While not an arranger for sure, this instrument cought the attention of all and everyone involved music.. Which made me decide to post this in the more populated arranger forum and not in the General synthesizer forum.


So this morning I sat down with the Montage 8 today for over 3 hours at the Musicstore.de

The first thing you notice when you sit behind the keyboard is that its formfactor is huge. Almost feels like two times the size of my Kronos2. Build quallity is beyound any other product released this decade.. Everything is high end and feels high end. Actuall buttons that feel like undestructable... High end sldiers, wheels and knobs.. And the lights next to sliders and knobs, finally they show the actuall vallue... And then there is one huge big knob begging you to ouch it, its a super knob.. Definately a super knob..

Then the keybed, it feels top knotch, maybe even better then my Kronos(which i really really have become to adore), i quickly compared afterwards to some other 88 keys on the floor but the NI komplete, Kurzweil Forte and Nord Stage 2ex didnt feel as nice as the Montage 8 (the 61 and 76 have the same keybed as the Tyros5, which makes them also high end)

Now i have seen quite some demo's of the instrument, which made opperating it a breeze from the go, everything in the interface is well tought out and works quite intuitive.. It definately makes the Motif and the Kronos blass when it comes to ease of operation... You can quickly set up your own performances and add arps to it on the fly... For using motion sequences i found it easier to eddit an excisting performance, but with more time it should not be that hard...

The combination of motion sequences and arps come very close in functionallity To what Korg offers in the Karma engine... However, when it comes to being creative with it and ease of operation then it looks like Yamaha hit a homerun.. Karma is really really awesome but if there are two dozens people on this world that are able to create new refreshing Karma performances from the ground up ( so not edditing excisting ones). Then its a miracle...  Creating things with Karma in my Kronos feels like trial and error, keep trying till you get something you like and then make it usefull..  With Montage however, you can design what you want from scratch with a plan..where you know what you want from the start and travel a much more known road how to get there...


So how does it sound? That should be the major question..

It sounds like a beast. Many of the preset performance i would recon under the wall of sound cattegory, thats not a bad thing, as thats what the developers tended to create..  The pianos both the Yamaha as the Bosendorfer that was loaded on the demo instrument can compete with the piano's on my Kronos, same goes for the digital piano's. b3? I like the Yamaha B3 sound, but no its not very authetic..  
Orchestral sounds, i would say it comes close to the Korg expansion packs, however when it comes to solo instruments in wood/wind/brass they seem to have borrowed some of the best tyros5 sounds which are better then the Kronos..  

The FM sounds are really sparckling, i think thats the right term of how many of them sound. Its comparable to the mod7 engine of the Kronos, but much much easier to program...  I played a little with the soundcreations of the FM engine and the interface is layed out in such a manner that you immediately get a grasp of what you are doing.. If anyone ever tried creating fm sounds on a dx7 i can definately say... No more of that gibberish..  
The AWM engine is good or even better then ever, probably the best sample engine in a hardware synth, tough in the end i prefer the HD1 of the Kronos, for a single reason, near unlimmited sample memmory.. 

So what does the Montage have to offer to an arranger player...  Personally i think the 8 part performances are huge in the way they work, however it might be hard for some older players to grasp..  In my vision they allow easy acces and programabillity... A sound is changed out with another in a few secconds... There is a nice search function that lets you choose your sounds quickly... 8 sounds layered and split over the keybed would be a step forward

But most importantly changing a performance trough several stages by using a single preprogrammed super knob and 8 scene buttons is easy and gives some very very awesome results.. Often there is much much more happening in your soundshape then just morphing between sounds when you turn the superknob... It was so much fun playing around with this, and on the Montage this is part of every single performance...

Also the way the knobs and the sliders work with each performance or single sound and how easy accesible they showing directly what value you have by the lights around the knobs or next to the sliders.. This feedback is so nice..


So yes, i had a great experience, and lots of fun and the montage definately sounded like a beast. But is it worth adding this to your setup....  If you dont need workstation or arranger features, this might be the best most versatile thing available....  If you want 88 keys under your pa4x then yes, this would be a perfect instrument.  But if you want a single board with arranger features, then forget about it, unless you want to use it in combination with Varranger which would work but still requires a hardware unit like the korg nanopad to controll varranger.


So what would this add to my current setup Kronos88 with Tyros5?  A "Superknob of awesomeness" but thats about it... All 3 instruments sound top knotch.  
Tough i must say, many of the available performances where mind blowing and near to perfect..  


( i decided not to take my opinion to all the things missing but concentrate on those things that are available ) 


I can only advise everyone that gets a chance to take some time and sit down with this instrument. 

By one of the Masters of Keys UJ