I think Yamaha may have goofed a bit with all the effort taken to add the FM section. Yes, it does seem to impress the kids with the Montages, as retro-orientated as they seem to be, these days. But most arranger players actually predate the DX7 years, and realize how short lived the FM fever period was, and that for most of the well known FM sounds sampling them worked fine.

Me, I'd have preferred for them to really concentrate on more articulated acoustic sounds, or even some solo wind and string modeling (á la SWAM) and a breath controller input (that was essential for the DX7!), and considerable more work on the realism of the Ensemble section (revoicing multiple stacked sounds into individual parts for accurate section voicing).

If they want to add a new modeling section, something based on a Jupiter 8 or MemoryMoog type analog would add something that would get more use than a DX7 emulation (that you can’t edit).

Clip launching á la Maschine is surprisingly absent… I was fully expecting a pad bank like the PA5x launching audio clips and pads, and Korg’s ’two styles at the same time’ feature (which I think is the biggest leap forward for the accompaniment section in 20 years!) is missing.

There’s a lot of progress lately with arrangers between the PA5X and the Event, but adding a preset only FM section to the Genos seems so ‘meh’…