The majority of music situations allow for the musician to comfortably change instruments. In fact, it is more often the exception than the rule when you need to be playing more than one instrument at a time. However, when those times arise, the Montage offers three very viable solutions, for three different cases.

SSS - allows a KBD CTRL Performance (that's 1 to 8 simultaneous Parts) to transition, while holding the first program, seamlessly into a second KBD CTRL Performance of 1 to 8 Parts. This is specifically for holding/switching/playing.

[PART SELECT] buttons, controlling multiple Single Part programs, allow the most rapid transition between sounds. A Performance can contain as many as 16 Single Parts which you switch between seamlessly without audio interruption. Alternatively, one Multi Part KBD CTRL program can be combined with as many Single Part programs as you have remaining Performance slots. You access a Part via the numbered [PART SELECT] buttons. It is impossible to out speed the transitions here.

XA CONTROL, "Morphing", and Synth engine solutions- XA CONTROL is an AWM2 Element-based system that is designed for sonically invisible transitions between Elements within a Part. By far the most elegant method because you are in affect making the two instrument sound components into a single performance instrument. Designed to address musical things like legato phrasing (switching mid-phrase to a Waveform recorded sans the attack portion), things like switching articulation from plucked to hammer-owns, things like Key-Off sounds where one sound only occurs at the end of another... There are also Assignable Switch conditions which can be used to sonically invisibly switch between one set (ElementGroup) and another. And then there is Motion Control Morphing which is a programming technique where one sound either slowly evolves into another or joins another. The Motion Control engine excels at unique ways to creatively transition between multiple sounds.

Versus the SCENE - a Scene is a 'cold' snapshot of settings... Without outlining them all, let's just use Volume as an example to make the point about what, by definition, a Scene is... and how it works. You have the piano set at a volume of 127 and the strings at 0, in Scene 1, take a "snapshot". In Scene 2 you make the piano 0 and the strings 127. It's a totally different snapshot. There is not going to be seamless transition, in snapshot memory. It is recalled all at once, that's its nature, that's it strength, that's it's raison d'être, it's reason to exist! Designed to instantly recall specific mixer settings, Yamaha has cleverly included some synth parameters as well. It would be a "good choice" for quick changes. It would simply be a "poor choice" for seamless transitions. Besides there are only eight Scene buttons, and potentially sixteen Parts in a Performance.

Designed to accommodate the very fast, rapid transition without any cutoff, without any glitches, or dropout, as fast as you can press the buttons you can recall the sounds --- use the [PART CONTROL] > [PART SELECT] 1-16 buttons to navigate through your favorite 16 programs. It's recommended over using the Scene buttons which, by design, do not seamlessly transition, but are for the type of edits we refer to as "cuts". The type of change where there is no sound overhang.

For seamless transitions use SSS, or use the Part Select buttons within a (non-KBD CTRL Performance), or use the extensive tool kit that is the Motion Control engine to build a most elegant transition.

In the tutorial series on "Performances and Live Sets" we setup several different types of Performances and show how they can be used, including examples of each.

Chris I agree with you there - it is a bit of sweeping generality to say " In fact, it is more often the exception than the rule when you need to be playing more than one instrument at a time. " Certainly in my work in the theatre there is rarely an instance when you are only playing one sound at a time. The majority of sounds required will be combinations of a whole variety of things - even worse with touring shows when the original orchestration will be reduced and the keys parts will take up the slack. I've just finished working on the 2016 rewrite of Les Miserables and the touring version of The Addams Family and have used all the tools that the montage provides - SSS, XA control, scenes and in general these are sufficient (though scenes work best when adding something by unmuting as the strict cut off with muting isn't the most satisfying musical result). It would be great though if there were another method of moving between groups of sounds (not single sounds) with access to all 16 parts.

I see the use for Scenes.
I see the use for Part Select.
I see a use for SSS.
And I definitely see other solutions for those who choose to program.

I noticed that Yamaha artist Michael Tan in his YouTube video "Yamaha Montage Tutorial - 4. Scenes" uses scenes to quickly mute and unmute groups of parts while playing different sections of the Toto song "Rosanna".

Yamaha Montage Tutorial - 4. Scenes

I'd be curious to know what the effect would be if we could save the Keyboard Control state of each part in the Scenes. Perhaps this would cause sounding notes to decay naturally but inhibit additional notes when a part is switched from Keyboard Control on to off via a Scene change.