great. If not then it is just the way it is. I won't get angry. But I won't give up making those requests in the hope that others agree, you pick them up, forward them and they may come at some point.

And as to suggestions on what engineers should, could do, and/or how they should have done it... well, while always interesting to discuss (truly, I love to imagine and spend time in sci-if land)... they would want to know from me that you had a vision of different use cases they are trying to address, they would want to know if you understand that there is more than one way to work. And while all of the above maybe true with your suggestions and recommendations, still there is a method for such communications if you want them taken seriously.

I sure would want to have them taken seriously. I would be glad to have such a communication channel inside or outside the forum. While I am sure nothing I wrote is really new for them sometimes a fresh perspective might help. So if you can pass along suggestions that would be great.

Looking at the sales numbers vs. the number of users on the forum - not sure one can conclude the forum members are a representative population. Even within the forum members - only a certain percentage (most active members) are likely to participate. Also, Yamaha may have other channels of collecting user feedback that may also weigh in on the development path.

As in all things, usually the biggest spenders have the largest voice.

... just offering that "community" and forum participation may not be equivalent.

I've proposed voting/ranking before - so it's not a bad idea. It's just important to keep some perspective if/when things do not go your way.