Really? Wow, Please give your Montage to someone else who can understand what's on offer. It is not like your Motif XF... Which you learned to work (coming up with your current workflow) ...from your questions you don't fully understand how the Montage is doing things, so you are basing your decision based on how you work now. To each his own. I don't fully understand your requirement or why you figure that is the only way to accomplish your goal (certainly it isn't) and the external sounds on 3, 4, and 5, you may find a single Montage Performance may eliminate the need for one or more of those external sounds completely.
I highly recommend you prepare yourself for learning a new workflow, you actually may not have to jump through the same programming hoops you are forcing yourself to jump through with your XF.

Hi Bad Mister,

Thanks for your reply.
I am seriously thinking of changing my workflow, so I can give the Montage a warm welcome. That's why I ask 🙂

It's just that I want to be in control of my volumes of internal and external sounds on stage. I like live mixing. A bit of violins here, a bit of choir there etc... etc...

I think we're all looking at the Montage and can see the possibilities it can give to us players live and we just want to know how flexible it is.

Performance being the work here.

Hopefully some of these questions will be resolved shortly...

Please see the following thread.
MIDI I/O on SINGLE - What happens exactly?

Can someone at Yamaha give us an answer?

Will there be an update very soon to set the receive channel of each part individually in a performance?

This will do the trick for a lot of people who has a stagepiano or other 'simple' masterkeyboard!

Thanks in advance!

Just for clarity's sake: the Montage can be set to receive on any single MIDI channel
This is accomplished by setting the MIDI IN/OUT mode setting to SINGLE and selecting a Channel 1-16.

The request is not just to set the MIDI Receive Channel, (that is clearly already possible) but to make up for the limitation of some external devices that cannot transmit on any MIDI channel. And specifically because the Parts 9-16 are fixed to receive on channels 9-16, respectively. This is to help those "master keyboards" with limited transmit capability reach the available Parts when the Montage is MIDI IN/OUT mode MULTI.

There are reasons the engineers have done this, and they are already studying the ramifications of this. And they know (better than you or I) whether that is at all in the cards. We'll let you know.

Bad Mister wrote:

The request is [...] to make up for the limitation of some external devices that cannot transmit on any MIDI channel.

No, the problem has nothing to do with limitations on external devices!

I know English is not my mother tongue, but I hope my English is not as bad as I cannot make myself clearly understood on this matter.

As I explained on the other thread, when you want to play a single instrument made of several parts within a Montage performance from an external keyboard (which makes sense if you want to keep your favorite stage piano as a piano action type master keybd for the piano sounds and if you chose a Montage 6 or 7 to take the place of an instrument with a synth action type keybd in your set-up), that single instrument, i.e. all the parts it consists of, should respond to a single MIDI channel (whatever it is).

It does not make sense to have a single instrument (say a piano) made e.g. of 6 parts, that needs to receive the same notes on 6 différent channels at the same time in order to be played!

IMO the designers never considered that a Montage could be played as a tone generator from another keyboard (yet in some cases it makes sense, cf. example above), hence this limitation.

It does not make sense to have a single instrument (say a piano) made e.g. of 6 parts, that needs to receive the same notes on 6 différent channels at the same time in order to be played!

Okay so English is not your mother tongue... so we will repeat again: Correct!.

You would not want to have a single instrument sound on 6 separate MIDI channels. So AGAIN: You would set the "MIDI I/O mode = SINGLE" and select a MIDI CHANNEL 1-16

Shown below the Montage set to transmit and receive MIDI on Channel 7.

And just to be clear for everybody; if we set the MIDI I/O Mode on Single, can we play another internal sound on the Montage itself?

(Now I am just talking about part 1-8, I am willing to forget part 9-16.)

So that we don't have two keyboards (a stagepiano and the Montage) here that produce the same sound?

And just to be clear; how?

Is the answer the [Int SW] of the Part Settings - Zone Settings?

If we set a part with the [Int SW] of the Part Settings - Zone Settings to OFF, will this part still be triggered at the Single-mode [MIDI I/O Channel]?

But what about a part which [Int SW] of the Part Settings - Zone Settings is set to ON; how can we achieve that this part won't play if we touch the external keyboard?

(So I think it would of course be much nicer to set the receive channel of each part 😉 )

Hi, i will take a example.

I will have a Montage 7 (at this time no Montage in Europe) and i have a Motif XF8, so i will want to play the CFX piano from the XF8.
In the same time, i will have one other part on the Montage (string for example) that i want to play with the Montage alone.

Of course i can use the midi I/O in single mode and select the same midi channel from the XF channel set in transmit in XF utility, but
all will play from the XF8 : the CFX and the String also ?
Or does like string part with keyboard control "on" and zone setting set to Transmit channel "off" will not be played from the XF.

If i let midi I/O to Multi, I will turn "off" the Keyboard control for the 4 CFX parts cause i will play them from the XF8, not from the Montage 7.
I let the keyboard control "on" for the string. the string play alone form the Montage, the piano alone from the XF8.
And as you write Phill, i need to use 4 zone from the XF Master mode to control the CFX from the XF (i already use 4 other zone to control Integra7, Micro X, Mininova and Reface Dx).

And what about using "zone settings"; like the 4 CFX parts will be set keyboard control "off", with zone "on" for each CFX part, is the "Transmit Ch" in part setting > Zone Setting is only for sending data like :
note limit, octave switch, bank & program change, volume, pan.

Or does it specify also the receive channel for each Montage part with zone "on" in each part of a performance, if yes i can set channel 1 on each CFX part and control them in one master zone of the XF.
If no i need to use 4 zones on the XF in multi.

I will "prefer" work in midi I/O multi cause the OS 1.10 manual we can read this :

When this parameter is set to “Single,” Arpeggio data is not transmitted to the external device.

I will in some case need to transmit Arp to and external device on stage.

The second line of the OS 1.10 manual is :

When the Zone function is active, the Zone setting for the Performance is given priority over the “MIDI I/O Mode” setting.

This priority is only for transmit or also for receive ?

Like part 9 to 16 are to play from external device (if 1 to 8 are on Keyboard control) it will be more usefull is the channel in Zone setting is also for receive midi note form an external Keyboard and if we are not limited to use ch9 to 16 by default.

+1 In general, would very much appreciate a "how-to" for a two keyboard setup using Yamaha Montage - both with Cubase and as a standalone rig (midi connection only).

For instance, I would like to:
1. Play a Montage Bass (walking bass line) and the Montage CFX piano (right hand) on the 88 midi controller (set up as a two zone split)
2. Play the Montage Organ or Synth on the Montage.

Can I set up the Montage to support the above scenario?

For instance, assuming:

88 Key Midi Controller Setup
1. Set up Zone 1 (left hand) to transmit on Channel 1, Montage Bass Program Change
2. Set up Zone 2 (right hand) to transmit on Channel 2, Montage CFX Program Change

Montage6/7???
- Is this just a PERFORMANCE with an organ part, synth part (using SCENES to mute one or the other) with Keyboard Control On and Montage will receive the Channel 1 & 2 transmissions and sound the appropriate PART?

Bad Mister wrote:

You would not want to have a single instrument sound on 6 separate MIDI channels. So AGAIN: You would set the "MIDI I/O mode = SINGLE" and select a MIDI CHANNEL 1-16

That would work for THIS case.

I appreciate your efforts to find workarounds, but I'm still convinced that setting the MIDI channel for each part individually is something that cannot be escaped from to have enough flexibility to handle all situations.

Just wanted to add my $0.02. There will be times I want to use Montage as tone generator driven by Logic Pro.

Currently, if I want to record a piano part using CFX, I will need to transmit the same notes on 4 different midi channels using 4 tracks. Basically 4 times the data. So if I want to edit the midi data, I would need to edit all 4 tracks. It would make more sense to be able to select the midi channel of each part in the performance so the 4 parts of the CFX would be set to the same channel controlled by 1 track in Logic.

Steve wrote:

Just wanted to add my $0.02. There will be times I want to use Montage as tone generator driven by Logic Pro.

Currently, if I want to record a piano part using CFX, I will need to transmit the same notes on 4 different midi channels using 4 tracks. Basically 4 times the data. So if I want to edit the midi data, I would need to edit all 4 tracks. It would make more sense to be able to select the midi channel of each part in the performance so the 4 parts of the CFX would be set to the same channel controlled by 1 track in Logic.

Again, Steve that is not true.

If you want to record a MULTI PART "CFX" piano, you will need to transmit the notes but once. Select MIDI I/O = Single and select a single MIDI channel, 1-16 to output the data.

If you need to edit the MIDI data, why would you split the data on four Midi channels?

If you are playing a MULTI PART PERFORMANCE with some Parts under arp control (drums, bass, guitar) and others played directly (synth lead), you would output this on multiple MIDI channels...

Single instruments - record on single Midi channel
Multiple instruments - record on multiple Midi channels

Make sense?