Ok,

I was reading through the Montage Manual and looking at pictures online and I think of kind of answered my own question.

There are 32 buttons on the front panel and it seems like in Live Set Mode, you can use the 16 on the left to select Performances and the the 16 on the right to select Pages. This gives you 256 Performances you can access with just two buttons and as long as you use only 8 parts in a performance the transitions will be seamless.

While in Live Set Mode can you use the touchscreen to select parts?

Can you send Program Changes to an external keyboard while in Live Set Mode?

I think the key for me would be to be able to stay in Live Set Mode for the whole gig. Are there any limitations to this?

~Ben

Ben wrote:
My question is in a Live Set, how many buttons would I have to press in order to get to a generic one voice Performance or specific layered Performance assuming I have a large number of Performances saved?

You put everything you need into a user bank in live set mode where you are able to have up to 256 entries to call them so. Those 256 entries/slots can be single part performances (containing one voice as they are called on the previous models) or multipart/multitimbral performances.
Within a (user) bank, those 256 slots can be reached with the maximum of two presses. That's quite good. Even changing to a next bank with further 256 slots is just one button press more. In short: if you use two user banks with 256 slots each, you have a maximum of 512 slots and everything is reachable with three presses max.

Ben wrote:
I would be able to consolidate some of my MOXF Voices into single Performances (ie. piano, piano with stings, piano with organ, piano with pad, piano with synths in one performance) but I would probably have at least 70-80 different Performances when all is said and done. I would like to be able to get to them as quickly as I do on the MOXF but with the Montage seamless switching feature. How many buttons would this entail?

Once you create your performances on the Montage, you put the performances into the live set mode where you decide about the user bank, page and slot. From there, again, within one single bank with 256 slots everything is two presses away or even less if you stay inside the same page. As on the motif, on a single page there is just one press needed to change between 16 sounds.

Ben wrote:
On a related note, can you scroll through banks, pages, performances to cue up the next performance while still playing in the current one?

Yes you can scroll trough banks and pages but not performances. You are in the live set mode. Performances are placed on one of the sixteen slots. Once you touch or press a button, the new performance on that slot is selected. But when you scroll through the banks and pages, you see 16 slots at once and you are able to identify the desired one for your next selection.

Hi,

Thanks! I just figured out the 256 thing myself, but good to know about the scrolling through pages and banks.

So once you select the Performance, you can then use the touchscreen to select Parts without leaving Live Set Mode correct?

Correct.

With the Montage there is a good and a bad thing.
The good thing is that we have a setlist function, that is the live set mode.

The bad thing is, we lost the old screen view where you can see what your part consists off. The performances on the Montage are not indexed in a way that you could directly select them. So, once you create a performance, it will be simply saved on a location which means nothing to the user. To finde that performance again, the only way is to use category search. Or, you put the performance into the live set mode, that means, you place the performance on a slot in the live set view. There you select the slots as I described above. But in the liveset mode you loose the detailed view about the parts, the zone ranges, the volume and generally which part contains which sound.

That IMHO is not a good workflow because it forces you to use the new liveset mode as the only possible one. Instead, I would prefer if the performances would be indexed and have numbers just like they have on every other keyboard including yamaha. I don't need the setlist on the Montage because I use a software solution. But I loose the view about the details for a multipart performance.

Ok,

So to change parts in a performance I would need to leave Live Set Mode?

This doesn't seem like that big a deal for me anyway, as 256 slots in Live Set Mode means I could create 16 Performances on one Page and treat them like Parts.

You have two places to place part information in live set mode.

First, the performance (user performances) you [STORE] can have names that show what the PARTs are. Usually, I use scenes to switch parts - so I may have a country performance named "Cntry 8=Or 7=Fd 6=Pd" which tells me this is for country tunes, scene 8 is organ, scene 7 is fiddle, scene 6 is pedal steel.

I did not initially start using this, but each Live Set slot has a slot name which is additional 20 characters for more info. So you can list more details about the performance there. I believe I recently changed this same performance slot name to: "8=Org 7=Fdl 6=Ped" and the performance name is "Country Tunes"

Also, you don't have to stay in live set mode. You can press [LIVE SET], pick your next performance, then press [PERFORMANCE] (HOME) to go back to the screen with part info.

Live Set isn't for editing performances. Mainly, it's just for collecting together performances (that are done) and organizing them in order so you can quickly recall them at the gig. I use live set just for this. It was easier for me to have a "1 click" access to all my custom performances rather than using category search which would require more button presses to pull up just my gig performances. Plus, under user performances I have lots of performances I never use on a gig but were done for various tests/experiments. Live Set helps clean this up.

There's "no" reason (meaning sticking with the way the keyboard works today) to use Live Set to edit performances. Editing of performances should be done in an edit mode of the keyboard and live set is an organization mode of the keyboard. You can edit the performance and save your updates without any need to readjust anything in the setlist.

The live setlist is like the "producer hat" and editing performances is the "keyboard tech" hat. Yamaha has been a fan of modes and keeping actions in separate buckets as a general philosophy.

Ok, makes sense. I get the difference between Live Set Mode and Edit Mode, and I think I would probably want to stay in Live Set Mode for fast-paced gigs with lots of sounds which is what i would probably use the Montage for.

I'm very familiar with Yamaha architecture, I currently own the XF8, MOXF6, MOX6, and the MX49 along with the Melas tools for each and the Motif Waveform editor.
I emailed John today actually, and he is planning on releasing Montage tools that will allow importing of XF/XS Voices, Performances, and Mixes.

So to follow-up on what you said above, in Live Set Mode you can use Scenes to switch Parts? Or do you have to create Scenes separately?

Does this mean that the Scenes match the Parts or that the Scene buttons can control which Parts are active?

In Live Set Mode, will any Scene info show on the screen when you select it?

The only reason I mentioned scenes is because Sladjan mentioned that live set doesn't show PARTs. In my world, the PARTs are not as important as the scenes - so I document (for myself) the scene information - meaning which scene does what - for my user performances. I was using "scenes" only as a vehicle for discussing documentation that could be added to the live set slots.

I programmed the scenes myself - using the proper techniques to store scenes. Has no tie to live set really except that I document how I programmed them in the live set text so I don't forget.

My point was that you don't really lose anything in Live Set if you use the 40 characters of text available (20 in performance name, 20 in live set slot name) to document whatever you think is missing from the live set screen.

Scenes are a concept of performances. They work in any mode of the keyboard - so kind of "flush" that there's anything special about scenes in relating to Live Sets. Again, my mention was only for self-documentation purposes. Sladjan may want to, instead of scene information, document in his Live Set *TEXT* what the different PARTs are set to. This is just text you are free to fill with anything you want. Could have also said - you can use these 40 characters to document the chord progression for the song which that performance uses. This is all for reference (the player's reference).

In Live Set mode - there's just what's there. A list of performance names with a live set slot name under the performance name with different colors you can set for each. And in the order you want them to be in. Each Live Set entry you can set a volume. That's it. Nothing special about anything else. The property that you can put them in a particular order means you can use a footswitch to go to the "next" live set slot (Live Set +) by pressing a footswitch. This may leave your hands free to switch to the next song/performance if your set list is rigid and fixed. Even if semi-rigid (mostly fixed) using a footswitch may be beneficial requiring only every once and a while going "off script" to manually select a live set slot.

http://www.yamahasynth.com/apps-2/performance-basics-and-the-live-set-1
http://www.yamahasynth.com/blog/performance-basics-and-the-live-set-ii
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Az8upLbGyQ8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UCX38IkdrlA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyVR4XLGccQ

Great, thanks!

Makes sense. So Scenes work in Live Set mode and they are "snapshots" of particular settings for the Performance, so you can use them to essentially layer Parts, solo or mute Parts, etc.

In Live Set mode (versus Performance mode) can I send Program Changes to an external keyboard and use the Zone function? Have Midi channels assigned to different parts? Do you lose any midi functionality in Live Set mode?

Are there any obvious disadvantages to using Live Set mode besides not having access to the different Parts of a Performance?

Put simply, in Live Set Mode, you only see the name of your performance. You got the same information as on an old DX7. The only difference being that you can add additional text being 20 characters long. That is barely enough to write anything meaningful without using heavy abbreviatons. There are pictures from the live set in the manuals so anybody can see how it looks like. In performance mode, you see the whole structure of the performance: you see the number of the parts, the keyboard zones (split points), solo and mute status. All that helps you to control the individual parts of the performance in realtime because you know which slider controls the volume of which part. In Liveset mode you see nothing. Just the slots for selecting the sounds.
The information value is definitely bigger when you are in the performance view mode. No way goes around that. It's simply a fact. Of course, it's another story whether you need all that information or not. I would like to have it because that is what was the standard since the motif xs and compared with the xs, the montage is a step back in that regard.

Yes, scenes work in live set mode in the same way as the sliders and knobs work. You just don't see what they do.

Ok, thanks!

So to be very clear though, in Live Set mode you don't lose any midi functionality or zone functionality?

You would just need to be in Performance Mode to edit midi channels, zone splits, etc? Once those are set you can put the Performance in Live Set mode and it works the same?

Ben wrote:

Ok, thanks!

So to be very clear though, in Live Set mode you don't lose any midi functionality or zone functionality?

Live Set is no different from being in Performance mode. The setup that you configured for the current Performance will apply. You select a MIDI I/O Mode, Multi or Single. If you wish to use the Montage as a controller you would also activate the ZONE MASTER function in Utility. If you then setup a Zone within a Performance, that configuration will apply. If no Zone Switch is active within a Performance, then the Montage will transmit/receive according to the global MIDI I/O Mode setting.

You would just need to be in Performance Mode to edit midi channels, zone splits, etc? Once those are set you can put the Performance in Live Set mode and it works the same?

Yes. The ZONE MASTER must be activated, then you can customize the Zone Settings in each Performance as you require.

Hope that helps.

We do need to correct some misinformation above...

Put simply, in Live Set Mode, you only see the name of your performance. You got the same information as on an old DX7.

This is not necessarily true. If you use an optional FC5 (or any momentary) Foot Switch to advance through your Live Set list, you can be on any screen you wish when performing with your LIVE SET. If you would prefer to be on the Home screen, or looking at the Mixer, or deep in the Edit functions of the Effects or Arpeggiators, or FM-X parameter, working with Elements or Operators, etc., etc. ... you can literally be on any screen when you advance to the next Performance in your LIVE SET.

Just step on the FS.

You do NOT have to "only see the name of your performance"... you can be on any screen you desire. You only need to be on the actual "LIVE SET" overview if you've forgotten what's coming up next.

Press [UTILITY] > "Setting" > "MIDI I/O"
Set "FS Assign" = Live Set+
Plug an FC4/5 (momentary) Foot Switch into the Assignable Foot Switch.

Now when you step on the Assignable Foot Switch it will advance you to the next Performance on your Live Set list... and you can viewing any Montage screen.

...for more information on getting more out of your Performances and Live Sets please check out the following two articles:
You may find placing several Single Part sounds in a Performance can be preferable to creating a separate Performance for each.

For example, if you need five or six different sounds for a particular composition, place them together with a single Performance and name it for the song. You can switch between them using the [PART SELECT] buttons, Foot Controllers, Super Knob or other performing methods.

Performance Basics and the Live Set

Performance Basics and the Live Set II

That IMHO is not a good workflow because it forces you to use the new liveset mode as the only possible one. Instead, I would prefer if the performances would be indexed and have numbers just like they have on every other keyboard including yamaha. I don't need the setlist on the Montage because I use a software solution. But I loose the view about the details for a multipart performance.

Respectfully, the Performances in Montage are each indexed and given a Bank Select and Program number. And can be accessed easily without the "setlist" solution which is named "Live Set" to appeal specifically to those who perform "live". It is not the only way to access your Performances, it as an additional method to organize for use on stage.

There are 2036 Factory Performances
"CFX + FM EP" which is Preset (Bank 063/064; Prgm 001)...
"Multi/GM" which is Preset (Bank 063/079; Prgm 128)

Your User Performances occupy the 640 locations starting with:

User 1 (Bank 063/080; Prgm 001-128)
User 2 (Bank 063/081; Prgm 001-128)
User 3 (Bank 063/082; Prgm 001-128)
User 4 (Bank 063/083; Prgm 001-128)
User 5 (Bank 063/084; Prgm 001-128)

The USER locations are empty until you store or import data to the location. Locations are filled from the lowest empty slot towards 640.

Montage Connect is the software solution. When working in the computer, running Montage Connect (VST3/AU) allows you to bundle the current Performance with the DAW Project file so that using internal User locations are not even a factor.

Hope that helps.