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Has anyone tried this hardware?
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Portamento / Oscillator Modes
In this device Juzisound implements many types of specialized Oscillator Modes, specially created for use in Ethno solo music. Many types of Portamento with full set of parameters are supported, including very popular Yamaha DX, Casio CZ, KORG and original and very useful JS and JS2 portamento. This JS and JS2 portamento have special technology for smooth sample to sample transition, and this kind of portamento is not available in any other hardware keyboards. Additionally to portamento modes, the sampler has many special oscillator engines (combination between specially prepared samples and additional software processing), specialized for playing Saxophones, Clarinets, Solo String instruments, Bouzoukis and many more...
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With the help of Phil, which I am very grateful, I have learned how to use my MOTIF XF and make it sound good. I was looking to upgrade my gear and Yamaha Montage was the first choice. Unfortunately, the more I learn about this synth the less interested I become in it.
It has interesting set of features but I personally never seen it. The portamento/legato system (which Yamaha implemented it poorly on MOTIF and they resist! fixing it) seems very interesting.
Has any one tried this before?
Posted : 20/02/2018 8:37 pm
It's a rompler module with a breath controller feature. They seem to "emulate" some other keyboards' portamento as a documented feature as you've said - and have some other "fancy stuff" for wind instrument samples (probably having to do with interaction of the breath controller). The technology is circa 2008 or so - not that that is horrible. It's "hi-fi" of the era -- not the top of the heap of DACs -- but not too shabby.
I'm not sure you're going to see much development, new features, enhancements, etc. after purchase. You can probably look at archive.org to look at the web page a long time ago and determine if anything has changed in the past 10 years or so.
They're really different types of products - one is a sort of roland sound canvas idea and one is a more full-fledged controller/synth. So the "VS" isn't a fair fight on a lot of fronts. Maybe if you narrow down the evaluation to just portamento then that's different. Then you're just listing another piece of hardware that demonstrates portamento like you'd prefer vs. the Yamaha AWM(2) way. Yamaha has been informed of what some keyboardist's would prefer here - I'm sure they're aware of how (and why) the current system does not meet this expectation. Your vote is registered.
I haven't tried Juzisound. There's lots of stuff out there.
Posted : 21/02/2018 5:42 am
Topic starter
Thanks Jason. Yes, my main question is about portamento, the flash memory (32GB? the samples are mono and not loop). In the online demos, the portamento (legato) sounds nice(er than my MOTIF XF) and I'm sure it can be applied to many other instruments (like pads and synth sounds). So what technique(s) this little company is using is my question? Are they not good? is there any copy-rights on them? If someone explains a bit so that I can understand why we don't have a better portamento system in Montage?
Well, you seems to have a good grasp of artistry and an incredible taste in arranging music Adrien 😀 I am thrilled to attend your show. Not sure about the others 😀
My point though, was not that Montage is a Toy! It is definitely an advanced instrument but compared to my MOTIF (and considering what I need) it is not going to make a big enough difference if I sell the MOTIF and buy Montage. I mainly use acoustic instruments in my performances, like strings, all kinds of guitars, reed and brass instruments.
Posted : 21/02/2018 3:52 pm
FYI: Portamento in Montage for FM-X works fine. It's the sample-based side (AWM2) where there is a line of complaints going back for decades. This topic is rehash from another thread - see https://www.yamahasynth.com/forum/legato-single-voice/latest
If you can construct your PART using FM-X, then you're fine. A pure sine wave with proper portamento was an example mentioned as a wish. This is certainly in the wheelhouse of FM-X. Therefore, the features of Montage solve this specific problem better than Motif.
Posted : 21/02/2018 4:21 pm
I totally understand, it was just to laugh !!
For my part I do not use Montage, nor even any synth to reproduce sounds of wind instruments. But I listened to the demo of this Juzisound and we can only admire the quality of its reproduced. Far from being a toy certainly!
Posted : 22/02/2018 9:02 am
Topic starter
Adrien wrote:
I totally understand, it was just to laugh !!
For my part I do not use Montage, nor even any synth to reproduce sounds of wind instruments. But I listened to the demo of this Juzisound and we can only admire the quality of its reproduced. Far from being a toy certainly!
The issue with this Juzisound is that the demos are very oriental (at leas the ones I've seen) and obviously far from western music which makes its recognition difficult and I understand.
But, what surprises me is that, this very basic device performs some nice legato/portamento slurs which I can't do them on MOTIF (the JS and JS2 portamento which I guess is their own implementation). It also has the ability to assign portamento time to velocity (I have asked this many times from Phil with no successful response from him).
My humble guess is that it should be very easy for Yamaha to improve (or most likely enable) the these features.
Posted : 23/02/2018 7:48 am
