The combination of a DAW and your Montage is pretty comprehensive: You choose if you want to record midi or audio. Did you have a Motif? So you would know the direct performance recording. That's the "philosophy" of the internal sequences of the Montage. You record your play, send it to the DAW, edit it. That's it.
Putting it into once sentence: It is not about a complex philosophical theory, it's about easyness and quickness of recording and editing. And that's impressive - you will like it! 😉

As I wait for my Montage 8 to arrive any moment now , I had a question about the recording workflow into a DAW .
I know this maybe simple to some but I like concepts and just want to know .

Much like any creative tool, you will find that there is no one workflow or one-way to work!

Is the DAW recording audio or midi ?

Excellent question. And one you must answer for yourself. The Montage and it's Driver (Yamaha Steinberg USB driver) handles both MIDI and audio. You can do both... The question is do you need to, can you just record as audio, ... These are production decisions you will be making.

To Start you need to ask yourself, "do I need to record MIDI?"

Midi benefits include quantizing (timing) and correction of musical mistakes. It gives you a chance to organize your performing tasks, even change your mind about the instrumentation. But don't fall into the trap of never committing to your decisions -commit to audio at some point. You can always "undo" or re-record. Many users never move beyond MIDI and therefore they never finish anything. Finish your project by committing to audio. Audio is the ultimate *finished* state.

If you are not correcting, quantizing, or notating, why record as MIDI?
If you are using one or more of these features, maximize your use of MIDI and recognize that when you are ready to commit, to lock it in, rendering it as audio. That's the ultimate goal.

If it's audio how do you go about editing mistakes or quantizing , who's handling all this the DAW or Montage ?

Long before the invention of MIDI with its correction features/functions musicians were recording. The "do over" is a highly respected and very affective methodology. (I, myself, come from the "Do over" generation, when we made a mistake we did it over). Don't be afraid to use it. Punching In and Out can be easily automated so that all you need do is play along to fix mistakes - simply set your IN and OUT points, roll back several measures ahead of the correction spot, and play it again, Sam! 🙂 it works and no one has to know! Automating the Punch In and Out, is a skill you need to master before embarking on a serious project.

That said, you'd be amazed at how liquid audio editing is in the computer environment. While quantizing might be a bit tricky, almost everything else is fair game nowadays.

Is the idea to record all your tracks into the DAW via usb audio interface all simultaneously and save the audio to the computer ?

No, the idea is to learn the fundamental tools: learn to route, record and edit MIDI. Learn to overdub MIDI. Learn to route, and record arpeggio as MIDI. Learn to route and record audio. Learn to overdub audio. Learn to Punch IN/OUT. Learn to render a track from MIDI to audio. Learn to route multiple MIDI tracks so they can be rendered as separate audio tracks. Learn to export a final mixdown. Learn finally, to mix and match and combine these skills when and if necessary, to complete your project.

Until you have a fair amount of these different skills so they are second nature, you will struggle a bit with what to do and when to do it. There is no shortcut to experience. So try stuff, be prepared to fail, try again, you learn from mistakes.

Whether you do everything simultaneously is a workflow decision you have to make. Here's some thoughts: Settting up where you are using your Monatge as one of many instruments in your recording project will necessarily be different from how you setup and use it where it is the principal, or only, instrument in your production.

If you are using the Montage to build up tracks as the main item, then you will create a workflow for yourself that allows you to make efficient use of your hardware. How many musical parts are you going to record... If you are going to use more than 16 Montage Parts, naturally you will need to commit some of them as audio - as the Montage is sixteen Part multi timbral simultaneously.

You get the idea , what's the philosophy , theory , concept , paradigm , workflow that Yamaha is saying to use with the Montage as far as recording and capturing your performance and productions with all the motion control sweetness and in what way is this better or worse than the in built sequencer of the XF ?

That is just it, we are not "saying" there is a singular method, there are multiple tools... How you use them will be entirely up to you. For example, the Montage provides you with some 10,000 arpeggios. You can choose to use this feature or not.

The on-board Performance Recorder is a sketch pad where you can gather ideas you create using the on-board features and functions, these internal Songs will be able to be opened in your favorite DAW where you can edit them and add to them.

Arpeggios phrases: New uses
Some folks, just off hand, discount the value of the arpeggio data. Arps are typically musical note phrases that can be used with chord intelligence (the ability to recognize and adjust to the fingered chord qualities), but they also can be phrases that apply controller data, changing volume, filters, pitch, etc. Montage also introduces a new concept and use for arpeggio phrases as modulation sources to interact with other sounds. Instead of the traditional role of note flourishes arpeggios can be used to trigger the vocoder, to modify timbre in an FM-X stack, to generate amplitude 'envelopes' for other programs to 'follow'. This gives one a whole new perspective of what arpeggios can do. Fixed note Arps can be used to play drum and percussion sounds, or to simply play a specific phrase.

Another workflow with Montage (afforded by the 8 arpeggiators) you can use it to inspire ideas. You have 3200 drum grooves, simply playing with a drum groove can inspire an entire composition. You can call up a keyboard sound, ADD (+) a drum kit with arpeggio groove. You can immediately capture your idea by pressing the Record button.. The Performance you are playing is recorded directly to the Montage's internal recorder. Where it is available for your computer DAW to import.
You can some times sketch a quick idea, or build a more complex thing, it's wide open - explore the factory Performances and see how some of them are compositions!

To Record MIDI or not to record MIDI, that is the Question
If you are not going to correct mistakes, or do score notation, or change your mind about the instrument sound.... You need to ask yourself the reason you are recording MIDI in the first place. Once you have decided and if you opt to record MIDI, rendering the MIDI track as audio will become a part of your workflow. Consider the transfer of MIDI to audio an integral part of your workflow - Particularly important when recording using Montages bigger than MIDI - multiple Part Performances.

There are some Montage sounds that use multiple Parts and therefore are best recorded, corrected and rendered as audio. Because once they are audio you free your Montage hardware to generate other sounds.

Developing your own workflow - takes time and experimentation. I would recommend you start, NOT by just starting a serious project... But through work on throw away "songs" - separate 'learning to use the tools' from 'building your first masterpiece'. Don't try to do both. Learn basic MIDI Recording and routing - use scales as test phrases if you can't think of anything to play. Concentrate on learning the button press routines, not on the making musical production decisions.

Trust me, I've helped hundreds of folks over the years, I've seen people make the same mistakes over and over, again and again. They try to learn their keyboard, learn their computer software, learn the setup, learn the workflow, all at once ... While they are composing a new song simultaneously. Thinking they are superman or something. (Recipe for a fail). Eliminate the composing or recording something serious, record something completely throw away so that your brain can focus on the structure of the workflow. Focus on the button presses, on the signal flow, once you've learned the basics THEN go for something serious.

Bad Mister wrote:

No, the idea is to learn the fundamental tools: learn to route, record and edit MIDI. Learn to overdub MIDI. Learn to route, and record arpeggio as MIDI. Learn to route and record audio. Learn to overdub audio. Learn to Punch IN/OUT. Learn to render a track from MIDI to audio. Learn to route multiple MIDI tracks so they can be rendered as separate audio tracks. Learn to export a final mixdown. Learn finally, to mix and match and combine these skills when and if necessary, to complete your project.

Until you have a fair amount of these different skills so they are second nature, you will struggle a bit with what to do and when to do it. There is no shortcut to experience. So try stuff, be prepared to fail, try again, you learn from mistakes.

Wow , this is the 1st time I bought something and felt like I had homework , thank you man , thank you .
If there ever was a Paradigm this would be it , exactly what I was looking for plus some stuff I didn't even know I was looking for .

I record direct to audio. If I make mistakes or want to change something, I re-do. Copy, pasting, editing just isn't my thing -- too computer-like (because it is!) and music is my break from computers. That being said, do what works best for YOU. Some people really like getting in there and editing and playing with MIDI after you record.

The best part is you have options. Great the Montage has a built-in interface so you can record pristine audio no matter when you decide to do the "rendering" process.

Marcus wrote:

The combination of a DAW and your Montage is pretty comprehensive: You choose if you want to record midi or audio. Did you have a Motif? So you would know the direct performance recording. That's the "philosophy" of the internal sequences of the Montage. You record your play, send it to the DAW, edit it. That's it.
Putting it into once sentence: It is not about a complex philosophical theory, it's about easyness and quickness of recording and editing. And that's impressive - you will like it! 😉

Thanks respect

Scott wrote:

The best part is you have options. Great the Montage has a built-in interface so you can record pristine audio no matter when you decide to do the "rendering" process.

Yes indeed sounds amazing .
Thanks