ok 4 expansions that sound like 4 different synths..I corrected my post above.

@c

Regarding your post containing "The Montage never put in a VA engine and instead focused on the DX7 sounds. Roland just put in 4 new engines just like that", remember that the Montage added FM-X Morph functionality in the last OS 3.5 intermediate update, which is not a major X.0 update, so I would not consider that their 'Focus'...

I agree that Yamaha should soon provide Montage owners with something new in response to Roland's latest update & they better make it a good one, or at least not wait too long. If acoustic is what they want to be known for, then ok, the better provide the C7 piano library or some kind of new library/preset waveforms as a response to stay competitive, at least for the flagship Montage if nothing else.

That being said, regarding new engines, Yamaha have told one of their reps (who is a moderator on another forum) that Montage/MODX are capable of additional engines. He wouldn't say any more than that, so he either doesn't know any more or is not at liberty to say at this point. This rep has also personally seen Yamaha's roadmap for the Montage & MODX, and from what I've heard him say over the past couple of years (although he is very careful not to say more than he's allowed to), both synths look quite promising for the future. 😉

Also, regarding the acoustic vs EDM type tones, I have had no problems finding or programming any sound on any song out there on my Montage. I have programmed both AWM2 and FM-X PARTs and made them sound nearly identical to the recording. As per synth sounds, I have captured every sound you hear in both these JB recordings, of which both have a lot of synth work. His keyboardist uses mainly a Kronos (plus at least 2 or 3 other keyboards on stage), but I've been able to do these songs (everything in them except vocals) on a single Montage. Some of the sounds I found worked better with FM-X programming and others I've found easier via the AWM2 engine. With some of them, I think my PART(s) actually sounds a bit better than the recorded sound, although they are so close, most people wouldn't be able to tell them apart easily.

(Edit: Unfortunately I had to post the links separately, because I kept getting the "Sorry, but the system detected your content as spam" error trying to post those YouTube links in this post, so see my additional link post below)

- Intentions:
Intentions Link/Post

- Sorry:
Sorry Link/Post

Regarding this second song "Sorry", I only did the intro on this one btw because I am not planning to play that one live, but I am using the intro to start into "Intentions".

I'm not sure what the exact effects/synths they used in the studio for lower key & bass synths sounds for "Intentions", but the new 'Wave Folder' effect in the Montage/MODX came in really handy to help emulate those. Also, interesting note I found when programming the intro for "Sorry", I started looking for trumpets/horns/brass when I first tried to find the brass sound they are using. It turns out, it's not an "acoustic" trumpet/horn/brass sound, but rather it's the exact same "synth" sound from a Roland JX-8P that Europe used in "The Final Countdown", and on the Montage/MODX, that waveform is named "XP Brass". It is EQ'd a bit differently and the AEG is modified a bit on "Sorry", but after making those adjustments, I can barely tell my Montage apart from JB's recording. It's probably one of the closest sounds that I have programmed.

Anyway, long story short, I feel confident that there is nothing that I can't program on the Montage with anything that I've heard out there. The Montage continues to be a monster synth and with using multiple engines and all 16 parts + sequencing (as I've done with "Intentions"), there is more Polyphony on the Montage than on the Kronos. It's the main people on the Korg/Kronos forum that told me the Montage would be better suited for polyphony for my needs based on how I planned to use the synth with sequencing & multiple engines much of the time. The Montage Adds polyphony with each Engine used, whereas the Kronos supposedly goes to the lowest common denominator polyphony when using multiple engines...

"Intentions"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AyMjyHu1bA

"Sorry"
www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRh_vgS2dFE

On the FM-X "morph" function...

Whilst it's somewhat interesting, the aliasing is horrendous, when morphing, and much of what it makes is closer to random than musical.

I can see why it can be done, I'm not sure that it's beneficial for much more than noise making experimental 'music'.

This is deviating a bit from the subject - but if FM-X morph is a platform for things to come, a higher resolution smart morph of VA or AN engine would be cool and maybe a similar randomizer system. Higher resolution to get rid of those aliasing issues. And also better than single-straight-line automation. I think it's a good start for all of its perceived shortcomings.

It's also only newish (or a new spin) as older keyboards had parameter morphing features too (EX5's scene morphing).

@Jason, yes....

Agree... it's an interesting first step to "morphing intelligently" whatever that means.

it's got all those new fangled catch phrasery stuff hanging off it "AI, Deep Learning, Machine Intelligence" guff that everyone is spewing out, without there being much truth to that.

Yamaha couldn't even come up with a compelling usage demo of the feature when announcing it. Just yammering on about how "cool" it is and how incredible the morphing deep sense of it all is, and how it's computing and figuring out stuff. etc.

Worse, I've not seen anyone since using it in a musical or even interesting manner that doesn't suffer from that horrendous aliasing, nor anyone finding a way to make that aliasing useful or fit in with something else.

Not sure there's enough processing power in the Montage/MODX to do this kind of parameter morphing fast enough to get rid of the aliasing issues.

Further, even in my own experimentations with the FM-X morphing within sound effect design and random experimentation, it's not been anymore beneficial than doing everything methodically, manually and an in a labour intensive focused manner. I haven't managed to get morphing to produce any 'magic' sounds. Just differentness, and that's in the realm of sound effect design, where sometimes differentness can just randomly be good... yet that just hasn't happened, not even once.

It reeks of a "because we can" without a "why should it be?" line of questioning wrapping around the design of it that might have made it into something commonly useful and controllably creative.

And it's even odder when you think how much unused firepower exists in the fact that almost nobody has been busily figuring out how to use even a significant portion of the Motion Sequencer's prowess with 8 Operators of FM-X.

Surely getting a few sound designers busy with the Motion Sequencer, Effects and FM-X will lead to hitherto unheard signature level sound developments, and demonstrations of the potential of the Motion Sequencer.

I'm not nearly a sound designer, let alone good at it, and I'm getting some amazing results with super simple FM algorithms and the Motion Sequencer modding and messing with various aspects of the operators.

Further... I think the FM-X and Motion Sequencer put the Montage/MODX in an entirely different class of sound designer tool than we've ever seen before in hardware.

And that Yamaha should embrace the complex programming and geeking required to grok what's possible and start exploring and creating within it.

It's one thing to explain how FM works. It's an entirely different macro and meta level to explain how (and imbue comprehension of) the creative enormity that FM-X + Motion Sequencer + Effects Control brings to sound design.

It is a sort of linking based visual programming.

And whilst I'm not a full-time programmer, I know several coding languages quite well. Yet that's not helpful for this, because it's much more like designing dynamic and responsive visual effects within a combination of particle system and post processing than it is like "programming" per se.

So it can be taught, probably relatively easily, because most of the abstractions are surfaced through the UI. The biggest downside is the lack of visual representation of resultant values from the Motion Sequencers modding them. That little blackhole is a bit annoying at first, and slowly becomes infuriating as more complex efforts are made to link and mod parameters.

Fantom = 9 synthesis engines (Sampler, PCM Rompler, Supernatural, V-Piano, VA, 4 x Model Expansions)

I am waiting for a new additional engine in my MODX (but please no organs) 🙂

Many months back I had predicted on other forums that Yamaha would release OS 4.0 for the Montage (& 3.0 for the MODX) in early July, 2021.

Well, although I don't expect anything from Yamaha & I'm perfectly happy with my Montage, it's always fun to speculate, and so I think my prediction may be coming true soon! 😀
And if so, some thanks goes to Roland for the push, as they just released Fantom 2.5 firmware, whereby they added yet another Engine (Virtual Tonewheel Organ). As per my prediction, I think Yamaha will introduce a new VA Engine, as well as many new effects and features/functionality. Maybe even provide their C7 Piano!? (realistically, I can see them saving this one for a later date, but then again 4.0 could be a big one!)
I think Yamaha would be smart to add more functionality to Scenes, such as the ability to turn Elements Off/On. I think they would be smart to provide a new Tonewheel Organ effect that uses some of the technology from their YC keyboards. They would do well to provide a new Piano effect that provides new enhanced piano emulation of pedal noise/release, resonance, etc. I don't think we necessarily need new 'Engines', when they could likely provide most of this within new insertion 'effects'!
I would not be shocked to see major enhancements to the sequencer or even adding an second different type of sequencer!?
I could also see them adding a new colored Montage to the mix (maybe even a different colored MODX this time)!? Did anyone say 'Blue', 'Purple' or 'Hot Pink'..? :p

If this does happen soon, it would be quite fitting that Yamaha did so for the second time in 2 years, a few weeks after Roland released big things, like in September 2019 ... just a couple of months shy of being 2 years later!!

Anyway, that's my prediction and speculation. It will be interesting to see how &/or when Yamaha responds to Roland's latest firmware release! 😉

This would be the Yamaha advantage. If Roland's key range must be Range Lo<=Range Hi.

Yamaha allows for Lo>Hi - and when Lo>Hi - the range is "inverted" (notes from lowest note through Hi - which is the lower value, and also Lo through highest note) where the range is more defining a "dead zone" in the middle. The advantage is that you can notch out a range and have the same sound on either side of this "hole"

Practically speaking, I'm not sure I see that as a functional advantage. If you wanted to do that on a Fantom, you should just be able to use one part to assign a sound to a certain key range, and use another part to assign the same sound to another (non-contiguous) key range. Almost any board that lets you assign different sounds to different key ranges also lets you assign the same sound to more than one key range. The only advantage to this Yamaha approach to the latter that I can see is that it takes fewer parts, but especially since I think the Fantom supports 16 keyboard assignable parts (compared to 8 on the Yamaha, typically), I don't think running out of parts is likely to be an issue to worry about.

Fantom = 9 synthesis engines (Sampler, PCM Rompler, Supernatural, V-Piano, VA, 4 x Model Expansions)

Counting engines is not straight-forward. But sampler is not a separate sound engine from rompler, it's the same sound engine, applied to either built in or to additional samples. The 4 model expansions are arguably all the same VA engine, with different "skins" so to speak, to make them appear and behave more like this vintage model or that, but that could be debated, I suppose. The SuperNATURAL Acoustic add-ons are interesting, because--kind of opposite to what I said about the VA model expansions--the specifics of the underlying modeling technologies could conceivably vary quite a bit. The modeling algorithms that are part of SuperNATURAL piano, for example, would presumably be notably different from the algorithms that are part of SuperNATURAL brass or whatever. The Integra-7 "SuperNATURAL Acoustic" section included their modeled tonewheel organ as well as the hybrid sampled/modeled EPs, and there's probably almost nothing in common in the engineering of those sounds other than they include some kind of modeling. So if you were to count every different category of SuperNATURAL instrument emulation as its own engine (strings, brass, whatever), which I think is defensible, you have quite a few engines there! But ultimately, to some extent, it's about the results, If you like Roland's piano better than Yamaha's or vice versa, it doesn't matter who programmed their piano with its own engine vs. who used an existing sound engine for their piano.

In terms of the basic technologies, Yamaha is using AWM2 (sampling) and FM-X (FM). Roland does seem to be using a greater number of different sound generating approaches... though they don't have FM, and their straight sampling engine seems less capable (with Yamaha supporting 8 elements per part and multiple parts per instrument, whereas I believe Roland's straight sampled sounds use the equivalent of only up to 4 elements per instrument). But with their various additional modeled sound generating mechanisms (V-piano, virtual analog, superNATURAL modeling), their system offers different advantages, depending on the kinds of sounds you're after. As always, I think people are likely to find some sounds they prefer on one and other sounds they prefer on the other.

ETA: Roland actually does seem to have some amount of FM capability as well, since they permit one partial (their equivalent to an element) to act as a modulator and another as a carrier, though it's not nearly as extensive an FM system as Yamaha's dedicated FM engine.

I'm happy with both my Montage 6 and my Fantom 7.

Are they both perfect? No but I don't expect every instrument I buy to have exactly the same features as another.

I find it a bit tedious when people buy something and complain that it doesn't suit their purpose.

It's never been easier to research products, watch videos and listen to sounds. Back in the day we had to actually go into a music shop and try the thing out!

My Renault doesn't have the same spec as an Aston Martin but I don't complain and expect Renault to upgrade it.

Buy what you need/want and don't complain if it doesn't fit your workflow. Either change your workflow or buy something else.

I'm happy with both my Montage 6 and my Fantom 7.

Are they both perfect? No but I don't expect every instrument I buy to have exactly the same features as another.

I find it a bit tedious when people buy something and complain that it doesn't suit their purpose.

It's never been easier to research products, watch videos and listen to sounds. Back in the day we had to actually go into a music shop and try the thing out!

My Renault doesn't have the same spec as an Aston Martin but I don't complain and expect Renault to upgrade it.

Buy what you need/want and don't complain if it doesn't fit your workflow. Either change your workflow or buy something else.

Your failed metaphor conveniently ignores the significance of firmware, and firmware updates as continuing service to existing customers, and the value of using updates as an increasing potential attractant of new customers across a product's lifespan, justifying its continued pricing without discounts, and firmware feature addition as a brand building enterprise with existing customers providing confidence for them to be future early adopters of new products, and all of what these mean to both products and their markets.

Failed metaphor or not I'll just keep making music, happy with what I've got and not constantly asking for more.

My point is I got what I paid for and am happy with that. I have no problem with people requesting new features and am grateful when manufacturers provide them.

What I don't like is the constant griping from some quarters that the product is bad beacause it doesn't have feature X or Y and that the manufacturer is abusing it's customers by not adding them.

I too am quite happy with what I've got & don't expect more OS updates/features. At the same time it is interesting to compare different products and the strategies used by those companies. It appears that Roland decided to use Yamaha's new roadmap strategy of keeping customers happy & costs down by extending the hardware life, only spending on software engineering, and adding/providing new features/enhancements via OS/firmware updates.
This creates hype and marketing opportunities for promoting their products, puts pressure on Yamaha to respond with new features/enhancements via an OS Update, gets people talking/thinking/comparing on forums, and in the end it's a Win Win for us customers. We already have a top notch awesome Synth & each time they add more to it, it's a bonus, because some of the things they add are quite useful...
You will get some people griping, whether it's because they want a feature in their keyboard that the other keyboard has, or whatever the reason. You will also have some interesting discussions & some fun speculation too.

But in the end, any OS updates extend the life of the Synth, and with major feature/enhancements, it's basically like getting a free new Synth, but without having to change the hardware or re-learn how to program or operate the synth. I don't care for the onboard sequencer or the FM Morphing technology that they gave us in previous OS updates, as that isn't useful for me, but I get why Yamaha added those features ... and for my purposes, I've already made good use out of some of the new effects and features from the last major OS update, especially KBD CTRL in Scenes, the Wave Folder effect, saving songs with a Performance in Live Set and Extended LFO.

So it will be fun & interesting to see what Yamaha adds to the Montage/MODX before the end of this month!! :p (...that's my prediction & I'm sticking to it 😉 )