Did you forget your good manners?

Changing to the other side does improves experience and is always a good idea. Every instrument has its own benefits and disadvantages.
But mind, that the grass is always greener on the other side.

Hey, and good travel!

Enjoy your Korg but I've played them all. I do complain about Yamaha on occasion (sometimes overly complex) but the build quality and sound is unmatched IMO.

Hopefully the montage will continue to evolve and Montage ESX is on the way. No company is perfect and every new synth product has its budget limit.

Holy cow Yamaha just unlocked the full FM potential with smart morph which makes unlimited FM design as easy as finger painting. One finger touch on the grid and you create something brand new instantly. I mean literally in seconds.

I sold my Montage 8 a year ago and bought the Montage 6 recently to explore the smart morph capabilities. I'm sure these new capabilities are soon to be expanded.

Don't go too far because this is badass! I didn't even need a computer and/or additional software to do it.

The fence is made of transparent green plastic. That’s why it always looks greener on the other side. 😀

I almost bought a Korg Kronos in 2011, but I found out that it had a cooling fan just in time. Noisy! Totally unacceptable!

I bought a Yamaha Motif XF instead. I’ve been very happy in the Yamaha world so far, even when I spend ungodly amounts of time figuring out how to do the next thing. Par for the course with sophisticated tech...

I just remembered too why I hated the Korg K. Not only a cooling fan but 20 minutes to power up and because it's essentially a computer in a keyboard shell.

It's a different philosophy and concept altogether.

How reliable is a computer in a performance scenario? Just wasn't the best of ideas from a practical & reliability perspective. In a studio it's fine I guess.

When it comes to music I want to get as far as possible away from computers since the rest of my life revolves around computers.

I'm fairly certain a new VA Engine is less than a year away on the Montage, along with numerous other features/enhancements to the Pattern Sequencer, effects, Scene controls, functionality, etc. And maybe even the C7 piano library (fingers crossed). Not sure what ideas you were hoping for on Ideascale, but don't be surprised if some of your favorites show up on the Montage in a future OS update...or better yet, ones you never dreamt of like they did with 'Smart Morph'.

I was close to getting the Korg Kronos 88, but they convinced me on the Korg forums that it would not be the right fit for me since the Kronos Polyphony is "lowest common denominator" of the Engine used with at the lowest polyphony, whereas the Montage is "additive" polyphony, adding up to 256 with both the AWM2 & FM-X engines being used at the same time.
I use my Montage for everything...one keyboard only, with a tonne of DAW based sequencing utilizing both engines. If you are using just as one of many keyboards, then the Kronos might be a better fit for you...