You're welcome!

There is no one solution, there are many ways to accomplish the goal you set. Either Foot Controller can be used, any Assign Knob can be used; any Common Assign Knob can be used. Remember, you can program this on a per Performance basis. If you have two FC7 Pedals you can set one to move certain global settings linked to the Super Knob pedal, and the other to move parameters via the unlinked Common Knob.

This is just another way in which the control matrix can be used. But to say something is wrong with the way the Super Knob works is just silly. It works to do what it needs and is designed to do. Because you can choose to link and unlink as many of the Common Assign Knobs as you desire, on a per Scene basis, you will not be defeated by the System (as some folks are obviously defeated). You may want to share with others how you have configured your setup and what advantages it provides you.

Knowing about which controllers ‘reset’ and which ones ‘hold’ (persist) and under what circumstances, is very important. When “Super Knob Link” was introduced in firmware 1.50, this opened an entirely new method of assigning things across multiple Parts. Now that the link is dynamic per Scene, it greatly extends the usefulness. I find new ways to use the functions almost every time I sit down with the instrument.

Glad that helped.

Well, I took a crack at v3.0. Looked at the Pattern feature first.

It's unfortunate nomenclature that the Pattern sequencer has elected to reuse the term "Scene". If Pattern Scenes worked like non-Pattern scenes - then I would have the ability to "deactivate" recording superknob by turning the memory of superknob (and other items) off and thereby not record or alter that movement.

That two completely different functions and features are both called "scene" or "scenes" is a poor choice for supporting clear documentation and discourse. "Scene" is a short enough word - but we have to tag on to it "pattern" or "pre-v3.0" to be clear which scene is which as, depending on the context, there may be ambiguity. This is a new feature so it could have been called anything. A "little" blunder - but still - it's there. Wish someone in the room would have raised their hand (and been listened to) calling out that reusing "scene" would be a poor choice when there are alternatives without any downsides.

It looks like indeed through every cycle of the pattern player "decides" to reset superknob. That's unfortunate.

I understand the argument. When you record a pattern - the result will begin with superknob where it starts just before the recording starts. And upon playback of each segment - the superknob is placed as it was during the original recording. That's just about as valid as being able to override this and not returning superknob to its recorded "reset" position -- if that's what you want. The ability to do this isn't there - so the advice to find another way is valid for today. And that's one directive of this message board. At least Yamaha's participation. To help users use what they have.

It's also valid to capture user expectations and how this "rule" prevents some use models that would fall into the category of creative use of tools. And creatively using tools is what synthesizer music is all about. Certainly you can't do what your gear doesn't let you - but it's also worthwhile to capture what users want (unless a true "one off" ) and see if there's a light-lift path to satisfy perhaps in future firmware. Because Ideascale exists doesn't necessarily mean we can't or shouldn't discuss things here. Perhaps to sort out our understanding and feedback before writing up alternative desired feature behavior.

I now have first, second, third and fourth impressions.

My first impressions were only missing some of the nuance and extents of the sloppiness and poor design choices. This thing is a mess.

This is software that’s defined by what it gets wrong, much more than what it gets right.

Performance Linkage is fundamentally BROKEN, and LIES!

If you’re human, you’ll be adding parts to your selected Performance whilst recording to the Pattern Recorder, to build up your song. At no point does the Montage/MODX realise that you’ve now customised the LINKED Performance and that the original Performance no longer has sufficient Parts to play your Patterns as you add more patterns. So it doesn’t offer you notification that you need to save, nor does it surface a button or means for you to save your newly customised Performance. This problem continues after you do save the Performance, as it continues to fail to know when you’re adding to the Parts, even though you’re laying down new tracks on those parts.

Worse, these problems hark back to all previous versions, wherein modifications of a Performance were instantly lost whenever you accidentally chose another one, rather than some kind of warning suggesting you might want to save the modifications that you've made before you head on out to something different.

So if you accidentally change the Performance, through one of the many means of doing this, you’ll lose all your extra Parts and their settings, FOREVER!!!

This was bad, before. It's horrendous now, because you'll have customised the to work with your Patterns in ways that you might not ever be able to come close to again.

But even the process of initially saving your newly created Performance is not enough to get things to a safe place. You have to, having saved the newly created extensions of your initial performance to a new performance, then remember to tap the seemingly wonderful and incredibly detailed button, ideally situated, and named no less than: “Store Pattern and Performance Settings”. This ESSENTIAL button is in no way warning you that it needs this press to get to some sort of normalcy of operation, for recording, storage, statefulness and recall and repeatability.

But, far worse, it lies. This DOES NOT STORE the Settings of the Performance. It ONLY stores a link between the selected Pattern (which is constantly saved, something that might be a wonderful option for a temp cache version of a modified Performance) and the currently stored Performance. So if you have made any changes to the Performance whilst editing and recording in the Pattern Sequencer (which you will), they will NOT BE STORED when you press this button.

This button should say “Store Link”, because that’s all it’s doing.

But, if user experience was important to the creators, this button would do what it actually says, save the pattern, and the performance, and their respective settings. Too much to ask of the modern world. Instagram posts need to be drafted, instead.

Further:
Non of the demo presets in the Live Sets have any Patterns or Songs setup within them. So there’s no discoverable way to discern this is even a thing.

But, most importantly, Patterns are a Paradigm Shift for the Montage and MODX, and Yamaha is not owning this, nor teaching and preaching it.

Patterns live at a higher modality than Performances, as they’re able to dictate to and control the Performance they’re linked with, regardless of the Performance's appropriateness for itself, and despite having no ability to monitor and auto-save Performance configuration changes made whilst the user creates and edits the Performance in Pattern Mode. This is the result of the failure to own the power that Patterns have over Performances, their cross reliance and their ultimate usefulness.

Sadly this is just a few of the issues of what should be an empowering and fun tool. Instead it's a minefield of infuriating un-design and counter-intuitive caveats, gotchas and mind bending annoyances, horrendous "workflows" and what feels, at times, like hostility towards pretty common user expectations and desires.

Adding an instrument to another track results in their being two active tracks. Playing the keyboard plays both sounds. If the user would like to isolate the current selected sound, by disabling Keyboard Control on the other track, touching that Keyboard Control icon Activates that track, disengages the icon for Keyboard Control, and turns off keyboard control of the previously selected and desired track, and has not yet disengaged the keyboard control of the now (inadvertently) selected track.

This is exactly the opposite of what the user was attempting to do!

But things get much sillier when the user tries to get to the state they were attempting to achieve, by touching the name of the track they’d actually like activated. At this point, the system warns them that they need to “Please Stop Sequencer”. Are you kidding? You’re supposed to touch the volume controls area of the touchscreen in order to select a track without instigating an attempt by the system to provide Part Selection during the Playing of the Pattern Sequencer.

And herein lays the biggest single miss of the Pattern Sequencer. You can’t change parts whilst it’s playing, nor preview what other parts might sound like if they were playing your newly created pattern.

I don’t have words for how much of a miss this is. It’s as if the programmers have never used a sequencer, pattern maker, song editor or any other form of sound design and song creation instrument. Or they’re simply so perfect they have always already picked the most perfect sound/part from the 3000 or so available on the MODX/Montage.

For the rest of us…

…it can get worse:

If the keyboard control Off operation on the Part you don’t want to hear is the last action you perform, and you press record, you’re about to do damage to the very same part that you were hoping to avoid entering new notes into. AND… it gets worse, you won’t be able to salvage the notes you did record over your desired “off” part, as the new Part you’ve added, with its Keyboard Control ACTIVE, has not recorded anything you’ve just played. You’ve effectively soloed into the only Part you weren’t intending to record into, and better hope that you’ve only recorded stuff you don’t want, that wasn’t super inspired, because getting back to where you were before involves losing what you’ve just recorded.

Wait… I know you want more, and for things to get even worse. Yamaha doesn’t disappoint:

If you happen to think your way around this, and decide to export your newly created disaster part to a MIDI file on a USB stick, to later separate out what you have just recorded in a DAW, and then use UNDO (this works) then go back to the Pattern Recorder, your old part that you don’t want to record over will still be selected in a pseudo solo mode, but the Keyboard Control icon now has no highlighting on it, so you won’t have anything other than that thin selection outline letting you know that any record action is STILL not going to do what you wanted.

You might be thinking… but… that’s what Mute is for…

Yeah… well… argh… ummmm… If you’re recording, and you decide there’s a part you don’t want to hear whilst recording, and tap its Mute icon, you’ve inadvertently selected the Part, but can no longer hear it. So as you casually continue playing, you’ll notice two things. One, you can no longer hear yourself playing. And, two, if you’re lucky, you’ll notice that despite not hearing it, you’ve inadvertently recorded into the Pattern of the newly, accidentally selected Part. You better notice it now, because if you don’t do something about it immediately, it’s ruined.

Do you remember where the Undo is hidden away for undoing your most recent recording? Don’t worry, Yamaha is going to give you plenty of opportunities to need it, and therefore to eventually remember where it is. There’s way more ways you can do things you didn’t expect.

One thing stops me from buying the Montage. On my Motif XF I use pattern mode that allows me to have 16 layers. I works great for me playing live.
The montage seemingly only allows 8 layers.

On the photo you see, that channel 9-16 is greyed. (No Kbd cntrl).

Is this correct, or am I missing someting (Something that could make it possible with 16 layers in pattern mode on the otherwise amazing Montage).

(I will not need to use the recording feature)

@Bo Bjerre

In order to utilize tracks 9-16 it's probably easiest to record to tracks 1-8 first and then copy tracks 1-8 to tracks 9-16. Then lay down tracks 1-8. This would allow for you to have no restrictions on what kind of instruments you record as you could use keyboard control to record a "sound" that uses multiple PARTs and place that control in slots 9-16.

Otherwise, you could also record tracks 9-16 one PART at a time which should work if all PARTs in slots 9-16 are single-PART type. You would do this by first -selecting- PART 9, record the track (track 9 will be documented) then -select- PART 10 and record this track ... and so on.

What you cannot do is record tracks 1-16 all at the same time using only the local keyboard. I haven't tried it - but you may be able to record all 16 at one time if you use an external keyboard that supports 8 zones (as one example). And then use both the local and external keyboards to cover 16 PARTs. That's the theory. If that works there should be other options to record all 16 at once.

Thanks Jason.
I dont need to record. What I need is to play a pattern mode live. (At gigs).
I do that now on my Motif XF.

With Montage I am only able to play a pattern mode with 8 layers. And the "good" montage-sounds often occupy 4 layers.

Its a showstopper for me (due to my special needs).

I understand you so, that really I cannot continue this way of using the Motif on the new Montage. (In Motif layer/channel 9-16 also have some limitations)

Thanks Jason.
I dont need to record. What I need is to play a pattern mode live. (At gigs).
I do that now on my Motif XF.

With Montage I am only able to play a pattern mode with 8 layers. And the "good" montage-sounds often occupy 4 layers.

Its a showstopper for me (due to my special needs).

I understand you so, that really I cannot continue this way of using the Motif on the new Montage. (In Motif layer/channel 9-16 also have some limitations)

You should be able to work as you desire. 9 through 16 can't be controlled directly by the keyboard, but have their own playback Tracks in the Pattern Sequencer, So you can push what you want them to play into those tracks.

IOW, even though you can't directly record into 9 through 16, you can use them to playback materials you've recorded elsewhere.

The horrendously named "Jobs" feature of the Pattern Sequencer has options to copy materials from any tracks in any patterns to any tracks in any other patterns. In this way you can put the material you want into these non-key responsive, but MIDI responsive Parts.

@Bo Bjerre

What you cannot do is record tracks 1-16 all at the same time using only the local keyboard. I haven't tried it - but you may be able to record all 16 at one time if you use an external keyboard that supports 8 zones (as one example). And then use both the local and external keyboards to cover 16 PARTs. That's the theory. If that works there should be other options to record all 16 at once.

So not even these Parts are safe from being accidentally written over? Incredible.

The horrendously named "Jobs" feature of the Pattern Sequencer has options to copy materials from any tracks in any patterns to any tracks in any other patterns.

Yamaha has called their non-realtime midi manipulation tools "Jobs" for 25 years. Every synth manufacturer has some specific workflow nomenclature, right?

So to clarify: you can easily record to all 16 tracks from the Montage without external gear and without copying. Switch to the display of tracks 9-16, select one of those channels and record. Voila. Continue by recording to the other channels one by one. The only thing you cannot do with those channels it’s to record to more than one at the same time.

The horrendously named "Jobs" feature of the Pattern Sequencer has options to copy materials from any tracks in any patterns to any tracks in any other patterns.

Yamaha has called their non-realtime midi manipulation tools "Jobs" for 25 years. Every synth manufacturer has some specific workflow nomenclature, right?

+1

So to clarify: you can easily record to all 16 tracks from the Montage without external gear and without copying. Switch to the display of tracks 9-16, select one of those channels and record. Voila. Continue by recording to the other channels one by one. The only thing you cannot do with those channels it’s to record to more than one at the same time.

Yes

Longer ...

There are approx 25 multi-PART bass Performances in Montage. Meanwhile, there are about 160 single-PART bass Performances in Montage. What I'm getting at is that chances are your bass track will always be a single-PART. And therefore it would "make sense" to record the bass straight into track 9-16 if you're planning on using all 16 tracks. Likewise, drum kits would have only one PART for the drum PART itself. So a drum PART would make sense to place into track 9-16. ... and so on. If you have 8 or more single-PART sounds then it would make sense (if you're against copying) to record these straight to tracks 9-16. You can even place drums on track 10 if you're a stickler for that sort of thing.

I'll experiment.

FIRST - I'll setup a template that uses PARTs 9-16 with single-PARTs

1) I recall "Multi/GM" (from the Init category) This is just a canvas which tells me to change everything. I could have built what I wanted from any other starting point.
2) I press [PART CONTROL] and then the Number A [9] button (which is labeled "1/9" under "PART SELECT 1-16" ). This selects PART 9
3) I press the [SHIFT] button + [CATEGORY SEARCH] (at same time). This allows for me to change PART 9 to any sound I search for. I search for "bass" main category and "electric" sub category and pick the first bass in the list "Perc Flat Wound". Note that this mode of category search picks a "source" for the PART to extract from the given Performance and defaults as "Part 1". That's what I want since these are mostly single-PART Performances including "Perc Flat Wound". Then I press [ENTER] to select this Performance/PART
4) Part 10 is already a drum kit of some default type. I'll just leave that alone - but I could have selected one of my fancy.
5) I can also use the touchscreen - I touch PART 11 where it says "Piano Acoustic" - a popup menu displays - and I choose "Category Search". This does the same thing as pressing first the PART 11 part select button (Number A [11] ) then pressing the [EDIT] button. You may prefer the touchscreen over button way.
6) I first change the attribute (filter) to "Single" then touch the magnifying glass to search and search for "lead". I know I could have used categories - but just mixing it up here. I see "Huge Lead". Looks good - I touch it. Play some keys to audition the sound. Sounds good. Then press the [ENTER] button to commit this sound to PART 11
... almost half way there
7) Same general idea - set PART 12 to another single-PART sound ("Seraphim" - which is a choir sound). Note that the "Attribute" is remembered from the last time I filtered by this attribute ("Single" ) - so I don't necessarily have to keep selecting that.
8) PART 13 "Early Fusion" - a single-PART electric piano
9) PART 14 "1968" - a single-PART acoustic piano sound
10) PART 15 "Space Walking" - a single-PART sound effect (pitched)
11) Finally, PART 16 I select "Fiddle" - you know what that is.
... I won't bother with PARTs 1-8 since we pretty much know what those will do. "Standard Fare" where you can have multi-PART instruments and leverage keyboard control.
12) After all this work, I'm going to [STORE] what I've setup as a template. I call the User Performance "Template 16p SpaceCB". I could have probably shortened "Template" to "Plate" and known that my templates start with "Plate" which would leave more room for "SpaceCB" to be longer. 16p tells me 16 parts. This is as much of an art - naming stuff so you can recall it easily - as anything else. Come up with your own workflow that makes sense.

SECOND - I'll start fooling with the Pattern feature.

13) I press the record button. This automatically pops me into the "Play/Rec" -> "Pattern" screen
14) I want to record bass first, so I press [PART CONTROL] then Number A [9] (the "1/9" button) to select PART 9. Note that [PART CONTROL] was already selected (illuminated) from before, so all I had to do was press Number A [9]
15) Length is 4 - I'll just leave it like that. "Key On Start" is off. I'll turn that ON. "Loop" is on - I'll turn that OFF. Tempo is 130 - I'll dial that back to 100. I'm not concerned about quantize for this. All is ready ...
16) I start pressing piano keys to record my bassline. I keep playing until the recorder stops. First takes are all I'm going to deal with. I played all white keys.
17) I press Number A [10] to select the drum track. I have no real idea where drum kit notes are - I don't usually "do" drums for my playing. So I'll just pick the G above middle C and play quarter notes of whatever comes out. I press the record button to arm recording then start my quarter notes. Something funny happened. There's missing quarter notes of the drums. I know what happened - I didn't press "rewind" to start from the beginning of the track. Keeping on the same track, I first pressed the "rewind to the start" button (so the position shows ":01:000" ) then pressed the record button and then changed the "Record Type" to "Replace" (really, it was already set this way - so I was fine with the default). I started striking the same "G" (which is a cowbell type sound) . That's better.
Note: as I recorded the cowbell (really, one of the 2 pitches of agogo bells) I could hear my bass playing at the same time. Now as I record the next sound (synth lead) I'll hear bass and the cowbell
18) Now I have "drums" I'm going to turn off click since I don't need it anymore. I touch "click settings" on the screen, change the click mode to "off", then in the upper-left of the screen touch the "up arrow" icon which returns me back where I left off at the pattern recording screen.
19) I press the Number A [11] button to select the lead PART. Same drill - remembering to rewind first.
... and, well, you get the point. This all works without copying anything. Without external gear.

The comment on external gear was if you want to play everything live and simultaneously recording all tracks at once. If you're OK with one-by-one, then that's achievable on PARTs 9-16 with single-PART sounds.

Also can be done with PARTs 1-8 using the exact same method (single-PART sounds).

However, PARTs 1-8 are also an open area for using keyboard control to tell Montage/MODX you want the keyboard to simultaneously record multiple PARTs at the same time. Ideal for multi-PART instruments.

It's (as one example) if you have 100% multi-PART instruments (zero single-PART) AND want to use all 16 PARTs where you would have to either shuffle tracks around or use external controllers. Or if you have more multi-PART sounds than fit in slots 1-8.

... a tangent:

You cannot render patterns/sequences to audio unless recording with a connected computer/tablet. The internal audio recorder, recording to a USB flash stick, is a mutually exclusive function to playing patterns.

18) Now I have "drums" I'm going to turn off click since I don't need it anymore. I touch "click settings" on the screen, change the click mode to "off", then in the upper-left of the screen touch the "up arrow" icon which returns me back where I left off at the pattern recording screen.

Where is the click mode off button? I haven't seen this.

Also, is there a way to play this drum loop pattern whilst not recording, in anticipation of recording, so the user can get "in the groove", and then initiate recording the moment they're "feeling it"?

Thanks for several answers. They all refer to recording. I dont need to record. Only to play live.

If I want to use Yamaha Montage pattern mode playing live with my band. No recording. Just playing live. With eg 4 layers divided in 4 zones. All in all using all 16 tracks. That you can do with Motif. Saving you 16 track pattern i Master mode, and using it live in gigs.

But can you do it with Montage? And save in Live set. I couldn't do it while testing the Montage in the shop. While testing track 9-16 were not activ. Not responding. Greyed out, no Kbd Cntr activation possible.