Daniel wrote:

@BadMister. You mentioned there are multi-Part versions of the CFX piano, and there is a single Part version of the CFX, and we should just use the single part version to achieve the 16 part multi timbral synth functionality.
Now I've downloaded the Bosendorfer add-on and I want to use it in my DAW (in my case Logic X) along with several other instrument parts. I can't see any single Part version of the Bosendorfer... am I missing something here?

You should find your own best workflow. I avoid, very much on purpose, dictating to anyone how they should work. I make recommendations on the reality of how the system works (now). Let's make it simple, first there is no 8-Part Piano so I'm not sure why I'm paraphrased as having discussed that... But there are sounds programmed that are designed to play with great detail and nuance. These are your Multi-Part PERFORMANCES. In order to use these (wisely), rendering audio will become a part of your DAW workflow. Do the math yourself - at maximum the synth is 16 Part multi-timbral.

If your workflow in the past has been to record only MIDI until you reach 16 Tracks, and you are unwilling to change, then your only option is use just single Part program. Personally, I would never be that locked in my ways, it is unnecessarily limiting yourself to a workflow because you're unwilling to change. So be it, I don't agree. I would like to work where I'm choosing the most appropriate sound for each role in my composition, whether it is a single Part or all eight Parts.

Now in order to do this, rendering audio will necessarily be a part of my workflow. I can record any multi-Part program as MIDI (if I desire) I can edit it, and then render it as an audio track. I'd keep that MIDI data in a separate muted folder - as a safety if later I wish to edit something about my performing. But I would use the Audio of this Multi-Part program instead of playing it back to Montage as MIDI data. I use the MIDI only for editing purposes.

This way I'm not restricted by sixteen Parts, I can record as many Montage parts as I desire... Hundreds if I wish. Glorious Audio. The Montage features 32 audio bus outputs. To worry about playing 16 MIDI Parts, or setting Midi channels is so looking backward, to me... Particularly for those recording to pro DAWs like Logic Pro or Cubase Pro. Why limit your thinking to 16 MIDI Tracks? Use MIDI as a means to an end, not as a final thing.

The way you use your Montage is totally up to you. But do the math: a 4 Part piano, a 7 Part string section and a 5 Part brass would be but three tracks ... But utilize 16 Parts. Why paint yourself in that corner? Audio will be a part of your DAW workflow. Much like using the "Freeze" function found in many DAWs rendering audio allows you to retask your hardware resources so they can do something else with it. When the VST/AU utility becomes available this will get even easier.

If you are recording to Logic Pro, or to Cubase Pro, we'll have a guide shortly that points to basic methods to get most out your system. How to use MIDI to your advantage, how to render audio as you build your composition. Please, please, please do not limit your choices of sounds based on how you "used to" work. That would be a shame. I'm happy to hear you say you are open to methodolgies... You will discover your own if your are!

Also still trying to understand the reasons you gave why we should accept not being able to control midi receive channel per individual part and to be honest I really hope I'm missing something out here as it all sounds very doubtful. I'm being totally open to change my work flow but now it all looks like I have to create multiple tracks on different midi channels in my DAW just in order to control a multi-part instrument. No I don't want to work in single midi I/O mode as the performance will contain many other instruments besides the multi-part instrument which I want to control using different MIDI channels. Maybe I'm still misunderstanding the whole point but having to edit multiple midi tracks in my DAW (which all contain the exact same midi-information) just because the Montage cannot receive certain parts on one channel sounds like a flaw to me.

Sorry, I don't follow what you mean there, sorry. You'd have to be specific about what's exactly in your Performance before anyone could give you a recommendation about whether to use MIDI I/O mode = SINGLE or MULTI. And you have not, it's pretty simple really, and will be entirely obvious once you begin working in your DAW.

There are Performances that are single instruments - which can Single Part or Multi Part Performances
There are Performances that are multiple instruments - which naturally demand to recorded as MIDI quite separately.
There are Performances that can be wholly unique... So one answer does not fit all situations. And this leads to my favorite saying: there is no one way to proceed.

If you have a specific setup you wish to record, I recommend you start your own thread... Reading through this one - yikes, I've been paraphrased incorrectly so often it doesn't make sense to continue this discussion here. Glad to help you get this straight for your situation.

My recommendations: _ Choose sounds by how appropriate they are for the musical composition you are working on.
_ Adjust you workflow by determining if there is a reason to record as MIDI, at all. Don't just keep recording MIDI because you always have.
_ if you determine MIDI gives you the ultimate level of undo, or changing your mind (legitimate reasons) then recognize, you can, but before continuing bounce it down by rendering it as audio... Mute the Midi data and keep it as a safety. The audio track can be used to overdub to, and allows you reutilize the full power of your Montage for the next musical Part.
_ don't limit your selection by the number of Parts, choose the sound for your music.

Hope that helps. (Start your own thread, Daniel)!

Yamaha Good evening.
Do you have any news?

Giorgio wrote:

Yamaha Good evening.
Do you have any news?

There is no change in status. The OP will either have to adjust which sliders volume controls land on (to keep the MIDI input channel assigned how they want), adjust the order of the PARTs so the sliders match the sound (but MIDI channel may not line up with what they want), or continue to wait for firmware which may or may not eventually allow for user assignment of the input MIDI channel as configurable (to meet multiple user requests as well as meet competition).

Another choice would be to use software in the middle to reassign slider volume messages to different channels. This would be a "have the cake and eat it too" solution, but would require an extra piece of hardware (laptop, or some expensive dedicated advanced MIDI router/reflector/etc hardware that is available).

Certainly there are other options which do not have the Montage as the master controller which also work - but a slight modification in expectation in order to conform with the limitations should not be a problem (... I guess, unless it is a showstopper to have the sliders be assigned to different slider numbers than originally requested).

Just posting as waiting for any news on the midi issue aswell. Would help with simplicity a lot in a multi synth setup. If everyone interested were to post it may help Yamaha see the importance is making this easier for users.

I'm with you on this issue Scott... I have a multikeyboard setup and have the Montage 6..also i use a Yamaha CP4,a Nord Electro 5D, and Mainstage on a MacBook Pro. I really was hoping to be able to play say a Montage piano from the CP4 keybed have say a split being played on the Montage of a couple of Montage sounds and maybe a Mainstage sound or two, but also have a few other sounds coming from the Montage that can be triggered in say the upper registers on the CP4s keybed like horn accents etc..currently all parts either have to be on one midi channel or on their preassigned channels... couldn't there be a way in the architecture of the OS to add another layer to make this happen..to reassign the parts to different channels freely... If I want to use one of the more detailed Montage CFX pianos but play it from the CP4's keybed I can put it in single midi channel mode but then if want a pad or something that can be played from the Montage 6's keybed this won't work without hearing the piano and pad on both keyboards vice versa ? Am I missing something..( also I don't want to use 4 midi channels on my CP4 just to be able to play say the detailed CFX grand I use the 4 midi channels also to send to Mainstage and the Nord as well as the Montage and sometime a Roland XV 5080.
Hope they fix this!!!

Interesting this thread now has over 3000 views... it would appear that a lot of people are watching to see if Yamaha can improve the flexibility of the Montage Midi control. They have updated the Leslie effect which was widely discussed amongst the community as being inferior to Korgs equivelent so heres hoping they listen. If this is fixed I feel the Montage will be extremely competitive with the Kronos as a master controller.

Scott I'm glad you've been keeping this going as I am totally with you in that this is quite important to me and has been my only dissapointment with the Montage...Sooo many things to love about this keyboard though too though!! so I don't want to give the wrong impression .. I ran into this interview with Rick Wakeman where he hints at this very issue issue pertaining to the Montage at about 5 minutes into the video... he even sort of gives Yamaha a little scolding about it too lol .... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQNWiCqFJaw

It's good to warn potential customers about this misfeature too, e.g. sending and receiving multiple copies of the same MIDI data to play a multi-part piano unless you forgo multi-mode altogether. Binding the four parts to the same rx and tx channel would fix this elegantly. It's possible to work around it, but it's an ugly wart.

I use my montage now for 6 months and I have tried all workarounds and I'm still not happy. Currently I have to say the Montage is a great synth but definitely not for a live keyboard setting with additional master keyboard.
Why?
That's quite easy. In live mode it's important that after loading the Performance all is set up correctly. There is no time to do some changes after loading the Performance. It must be possible to play immediately. Let me explain two scenarios:

1. Montage 7 and 88 key master keyboard which sends on one channel
Goal: Piano and Strings on 88 keys; Organ on Montage
I setup a performance with 3 channel strips: Piano, Strings and Organ.
I set the Montage to Single Channel Mode. Then I disable local control for the organ and select the organ channel strip.
Now I have achieved what I want. The piano and strings play on 88 keys master keyboard, the organ on montage.
Now I store the performance.
But what happens, when I reload it?
On the montage the organ is gone because the organ channel strip is not selected anymore. If I select it manually, then it's working again.
Bad Mister, please try this out and imagine you're on a live stage. You want to switch fast between two performances (songs). What does it mean:
Select the performance in live set. ==> Exit live set ==> Select the organ channel strip, maybe search for it because you don't know which channel
OK, now you're ready to play.
But after the song you have to switch to the next performance. BUT you are not in live set mode anymore. So, you first have to go back on live set mode before switching.
I'm pretty sure: No live keyboarder is happy about that.

2. Next level! We want the same configuration like in 1. But we want to have a second sound parallel to the organ on the montage.
88 key master keyboard: Piano + Strings
Montage: Organ + Synth Sound
How do you achieve this? On the montage you can only select one channel (e.g. the organ). Of course you can add the synth channel with deactivated local control and select it while playing. But it's not possible creating a split between synth and organ on the montage.

What's annoying about this discussion. You say that this is not working because the master keyboard can only send on one channel.
OK, yes I understand. If my master keyboard sends on more than one channel I keep my montage in Multi channel mode and I don't have the problems described above. This is true. But the truth is:
- Many master keyboards e.g. the Doepfer LMK2 can send only on one channel.
- Even if my keyboard sends on more than one channel. How can I change this live between songs? Some songs need more channels, some less. I cannot re-configure my master keyboard after each song because I want to change the songs by one key press on the montage display.

For me the use case Montage + master keyboard is not well implemented on the montage. I'm waiting for a firmware update to get rid of it.

I can't really test this - but I wonder about the following:

When MIDI is set to single-channel - this applies to all PARTs except those parts with Part Zone control set to ON and the transmit Channel set to some different channel. Now I know modifying a PART's zone channel affects the output MIDI channel - so although "Single" MIDI channel is selected - you would see more than one MIDI channel on output. I wonder if it also "ejects" the coupling of the MIDI input channel for that same PART from the shared "single" MIDI channel and instead reverts back to an input channel matching the PART.

If the logic did work this way - it would at least allow for multiple PARTs to stop responding to the single MIDI channel (decouple) - while still leaving others all sharing the same single channel (all without the zone channel override modified).

If setting each PART to an arbitrary MIDI input channel is not palatable for Yamaha (for whatever reason) - then perhaps this means of using zone control would be (if not already implemented this way).

I understood the difficulty of having the possibility setting an individual Receive channel for each part of a performance. What is really bothering me, that Single Mode is disabled as soon as any Zone Switch is activated. Even if it does not trigger any internal part. I just need one Zone to send a program change to Mainstage live and then as a result I am forced to send data on multiple channels just in order to play a simple layered Performance via an external keyboard. I have an external breath controller (HB1) and since it controls 2 FM parts I have to duplicate the breath control data cc2 on a second channel. Even using USB I am not sure, whether the data density is affecting the timing. And I frankly regard this procedure as clumsy and error prone.
I would really appreciate to comments on that. Thanks a lot!

Like other guest also to me current montage limitation cause a lot of problem to solve my keyboard setup.
A lot of controller doesn't have capabilities to manage 8 channels per times so it is necessary to choose in a little and expensive list of controller that work on 8 channels simultaneously.
I hope Yamaha fix this issue next firmware.
I need to use montage in a multi midi mode and I need to choose the channel on witch any part can receive midi message.

Very useful arguments to this issue:

Jason wrote:

1) Yamaha is at a competitive disadvantage vs. other 16-part multimbral synths that support flexibility in configuring input MIDI channel number to each of the synth's "PART" equivalent.

2) Despite what you can and cannot do with Montage as it exists today, there are musically relevant reasons why this feature would be advantageous to the end user.

2.a) Compatibility with external hardware (legacy and latest production)
2.b) MIDI efficiency to avoid possible overflow (use of overlapping channels to avoid having to replicate messages for layering)
2.c) Routing flexibility: Allow more than one group of PARTs to be combined into a single channel such that multiple external controllers could target their own multi-PART instrument.
2.d) Other workflow possibilities members have contributed not mentioned above

I'm not sure those who mention they're fine with the system as-is are arguing against adding the feature - only that if it were added, they do not see using it given what demands they uniquely need out of the MIDI implementation. It's fair to present all sides to help understand the segment of the population Montage is currently aligned to.

See Midi

Yamaha's baffling decision to hardcode the MIDI receive channel for each part makes it

IMPOSSIBLE TO CREATE A SPLIT FOR AN EXTERNAL CONTROLLER.

This is a very big deal as it's the foundation for my rig.

I use a 2 keyboard setup with a Roland A88 as my primary keybed (the lightest, best weighted controller out there) and the Montage as the brains of the operation.

I want to do the vast majority of my playing from the A88 - thus I have the need to program splits for it.

I NEED to control multiple Montage parts from the A88 (e.g. lower keys play a Rhodes, while upper keys play horns).

The Kronos and other synths achieve this. The Montage makes this completely impossible.

Yamaha, if you're listening: a critical feature is missing from the MIDI implementation of this otherwise stunning keyboard and it represents such a problem for me as to possibly have to turn around and SELL it and go back to my Kronos.

I need too a separate midi in channel. I hope in updste soon. Is a big limitstion in a setup with montage and other keyboard