If there's a way to transfer data other than streaming audio (for recording) between Montage and a PC/Mac - such features have not yet been exposed by Yamaha.

Apparently access is one major issue for you. Although this is not officially supported, you can "safely" use a USB hub to "move" the USB port from the back of Montage to the front. I put safely in quotes because there are horrible hubs out there which I'm sure can do damage if it is not in compliance to USB standards. However, you should be safe with a passive (not self powered) USB hub from a reputable manufacturer who has officially earned a USB emblem after having passed certification testing.

http://www.usb.org/developers/compliance/

Your request to enhance Montage may take some time - or may never be developed. Therefore, my goal here is to make the best out of what you have.

I think a simple USB prolong cable is the best to bring the USB from the back of the montage to other location

There are USB sticks now smaller than your thumb nail - which, once inserted, can remain. See this thread

SanDisk Ultra Fit 32GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive

You can Google it.

OK Yamaha. I have searched through the Montage manuals, and I cannot find a page on how we import user WAV data..
this is a little strange, as I know I've done this on my Motif ES via the USB cable. (like it's supposed to be.)

Point of Order: Motif ES loaded .wav with a USB cable? (news to me).

The Montage is compatible with .wav, but you cannot do the necessary Waveform construction. Unlike the Motif, the Montage is not a Sampler.

Current situation: you can import a .Wav but full mapping and editing functions are not available.
You could import it to Drum Kit, since typically a single waveform occupies a single Key in Drum kits (see the Reference Manual page 126-127, 174)
You can stream .wav files directly from a USB stick inserted in the USB "To Device" port.

Bad Mister wrote:

There are USB sticks now smaller than your thumb nail - which, once inserted, can remain. See this thread

SanDisk Ultra Fit 32GB USB 3.0 Flash Drive

You can Google it.

OK Yamaha. I have searched through the Montage manuals, and I cannot find a page on how we import user WAV data..

Point of Order: Motif ES loaded .wav with a USB cable? (news to me)

I think that the point is to be constantly passing the usb key from PC to a Montage & viceversa

thanks folks! ok - got this working today, I remembered how I used to do this with Motif ES 8.
-so, you don't have to swap any disks to copy files from computer to the ES, which , the same exact thing works on Montage, I am happy to report. 🙂
(I will say this is not as good as it would be to have the Yamaha Connect software plugin do the .wav file transfers though, that would be best and I hope Yamaha will consider that in a future firmware or Connect software update.)

if you are like me, and cannot stand swapping disks like we had to do with the Akai S900 (yes, 3.5" Floppy Disks! - kids - you don't remember this but you are lucky!), and even the Roland VP-9000 (however VP had SCSI ports you could connect it to external drives as well...)
what you'll need is a 2 ~ 4 port USB Switch.. remember these? from a long time ago... Belkin used to make one, and I still have it. so, I took my USB Stick out of the back of the Montage, and stuck it into the drive port on the Belkin switch. (see Photo). Belkin switch is this one; but you could use any similar product (I assume). I have tested this Belkin with the Montage 7 and it works perfectly with the Sony USB stick I have.
https://www.amazon.com/Belkin-F1U200V-4-Port-USB-Switch/dp/B000EJUCVE/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1494452387&sr=8-3&keywords=belkin+usb+4+port+switch

1. Put Usb Key or Stick into Belkin USB Switch Device or Drive port.
2. Hook a USB device cable (A/B style) to your PC or Mac on say, Port 1. (any port fine.)
3. Hook a USB device cable (A/B style) to Montage on the 'to device' USB on the back, and then connect the other end to the Belkin, let's say Port 2. (any different port than computer fine.)

now, set usb switch to Port 2 (montage) and boot up montage. check USB key attached successfully.
next, switch port to #1 with button. goto File Explorer (windows 10) and see Montage USB key, drag drop your .WAV files!
from the system tray icon, click the devices icon, and select to remove your Montage usb memory stick.
now switch the Belkin back to Port 2. verify on Montage in Utility->Contents->Load that your USB stick is available.
Done! hope this helps anyone that has issues getting to the back of the Montage in a studio or similar setup.

Glad you got everything at least to the level of your previous workflow (ES).

wanted to update this thread. so, after the trouble to get the usb stick working with my pc without removing the key all the time! it turns out folks...
YOU CAN RECORD right into the Montage from the A/D input, and store the result as .WAV on the USB stick!....so, no need to do all this business of dealing with the USB stick. just record your audio right into the Montage. It works fine - although - this has probably been addressed several time here, but to recap: the Audio record feature in Montage is super primitive at best! it's almost like it was thrown on at the very last possible second before montage was released to us.
so, there is no waveform display, it's a tiny box with hash lines through it... you cannot set the record level except by whatever source your feeding the A/D from..
you cannot trim start and end points, you cannot rename the file when you working with it on the record page, it's just 'NewAudioRecord' always. (I think later you can rename it on the USB via the utility page but I haven't confirmed this. also, if your project is in a different sampling frequency, let's say 48k or 96k, your completely out of luck. it only records as 44.1k, 24bit. no settings available. Yamaha - I sure hope you guys are working on that! It really needs a proper waveform display!!! those hatch marks are NOT cutting it...

Brian wrote:

wanted to update this thread. so, after the trouble to get the usb stick working with my pc without removing the key all the time! it turns out folks...
YOU CAN RECORD right into the Montage from the A/D input, and store the result as .WAV on the USB stick!....so, no need to do all this business of dealing with the USB stick. just record your audio right into the Montage. It works fine - although - this has probably been addressed several time here, but to recap: the Audio record feature in Montage is super primitive at best! it's almost like it was thrown on at the very last possible second before montage was released to us.
so, there is no waveform display, it's a tiny box with hash lines through it... you cannot set the record level except by whatever source your feeding the A/D from..
you cannot trim start and end points, you cannot rename the file when you working with it on the record page, it's just 'NewAudioRecord' always. (I think later you can rename it on the USB via the utility page but I haven't confirmed this. also, if your project is in a different sampling frequency, let's say 48k or 96k, your completely out of luck. it only records as 44.1k, 24bit. no settings available. Yamaha - I sure hope you guys are working on that! It really needs a proper waveform display!!! those hatch marks are NOT cutting it...

Where to begin ...

1) You cannot record into the Montage. It is not a Sampler. You can record the Montage Output (this includes all sixteen internal synth Parts plus its A/D Input Part to a USB stick connected to the USB "TO DEVICE" port. This really is recording through the Montage. This feature allows you to record yourself playing singing/Vocoding, or playing Montage along with whatever you are feeding to the A/D Input as its own source or as a modulation source to the Motion Control engine. It is not a Sampler, which is why I guess you don't see the usefulness of this rather awesome feature. If you are looking for a Sampler I guess it disappoints, but that's not what it's for. A Sampler would record audio to the internal synth engine, this feature routes audio through the internal synth... this is an important difference.

2) There is no waveform display because the audio is on the USB stick, not internal to the Montage. It is not a sample.

3) The recording level is cumulative and a result of the combination output from the sixteen synth Parts (each with its own Fader), and the A/D Input Volume Level... these feed the Master Volume.

4) You cannot trim, set loop points, or any such thing found in a Sampler, because the Montage does not have a Sampler.

5) The Montage Performance Record feature can document you playing/interacting with the Montage synth either as MIDI data, or as a 44.1kHz, 24-bit Stereo audio file (up to 74 Minutes of continuous record - assuming room on your USB drive) in .wav format.

6) If you require to Record at 48k, 96k or 192k you should record via the USB "To Host" port to connected computer (Windows or Mac). This is audio recording (again, not Sampling). The Montage does not sample.

Just FYI: when recording out via the "To Host" port Montage features 32 audio bus outputs to the DAW.
Partnered with Cubase Pro 9's new Sample Track, we think you have the most powerful tools for the job.

https://youtu.be/ko8pWheSufg

got it! 😉

but , it does still record what you send through the A/D, that was my whole point! I get that it's not a sampler... we get that. Where I was confused was about if it was possible to record from that A/D input. now I see that it is possible to just record, ok, through the montage, (that's fine) the point being we can now assign that sample, sorry, WAV, Recording, whatever you want to call it..to a part in the montage, that's all. no big deal now. cool it can do it. I'm happy as pie now. haha.
(but I do see your point about no waveform display, would like to be able to edit the wav's though from within Montage, as a wish list item or future firmware update. I think it would be great if we could still sample with Montage honestly , but it would need timestretching algorithms still, I get why they left it out, but would still be so useful to have it. Right now I feel like I need to break out the old VP9000 again to do proper time stretching 'not' in the daw...so would be way cool if Montage could do it IMHO.

VP9k supports all the sampling rate you need since the main out doesn't handle the higher sampling rate - and rate of main output is probably locked at 44.1kHz. But the VP9k only supports 16bit while Montage supports 24bit. So there is some loss of fidelity there. Hard to tell what the internal waveforms use - I imagine they're all 24bit samples, but who knows.

There are newer incarnations of Variphrase - both software and hardware. Then I'm sure there are other alternatives out there (competing tech) that have their own proprietary stretch methods that sound fine.

If you're going to be stretching and saving that stretched original sample as a new sample - there's a valid school of thought to just re-sample an original source at the higher or lower pitch instead of stretching the original sample. This won't necessarily work for "virtual" instruments - but something had to generate the original sound and there should be a way to generate a differentiated pitch version of the same sound using methods other than stretching.

The era of a high value on stretching was when the memory cost was so high. Sure, there are still limitations today (there always are). Those limitations are not as severe so you may be better off avoiding stretching as ultimately the sound may retain more detail and character by using a collection of non-stretched samples.

Of course, you may want artifacts and consequences of stretching as part of the sound you're after - so there's a time and place for just about any approach.

(but I do see your point about no waveform display, would like to be able to edit the wav's though from within Montage, as a wish list item or future firmware update. I think it would be great if we could still sample with Montage honestly , but it would need timestretching algorithms still, I get why they left it out, but would still be so useful to have it.

I'm not really sure that you do see the point. It would take far more than just a firmware update. To be a Sampler, you need a type of memory that supports editing. If you've owned samplers I'm not telling you anything you don't know, the Montage hardware does not include this type of memory (RAM). You are dealing with Read Only Memory in the Montage.

Agreed, it would be useful... but as you might imagine (from the sheer lack of dedicated hardware standalone samplers on the market) interest in this activity has dwindled significantly. I understand some folks fear the computer but take a good look at that Sample Track feature in Cubase Pro, if your into sampling, that's where it's at today.

Timestretching functions could be added by a firmware update (that's feasible) I understand the core chip does a spectacular job of time compression and expansion... going forward we'll just need to wait and see what develops.