Hi, everybody. My Montage 7 is coming tomorrow and I've been reading tremendously and thought I'd start this ball rolling. I am a Yamah user going back to the EX5, then the Motif, Motif ES, Motif XS, and a MoXF6 among other things, then went to a Kronos and now looking at the Montage. As much as I love the Kronos sound, the touch screen is a show stopper due to my visual impairment. Yamaha's keyboards are definitely more blind friendly, especially since John Melaz's editors have been so screen reader friendly. I do hope thist rend continues. So, without further aude, here are some questions...

1. Is it true that everything you can do on the touch screen is also doable on the front panel? I've seen a lot of youtube videos and read things where more emphasis is on the touch screen functionality and I just want to make sure that I'll be able to use this keyboard, even if I have to take notes on all the screens.

2. ONe of the things I do is run guitar sounds through a guitar pedal. IN this case, a Line6 FireHawk FX. IN the old Motif, I'd have a performance set up with the guitar sound I want to use and all its effects turned off and routed to the secondary outputs. I am sure this is still doable, but how is this done in the world of the Montage?

3. Anotehr thing I do a lot is import audio samples, wave files of intros or outros from songs or sound effects I can't reproduce with a keyboard and assign them to the low keys on the keyboard and then have a second part or parts with keyboard sounds that I need. Again, I saw a brief tutorial on youtube, but how easy is this to do with the Montage?

5. When loading in sounds frto the user bank or library banks, let's say I load in one library as a motif bank or whatnot and I want to load in a second bank? If I load the x3a or x01 file, I assume it will totally overwrite the whole user bank and not append the sounds to the end of the user bank. I'd also assume it is the same with library files. Is there an append feature when loading sounds into the Montage or do I have to load sounds into the library, transfer them to user and go from there?

6. ONe plan I had was to use the Montage with Mainstage. I am sure this is possible as we have the built in audio interface and the functionality of the old master mode in each performance. Has anybody tried this and can give some tips? Also, in OS 1.5, they say there is now an easy way to control usb audio volume from the Montage, but it didn't really say how.

I'll be honest with you all. I've been on the decline musically since it seems that with only a few exceptions, dealing with keyboards and programming sounds and computer instruments with a visual impairment is getting increasingly difficult. Aside from my Nord Stage 2 and a few virtual analogs, I've banged my head against a wall for a very long time trying to get a keybaord rig that is manageable but will give me the sound I want. I hoped the Kronos would do it, but it's been a dead end unless the ditor were to magically be screen reader friendly, which it partially is, but it is clunky and not easy to work with. I find myself not being that interested in recording like I used toa nd even playing in my band has been on and off again due to constantly fighting with the techoloyg. I keep joking that I need a keyboard tech, but find one. I'm hoping that Montage, combined with my Nord Stage and maybe even my macbook with mainbstage and native instruments libraries will fpull me out of this nosedive I've been in for a while. My Motif XS7 with my old Line6 POod X3 Live was an awesome and functionaly setup, only missing a decent virtual analog component. I pray that despite a touch screen on the Montage and a slightly different workflow that this will yield better results for me. What I read on the Montage is almost everything I wanted in the Motif xs, flash memory to not have to load samples in every time, being able to have up to 8 parts in a performance, a more robust master mode setup and even real seamless sound switching, although I think the Kronos may still have one up on Yamaha here, but hell, I'll take it as opposed to how long the Motif xs7 took to load sounds sometimes. I'm probably going to need a lot of hlep here, so please be patient. I am not a new keyboard player, but when you can't read the screen on your synth, it really can slow things down. I do hope that John Melaz puts out a comparable set of tools that he has for the MoXF and Motif series soon, as I have had great success with my older Yamaha keyboards solely due to his tools being compatible with my screen reader. If you all can get me off the ground, I'd be forever grateful and so would all the people that have the misfortune to work with me. lol