Yes, It would be very helpful to see which perform were combined but I am afraid not possible

Since PARTs 2-8 in a preset performance are generally customized for the performance - you're not going to (usually) find that the PARTs are constructed from other preset PART-level-category-search "objects". Montage has chosen to label these (PARTs 2-8) as a generic category name. Different from your request - I wish they were labeled by function rather than generic name.

Something like All 9 Bars! for example would be helpful to have the PART names as 16', 5 1/3', 8', 4', 2 2/3', 2', etc...

Sometimes a PART is labeled by a category name that doesn't even fit the function. Still don't have the keyboard up so cannot give a specific example.

As far as learning if there are examples where preset performances combined two different other presets - you could do this "offline" by using Montage Connect and looking at the X7B structure for the various PARTs. This isn't automated or easy - but it can be done.

Jason's summation is correct, very often the Parts used as building blocks are not given separate names because they were developed specifically for the instance they are used. For example, on the acoustic piano notes north of G5 are typically undampered, so you will often find this as a separate component building block. Or a Part that only represents the middle velocities of an instrument... you would be hard pressed to find it useful, as is, in other programs setups.

That said, many of these Parts did have names, but somewhere in the development cycle they disappeared, I will inquire as to if this was planned or not. You realize that for each Performance you could construct a customized drum kit by simply changing around some of the Waveforms assigned to certain keys.

I don't think they held the programmer's to using specific preset kits, they could edit whatever they needed whenever they needed it - and so should you. As you read the threads here, some find this type of programming exhilarating, the reason they love synthesis, others describe it as the most tedious thing they can imagine...

Remember this, if you are setting up to use the MONTAGE as a 16 Part Multi-timbal tone generator... typically you'd start with the INIT "Multi/GM" and set your PART Category Search "Attribute" = SINGLE. This will ensure that you only view Single Part programs that are full instruments (and not a Part that contained just Notes north of G5, for example)... Although you can use the "Part" option to copy just a partial program, by designating which Single Part you wish to copy. This is useful when selecting just one specific Part from a "Gallery" Performance. Say you only want the the Van Halen "Hot for Teacher" guitar sound located at Part 5 of the "8 Amps and a Telecaster" Performance... you simply set the Attribute = Single, and the Part = Part 5... or when wishing to grab just the Key Off noise from Part 5 of the "Rd1 Gallery"... adding this to your FM-X electric piano sounds is awesome.

Hello BM - I feared as much! Because the Elements are all tweaked by highly skilled soundsmen for very specific purposes, they become very difficult to use by amateurs like me. I'm making progress on re-tweaking, but so far as I can see there's no facility for saving these as 'User Elements' so they are only available as part of whatever Pf Part I re-tweaked them for. Even if there were a facility, it wouldn't help much because of the infinite nature of the required results. So what Montage provides is pretty good, and it's up to each owner to develop the skills required to make use of them. Admirable, but daunting! It's why I make more use of Single Part Pfs than Elements - but at least I'm encouraged to try. And FM-X is on the back-burner until I've grasped enough of the principles behind AWM2 to feel a little more adequate to tackle FM. Sigh! I bought Montage as a Fun Toy, but it's pulling me down paths I never expected to take!

Hello Jason - agreed! Thinking about it only a little produces the 'chicken or egg' question. Of course there can't be Pfs or Parts until someone has fiddled with the Elements, given the nature of AWM2. I just vaguely thought that having refined Elements into Parts, it would be a natural progression to further refine Pfs by combining Parts rather than using more Elements.

"User Elements" as you seem to describe them were what were previously called "user voices". User voices were building blocks you could assemble and combine into performances. Montage has simplified the architecture by getting rid of voices. This has been flagged previous as a possible negative when it comes to reuse. The notion from Yamaha is that now that we have so many user slots - there's not a need to reuse material as voices were previously used. The concept of voices was seen more as a way to conserve memory slots (apparently) than as a way to create atomic building blocks that you would want to reuse even if memory was unlimited.

I've described before - you can create your own "user voice" by creating user performances that are single PART and contain your basic building blocks. Then you could merge together multiple of these single-PART user performances to build your more complex performances. Furthermore - what you once were able to do at the performance level in applying offsets to the voices -- you can still do with your single-PART performances. Only you would need to use destinations and apply offsets that way. Which are limited to 16 -- so it's possibly not as flexible as the previous performance/voice paradigm. I never counted how many voice parameters I could modify at the performance level -- because there didn't seem to be a rob-Peter-pay-Paul scenario in that department. The limitation came more in the effects (voice vs. performance) since the performance level - at least on the ES series - was more limited than the individual voices times 4.

Of course fiddling around with destinations only so you could construct something that reminded you of the old paradigm is a kludge. It would be better to merge your single-PART performance ("fake voice") and then go into the PART and modify what you want within that PART post-merge. This would give you unlimited "offsets" -- really just directly modifying what you want. It's probably more similar to the voice/performance system. The nice thing is that (vs the ES series) you do not lose any (insertion) effects -- each PART has its own insertion set. I suppose if you rely on a specific system/master effect (for your single PARTs)- then the bets are off since you cannot have competing system/master effects. This is the level where tradeoffs need to be made when combining. Same as the previous paradigm.