Okay, it's early in Montage lifecycle... but you realize eventually you will have to leave all things as done in the Motif XF behind. The Montage is not a Motif, so whether or not the X7U file is the equivalent of the .X3A file is simply moot. (although curiosity abounds...)

The .X7U (USER FILE) is a file that contains the following data:
Performances
Arpeggios
Motion Sequences
Curve
Live Set
Micro Tuning
Waveform
Utility Settings
Quick Setup

You have to ask yourself - Which of these types of data did I create? And only the data that you created is written to the file. So it could very well be 889 bytes (less than 1KB) if you did not write anything. The Montage documents only the data that is changed.. unlike its predecessor. "Streamlined" is not a marketing word (in this instance).

I uploaded a tutorial file with 16 PERFORMANCE and it is just 139KB

I understand. But presumably Yamaha wants to sell Montages to performing musicians, who tend to travel a lot. I remember reading a while ago that instead of dragging their own Motif XF around, a musician could just carry an "all" file on a flash drive, and maybe a plugin flash memory card for waveforms, and rent a Motif XF when they got to their gig.

I wonder what the equivalent thing is going to be with the Montage. Instead of just one file, said traveling musician will have to remember to put all the right files on the flash drive: the X7U file for global settings, however many library files (such as the Bosendorfer piano), possibly other things I don't know about yet. That sounds more complicated and disaster-prone to me (30 minutes before showtime: "I could've sworn I put that file on the flash drive -- why can't I find it?").

I haven't found a way to save the entire state of the machine, and you seem to be saying there isn't one. Is that all Yamaha has to tell to the traveling musician?

Michael Trigoboff wrote:

.... I remember reading a while ago that instead of dragging their own Motif XF around, a musician could just carry an "all" file on a flash drive, and maybe a plugin flash memory card for waveforms, and rent a Motif XF when they got to their gig......

....I wonder what the equivalent thing is going to be with the Montage. Instead of just one file, said traveling musician will have to remember to put all the right files on the flash drive: the X7U file for global settings, however many library files (such as the Bosendorfer piano), possibly other things I don't know about yet. That sounds more complicated and disaster-prone to me (30 minutes before showtime: "I could've sworn I put that file on the flash drive -- why can't I find it?").
I

I would back up anything I need for the USB stick in Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud, or at least 6 other cloud-based storage locations.
It's relatively easy to download that one file I swore I put on the USB stick before I left. And I wouldn't need a separate USB stick to put it on after downloading it to insert in the XF for transfer to the Flash Disk.

If I lose the my Montage USB stick before a gig, I stand a much better chance getting a replacement USB stick before I could ever find a Flash Disk for the XF.

Michael, couldn't you just as easily lose the flash drive for the Motif XF you would be renting for a gig or perhaps pack the wrong one in your luggage when you left the house?
It would be a chore to run down a replacement Flash Disk for a Motif XF in a town of 15,000 people an hour before the gig.

I haven't found a way to save the entire state of the machine, and you seem to be saying there isn't one. Is that all Yamaha has to tell to the traveling musician?

That and this is not a Motif XF! 🙂 The idea of carrying just your Flash Board and a file is how you can do it for Motif XF. This is Montage. As you get to know her you will see and get to know the workflow here is quite a bit different, but I'm repeating myself. Again.

With Motif XF we saw how you could create VST PRESETS in Cubase so that you could have access to literally thousands of sounds at the click of a mouse. Montage has room to carry all of your sounds with you on board the instrument. Each Library file can have as many as 640 Performances installed with it.

The fact that you could have Waveforms and Samples stored on your Motif XF Flash Board, and not have the right Voices loaded into USER 1-4 and USER Drum, will never happen with Montage. When you install a Library File you also install all the Performances that use that file plus any others you might want to include, up to 640 Performances. I think this was very much on purpose. Perhaps the head scratching of shuffling Flash Boards and USER Banks was rejected - then improved, based on after market surveys (hopefully you participated). Anyway, if you wish to leave your Montage at home and use backline, all you need to carry with you is your Files.

There is no one file that contains all of the Montage, there is again, no equivalent to the .X3A ALL data file.

.X7U is a USER File and backs up what you have currently in the User locations
.X7L is a LIBRARY File which can install your custom data to the Library (ROM) area of Montage.

The Library File, just FYI, contains all the same things as a USER File except for the Utility settings and the Quick Setups for computer.
The difference is in *where* each places the data in the Montage.

How you might work now
It is really unlikely that you might need more than the 1920 Performances when you travel. And you can simply load what you need into the USER memory of the backline unit. Before you leave on tour, initialize your Montage USER area, then you can *select* specific data from any of your on-board installed Libraries, you place a check mark next to the program name, transfer them into USER - SAVE this new customer USER file to take with you for your tour.

You've already learned the Montage is streamlining the process. You could place the Bosendorfer (and any you don't know about yet) in USER, and if you are prone to losing your USB sticks, well, that could happen with XF, as well. The removable Flash Board without an .X3A file is useless. So that's a wash.

I recommend if you travel to leave a copy of your important files in Dropbox or other such accessible site, so if you lose your USB stick you can download your data from anywhere in the world to a new stick (if you live in fear of losing your data). I think you will find the .X7U is cool, serve you well, it will.

Thanks for the question. New era, new workflow.

@Kiwi
Exactly!

Thanks, guys. I get it.

As a very absent-minded person, I'm always looking for ways to keep track of fewer things. But I can already tell that the Montage is well worth the slightly increased cognitive load…