I couldn’t agree more!

The MONTAGE with version 2.0 will bring your Factory Performance number to 2,143...
- which is just over halfway to the ultimate goal of 4,096

Given our customers typically keep their hardware synths several times longer than they swap computers, smart phones and tablets (some as much as a decade longer) - Part of the design plan is to have several planned firmware updates to add new features/functions (as well as bug fixes) throughout the life cycle of the instrument.

We appreciate customer feedback (but frankly can never understand the anger some people display...). maybe it’s just an Internet personality thing (it certainly doesn’t translate well to the engineers) -

thank you Jeremy and Peter for your positive comments... we appreciate it.

Hey BM, now you caught my interest with that ultimate goal here. Long term plans are great. I really wish to have longer life cycle in keyboards (the Mo Classic to ES for example was incredibly short - 2 years) like the Motif XF which had 6 years, or the Korg Triton (flagship for 8 years), Korg Kronos (flagship since 2011 by now).

anyhow thanks for your input and the responsiveness of the Yamaha team here. this kind of presence is not something we usually see with other major corporation brands.

The difference between the Motif 2001 and Motif ES 2003 (as mentioned two years) was huge in terms of concept (ie, Arpeggio reinvention)
The difference between the ES 2003 and XS 2007, which was four years, was massive, the Voice architecture went from four to eight Elements, and Direct Performance Record... and four simultaneous Arps were possible.

The difference between the XS 2007 and the XF 2010, three years, was a matter of Flash... the “F” was for Flash... allowing the musician to customize the Wave ROM with 2048 Waveform per Flash Board. The Flash Board staves Off obsolence, because you could reinvent the instrument on a personal tip. Accounts for its six highly successful years in the market.

In all these Motif changes the Wave ROM more than doubled each time.

The XF to Montage 2016 is a paradigm shift... almost eight times the Wave ROM.... Montage builds on the legacy of the Motif... and brings back an old friend in new clothes FM-X

I too appreciate the updates to the Montage especially the upcoming 2.0 update.It would be great if the tutorials for the Montage would be made available as PDF files.

thanks Andy!

As to the PDFs: They are easily available as PDFs.

For example, if you are looking at an article using Safari as your browser, on the left side of the URL address line you will see an icon that is several horizontal lines... indicating that touching it will turn what you are viewing into a “page”, this Page view can easily be exported as a PDF.

I also wanted to express that I am very happy there is a 2.0 upgrade. Thanks a lot for bringing that!

Does this mean it is great for me personally? Not necessarily. The biggest part is the Motif compatibility. I did not own any Motif. I used to own a Moxf but I sold that a good while ago, so there is nothing for me to gain from that anymore. However I think it adds to the Montage in general. I am convinced that having full voice+performance compatibility will convince lots of new people to the Montage. People who where sticking to their old Motif X* synths. Maybe wishing to upgrade but not daring to because they would lose too much. And having more people and more success will add to the lifetime expectation of the Montage as a platform in general. Which is good for me, because it will keep OS updates and new libraries coming. Also it brings tons of "new" libraries right now.

Still there are quite a few things in there which sound interesting. Easier programming of the Superknob not the least. I am looking forward to the upgrade! Also looking forward to the free SampleRobot program and John Melas Librarian! And whatever other little things I still have to discover.

A comment to the Montage in general: I totally love it. It has replaced several other synths for me. I only use the Montage anymore where before I had 2-3 for carrying around. The sound is great, the flexibility is awesome. The usage is very easy for me. Note that I am not a Yamaha fanboy of any sorts. I have other synths from other companies. I had the Moxf and sold it relatively quickly. I did not like the keyboard the usage, and the sound. The Montage is so much better. For example the new concept that the parts (== voices) are stored inside the performances is awesome. No longer do I have to manually copy the parts around just to make sure I do not accidentally change them in the context of some other performance. No longer do I have to worry about deleting voices because they may be in performances which I need. The confusion between the voices and the performances was one part which I totally did not like and why I sold it. The Montage is so much better in those aspects! Also the Moxf had this built-in sequencer which was very complex to use. I did not need it. The Montage's recorder is much easier for me and fits my needs much better. That's of course only one opinion, you may feel totally different.

Does this mean the Montage is perfect? Totally not. Would I take some VM synth as a free upgrade? Sure! Would I complain if a big sequencer would come in addition to the recorder? Sure not. Would I like it if they suddenly discover that there are a couple more Gigabytes flash hidden which they forgot about? No :-). But the Montage is very good as is. I got what I paid for - and more. If my Montage would be stolen today, I would immediately buy a new one, knowing everything I now know about it (no jinxing please 🙂 ). Even if it was still at version 1.20 like when I bought it? Yes! Still I appreciate all the changes which have come over the time I own it.

I still wish for a lot of improvements. I expressed this in other threads. I know that there are very many little things which could be done at a low cost which would improve usability for me a lot. As a software developer I believe I can judge the effort which would have to go in these. Small efforts, big gains! But as explained above I understand and appreciate the reasoning behind making the Motif compatibility highest priority. And sometimes there is only so much you can do. So I still hope that they sometimes will come my way. There may be others which I did not even think about which I will love when I see them as well...

I agree with Bad Mister about the angriness coming up in many cases in the forum. I find this pretty sad. This is not this forum alone, there are many forums for other products where the same happens. Interesting is that I believe all those negative comments might convince others not to buy the Montage. If you are researching your next synth and read all those very negative comments you may reconsider...

Two of my favorite sentences: Ruckert's Law - "There is nothing so small that it can't be blown totally out of proportion." Pohl's Law: "Nothing is so good that somebody, somewhere, will not hate it."

I'd also like to join in and thank Yamaha for first rate Montage support. New patches, workflow enhancements, and the Melas editors have checked all the boxes on my wishlist. I'm officially selling my Kurzweil gear...and that's saying a whole lot for me. Also, I'm gonna have to give this forum here a A++ thanks to BM, Jason, and others who make this a valuable resource for all things Yamaha music.

Yes, thanks to Yamaha! I'm a Yamaha fanboy and proud of it! I usually buy whatever they produce as their flagship keyboard. My core group are the CP1, Montage 8 and Genos (these are the best boards both aesthetically and sound quality that I've ever owned). Then I have the Matrix Brute and (2) Deepmind 12s for the analog stuff. I have the ROLI but not the grand version. I don't like having to use the computer for the 5D voices but it's cool.