Martin Harris' demo is much better than this. The brass demo doesn't feel "real" at all. Honestly, comparing this demo with what my XS from 2007 sounds like is pretty much a tie. Montage is an impressive instrument, but honestly, this demo is not.

The only "demo" you need is when YOU yourself get to touch the instrument. There is no comparison between the Motif XS and Montage, and judging by watching someone else play it on YouTube, well, drawing a conclusion from that, might lead you to come to a conclusion as you have. Even the sounds of the XS, which can be loaded into Montage (as a single Part Performance) will sound markedly improved. But they hardly use any of the new potential of Montage.

Please wait until you taste the ice cream yourself before you wind up drawing any conclusions, just my advice... You can do whatever you like.

I'm not questioning the superiority of Montage over XS. I'm pointing out that this particular demo is hardly the one to "impress" and "make the whiners quite". If I was in the crowd that "needed convincing" this particular demo would make me think there's no point to upgrading.

By the way, Phil, any luck reaching out to Martin Harris regarding his performance?

I'm sorry, what about his demo?

Have you tried reaching out to him? I'm not sure what you want to find out.

Developing your own workflow on an instrument like Montage is something each individual will have to do. It does not have a traditional MIDI sequencer. It has a Direct Performance Recorder. It can however, be used to playback multi-track .mid files while you play along, if that is your thing. But also you can setup a multi-Part, multi instrument Performance with up to as many as eight arpeggios for real time performing. A PERFORMANCE could be single instrument occupying one to eight Parts, or it could be a combination of instruments making it an ensemble, that you are interacting with.

A single Part Performance could be recorded to the Montage, then exported later to your favorite DAW.
An eight Part Performance could be recorded to the Montage, then exported to your favorite DAW.

In either case, you are recording your interaction with a Performance.
It is not a situation where you are going to be laying down one track at a time, overdubbing one instrument after another, per se. To do that you need to connect to a DAW.

Because you will be directly playing some Parts and the arpeggios might be playing others, you may simply find it easier to capture all of that in the Montage and export it to your DAW as a file. And of course, if you perform live with backing tracks, having and using the PLAY/REC feature on the Montage will allow you playback those backing tracks from the Montage.

The Direct Performance Recorder can be set to record MIDI (internally) or Audio to a connected USB drive, but in either case it is recording you interacting with a Performance.

We anticipate with 32 audio bus outputs via USB, we anticipate that recording to DAWs is the workflow most Montage customers will make use of... Of course, your mileage will vary.

In this thread I asked for "proper" recordings of his performances

https://yamahasynth.com/index.php?option=com_easydiscuss&view=post&id=6535&Itemid=851

You said something about you reaching out to him in that thread. I tried contacting him via facebook, but since facebook filters out messages from strangers he might have missed it.

This is an entertaining demo, although the sound recording is not the best and Bert does not speak English here, but it is possible to follow anyway:

http://youtu.be/WLZic7sXIBo

Here is more and in English:

http://youtu.be/4kY3FYox2yA

Yesterday, I visited our local dealer here in the UK who was hosting the same demo that Christopher linked to in the first post, So I've now had the chance to hear the Montage 'in the flesh' as it were. Phil is right - there is no way you should judge the Montage until you've actually heard it 'for real'...It is a truly awesome machine...
I currently use a MOX6 - so with XS voicing. The Montage is in a different league.
I was lucky enough to have the chance to (briefly) try out the Montage 8 after the show. It took me about 10 seconds to decide that I shall making the change as soon as I can.....