I would love an external touch screen! It means I could use the Montage for live performance which is what I bought it for!!

An alternate touch screen (ipad would be nice) would eliminate the onstage spikes and surprises that come from what the next touch screen press might trigger. Will it be a double trigger and truncate a beautiful transition/morph from one Live Set sound to another? How would loud helicopter or jet sounds in the middle of a beautiful emotional section of music and exposed vocal do for you, your group, your vocalist, and your audience? How embarrassing for the audience to see YAMAHA on the malfunctioning keyboard. How long would your group tolerate these unpredictable surprises? Or maybe that next screen press will just trigger the wrong Live Set. No amount of screen calibration can stop these surprises.

So, as my touch screen got pretty effective at destroying live performances, it was pulled out of the line and brought back to the studio pending some way of getting the screen to work right. OK, in the studio, we couldn't find any way of recording one Live Set sound to another and have it play back. What? So we were told that we aren't supposed to be switching those gorgeous Live Set sounds that won our hearts and wallets at the store because no one has figured a way to record what we play if we stay in Live Set mode. Instead, you are supposed to study and learn the various synth architectures, become a programmer, and spend countless hours trying to get those same gorgeous Live Set sounds to play from just ONE Live Set. Ouch. The justification offered, was that "...the MIDI spec is too old and outdated." So, Bob Moog is to blame because he invented the MIDI spec? So then... how does Korg manage to do what the Montage can't do? And, does it elegantly and effortlessly? Either way, this gorgeous Montage with so much wonderful potential is so handicapped that in our studio it functions as an 88 key midi USB controller. This is because of Yamaha's insistence that the Montage takes over your entire studio including substituting Montage converters for your converters. In desperation, we let the Montage take over only to find we were pretty well stripped of using anything else but the Montage sounds... so, in short order it was sadly relegated to being just a midi controller which brought on another issue of the sliders being useless to control anything. It has remained this way for years now... just a generic midi controller.

I've seen other Montage owners posting about the display so providing for an alternate touch screen isn't an 'economic feasibility over years' issue. That's just propaganda. It is, a moral and ethical issue of product and brand integrity. I love the Montage sounds and I would love to use it LIVE but given the fair commonality of screen issues similar to mine, it doesn't sound like replacing the display would be the key... but providing for an alternate touch screen would definitely be a good option.

My need was for documentation...just a simple screen capture that I can paste into a word document...or a power point. Yamaha documentation is sub-awful. I constantly having to annotate it for all the instruments I own. I hate "marketing driven" documentation.

I find the documentation absolutely decent and in combination with all the web resources (including this site and forum), is actually great.

So, as my touch screen got pretty effective at destroying live performances

Montage has physical buttons to the right of the up/down/left/right buttons that can be used for Live Set navigation instead of touching the screen. It allows for pressing any one of the 16 on-screen Live Set slots and also changing the page or bank. No touchscreen required. During a gig - I never exit from Live Set and do not use the touch screen for anything unless I choose to use it instead of the physical buttons. Montage does give you this choice. MODX doesn't have these buttons - so the touchscreen becomes more of a requirement. This is where pedals may be a better route to go to advance to the next Live Set slot instead of using the touch screen. There's limitations to this influencing extra prep work for each gig (possibly).

Since I already carry an iPad on stage for other purposes - I agree it'd be great to use the iPad as a simulated touchscreen. Where it can function as a 1:1 interface mimicking the Montage (or MODX) screens allowing for the same interactions. It's a wish I've casted out previously and possibly posted on Ideascale. It's not so easy to implement or retro-fit - so I'm not expecting anything.

In the here and now - there are some changes you can make to how you "drive" the Montage to minimize surprises on stage. Using buttons is one way. There are alternative choices.