The videos have Montage going through a mixer and then to recording equipment so this is a direct recording. In many videos the mixer is visible in the shots.

Jason - so what exactly are you saying...?

Do or don't expect the Montage to sound like the videos...?

He's saying that a Yamaha mixer probably makes the Montage sound a lot better on the video. I run mine through the Yamaha TF1. It has a nice touch screen equalizer so I can drag my finger around and accentuate whatever frequencies I like.

Well, that certainly sucks...

Here I thought that was the actual sound of the Montage in the videos.

Well, you are because the sounds actually came from the Montage and nowhere else. How you manipulate that sound is unlimited which is also true of every other sound source. I doubt anything sounds better than Montage to date. I've got mine sounding great. Bought my JBL sound system with sub second hand to save money. I didn't want to skimp on sound reproduction. Without a nice sub your sound enjoyment will be about half of what it could be. My friend is a player with his own detached building studio. I brought him over to compare my Montage setup and my sound (in my little space) to his Montage setup. After hearing mine he rearranged his studio. Same Montage, different place = massive difference.

You have the JBL LSR308 Monitors and LSR310S Sub?

My point is that referencing a video using a direct line recording with the luxury of post production does not help you optimize your studio or live setup for a sound that matches your concept of "thick" because the two setups are fairly different in terms of considerations to adjust as a line-in recording has no room (ceiling, walls, floor) to deal with.

It's like pointing to a fashion magazine and wondering why the same clothes look different on you. Camera lenses, filters, angle, framing, lighting, photoshop, etc. Not that you couldn't achieve the same look - but it requires work and expertise to match.

I think in the case of Montage, it's not difficult to get a sound that is very good. My band members are very critical about sound. Their feedback is that it sounds great - relative to a Nord and some previous gen Yamaha pro boards of the other keyboard player. I fixed the live issue with a 12dB boost.

The studio setup here is 2xHS7 with no sub and I'm happy. The room is not treated and monitor placement is sub optimal so I know there's headroom for goodness.

It might not matter so much but I have the JBL LSR4328P 2-way Speakers with the matching powered sub. Some people complained about the rubber encasement (appearance) on these but that's what makes them so tight and non-reflective plus no square corners either. Nice wave guides and residual power plus they perform room monitoring and networking although mine have never reported a problem. My ceiling is high which also helps. You can still find these used and in good condition. I almost died when Sweetwater found some lost inventory of these and gave those pairs away for cost I assume. Had I seen that I would have bought another pair.

1.Pardon my ignorance, just what exactly does a mixer do to enhance the sound?

I have been advised to get one, a yamaha mg06X.

2. Don't get me wrong, i only have issue with the piano sounds. The rest of the sounds are gorgeous.

Chin wrote:

1.Pardon my ignorance, just what exactly does a mixer do to enhance the sound?

I have been advised to get one, a yamaha mg06X.

2. Don't get me wrong, i only have issue with the piano sounds. The rest of the sounds are gorgeous.

Same question here...

Wouldn't adding a mixer just "undo", or change, all of the hard work Yamaha put into the sounds of the Montage?

Especially the sounds of the acoustic pianos?

I do not claim a mixer enhances or hurts your sound. The observation was this is a part of the production environment in the video recordings which takes the narration and keyboard and feeds that into probably a digital recorder of some type. I would prefer comparison to live studio environments rather than direct line recordings as a basis for your own studio sound deviating what Montage can sound like - because the equipment, room treatment, placement, etc. can be studied to determine how to help enhance your own studio sound.

The suggestion to get a mixer wasn't by me. If you have multiple keyboards - it makes sense to get a mixer simply to reduce the number of channels you "take up" on the board - if this is a limitation. Or if you do not have someone to "run the sound" - or do not trust who's doing it. A mixer can give you a little more flexibility over the levels as you have a preamps per channel with gain and level. The EQ you have on the mixer per-channel and final mix - so this can be easier than menu diving or knob fiddling on the Montage and your other keyboards. If you do not have multiple keyboards, then a preamp which accepts a balanced input may be more appropriate because it's essentially a single channel "mixer" with the same properties for gain/level/EQ (given a more full featured preamp). The mixer, in my opinion, is not any key to enhancing your sound - but may provide flexibility under certain circumstances. For my previous setup - using a Yamaha keyboard with an unbalanced output - I used a preamp to provide an XLR feed to the board. Now that Montage is balanced - I no longer use a preamp.

Depends but a mixer won't hurt. My TF1 is awesome and with a finger swipe on the frequency curve I can really change the sound. If every other sound is perfect then I'm not sure. Perhaps wait for the OS V1.5 and see if that makes a difference. I use the BBE which isn't a mixer but it seriously boosts any sound source. Sound quality enhancement, especially for your personal environment, can never be a bad thing since no body's environment is exactly the same. Those videos were line recorded and processed so everything about the environment, good or bad, has been removed including the speakers/monitors characteristics.