I can tell you that the way this worked before was screwy too.   My wish was that the main screen settings would always impact the tone generator and zone settings would always just impact what's sent out MIDI and not the tone generator.   However, this wasn't the case. 

For sure the classic had flexibility lost in the M with regards to being able to both control and external device and internal at the same time using zone control.   And no matter how the note limits were set you could always use element level limits to get you there although less convenient.

I'll plug in the classic here sometime and follow up unless someone beats me to it.    There may be an existing thread that gives insight as part of the gripe I touched on here is in a past thread.

Element level note limits don't address the problem.

And no matter how the note limits were set you could always use element level limits to get you there although less convenient.

That doesn't work on our M8X.

Testing shows that if different limits are set the only notes you will hear notes that are in BOTH ranges:

1. Init Normal (AWM2)
2. Part Settings screen - set note limit from C1 to B1
3. Zone screen - set note limit from G1 to B3
4. Only notes sounding are G1 to B2

Throw in the Arp note range and it gets really messy.

The default element range for that Init Normal (AWM2) is C-2 to G8 and so is the note range for Arp #1.

If you set the element range to C4 to G8 then nothing sounds because that entire range is outside the G1 to B2 range that represents the overlap between the Part and Zone ranges in the test case above.

   5. Leave the element range at the default

   6. Set the arp 'Octave Shift' to -1 

   7. Set Master Arp switch OFF

   8. only notes G1 to B2 will sound - no arps and no note outside that range

   9. Set Master Arp switch ON

  10. Notes from C1 to B1 will sound with arps for each note - the arp part note range is being used and is NOT being restricted anymore by the Zone note range.

So there is something odd going on when you throw the ARP=ON and arp note range into the mix.

Motion sequences don't have note ranges (I think you have it on the wish list) but there is a 'Lane Vel Limit' parameter. We haven't yet done ANY testing to see how the various part/zone/lane velocity settings interact with each other. Makes my brain hurt just thinking about it.

It isn't clear to us just what (and when) an element actually sees a NOTE ON. We used to think that it only saw notes that had been range limited by the part and zone note limit settings. But the second test above shows that the arp code can see notes outside both of those note ranges as long as they have been 'shifted' into the range.

This came to light when researching/testing IdeaScale idea #3117 'Add key range, octave and transpose to scene parameters'. 

Yamaha actually acknowledged in a comment there that they are already working on those, or similar features:

The ultimate question is just which note range limits should be saved in scenes taking all of the issues mentioned above into account. If a user sets/saves a range that is outside the part/zone/arp ranges it may be possible that the sound disappears completely and it may not be clear just what the problem is or even how to make them all work together.

Please add any comments to that idea to help provide some guidance in that area.

Yes I was strictly conveying info about the classic.  Which doesn't apply to the M because the ability to have both external and internal simultaneously has been gutted.

The only real workaround for similar functionality is to burn a Part or shift your whole rig to not use M as the master and use something else as the master just using the M as a slave (or just ESP to stay light).

Anyhow, classic is still under equipment on a dolly.  No update on that front.

There should already be an ideascale on this one given there's an entire video walking through the ups and downs of the M's new MIDI landscape vs classic.  If not ...

No urgency/need to test classic Montage - at least not for our benefit. We are just posing the question about classic to clarify for any readers that our comments are based STRICTLY on how our M8X works going by the tests we have done.

That way if the issue is of concern to any classic owners it will give them a heads-up to check it out for themselves.

I remembered screwy and here's my results from 2018:

https://yamahasynth.com/community/postid/31823/

No 'ZONE' or 'INT SW' on the M8X (M6/M7?).

Just to emphasize - the 'Raison d'etre' for this thread/discussion is solely related to issues related to the IdeaScale submission about storing a 'note limit' range in scene memory.

The question(s) to be considered: WHICH note range? The part? The Zone? Both? What are the implications of any given implementation.

With that in mind thanks for the link - that mostly confirms what our tests show.

In your reply you stated:

Zone (MIDI Transmit) note limits affects the transmit of noteon/noteoff information both to the tone generator and external devices.

There is a CAVEAT with that according to the classic doc quote I provided. That says if ZONE is OFF then the parameters on the ZONE page don't apply.

Since the test you posted shows the zone range was applied it seems to suggest one of two things: 1) the zone switch was ON but the tone generator was affected anyway or 2) the zone switch was OFF and the doc is wrong

Unfortunately your replies in that thread don't say what the settings were for ZONE or INT SW. 

Bad Mister's comments in that thread don't really clear things up but they do seem to give the rationale for eliminating the zone and/or int switches on the M:

The "best way", as the article points out, is to use a Part slot for each device you wish to control. This means you should use two MONTAGE Part slots, one to trigger the internal MONTAGE sound and a second exclusively to control the external device.
The first Part should be set to Zone Switch = ON, Int Sw = ON, Transmit Ch = OFF
The second Part slot should have a "dummy" internal Part assigned. Here's how:

The binary choice of 'Internal' or 'External' for Part Mode on the M forces that issue. And that could be what Yamaha intended.

But nothing in that article or tests fully explain the ZONE issues.

Shouldn't 'ZONE' be a binary issue? Either a user wants to use part and no zone parameters, or they want zone and no part parameters?

Our understanding (for the classic) was that the 'zone' switch determined which settings were in effect: part or zone. And then the 'Int SW' was used to determine if those 'in effect' settings should be used for the internal tone generator as well as for external.

We can't really test that on our M8X since there is no zone or int sw. The test case(s) posted earlier are the limit of what we can do on the M.

If, as Bad Mister stated 'Zone Settings are going to determine what the Keyboard transmits..' why should they affect the tone generator and be combined with the part note limit settings? We don't understand what the rationale is for combining both part and zone settings (e.g. note limits).

Seems to us that any 'note limits' stored in a scene for a part should be 'generic' and be interpreted in the context of whether the part is internal or external. That seems appropriate given that, on an M, internal/external is a binary choice.

We would note, however, that at least one idea has been submitted to restore to the M the ability of a part to be BOTH internal and external. We have no idea is that is even under consideration.

Anything conveying zone functionality (by me) in that thread had Zone Master ON and Part Zone ON.

... and docs are correct.  If Part Zone is off, you don't get to set anything.  The zone note range settings are unavailable as well as any other zone settings.

No 'Part Zone' to be OFF on an M!

 If Part Zone is off, you don't get to set anything.  The zone note range settings are unavailable as well as any other zone settings.

We've found that 'unavailable' doesn't always mean 'unused'. And since the M doesn't have the Zone switch those settings are always available on that screen for a user, even accidentally, to change something. 

And changing the note range does, based on our tests, get applied in combination with the part note range. 

We haven't tested the other parameters, such as velocity. But if both the zone, and part, velocity values get applied that could cause issues also.

Even for the classic Montage we don't know, but suspect, that if you turn zone ON, make some settings, and then turn zone OFF that those settings will still be there the next time you turn zone ON again.

That COULD mean, but doesn't necessarily, that the settings are actually applied. Our money is that the code takes the ZONE switch into account to prevent that. But who knows?