Remember when Yamaha tried to sell us workstation owners on the idea that customers no longer want full blown workstations keyboards?  That was part of sales pitch for switching the flagship focus away from Motif and to the Montage.

They had to be kidding though right?  Roland has just released a new monster synthesizer workstation:

https://www.roland.com/us/products/fantom_series/

with some new approaches to synthesizer workstations and with what looks like a full blown sequencer to me.  And it looks like it might even have a super knob LOL.

What is it that Roland, and Korg know about the synthesizer workstation market, that Yamaha doesn’t know?

Its got to be the case that Yamaha was using the Montage as a stop gap measure.  They clearly needed about 5 years to secretly and quietly work on a new monster Motif.  They had to be kidding us with that “customers no longer want full blown synthesizers workstations” They had to be joking right?  The Kronos, Kronos 2 might as well call it King Kronos is everywhere you look with professional gigging musicians. and is praised by all the pros that use it for its completeness and full blown workflow.  Now in walks Roland’s new Fantom series.  It looks and sounds FN Awesome.  And appears to be a complete synthesizer workstation Brand new in 2019. Surprise, surprise.

So Yamaha had to be kidding..... Right???

So I’m betting Yamaha is going to be releasing a new full blown workstation soon.  Maybe NAMM 2020 LOL.

If they’re smart they’ll keep the Motif name just like Roland kept the Fantom name.  I’ve already given my suggestion for the new name in a previous post.  But Motif CI (Cubase Inside) has caught my eye.  Motif CI 8, Motif CI 7, Motif CI 6

I have noticed some of the similarities between one of the recent versions of Cubase interface and some of the interface elements of the Montage. 

I would not be surprised if Montage was just a stepping stone to Motif CI LOL.  Motif with Cubase Inside would be a massive blow to both King Kronos and Fantom :-)

Yamaha had to be kidding back in 2016 with all of that “know one wants onboard sequencers” or full blown workstation synthesizers anymore.  They had to be just funnin us right????

No, Yamaha is not kidding. I personally couldn’t care less for a sequencer and I even hardly understand what drives people to bother with a keyboard sequencer on a tiny screen where they have to haunt the cursor with some ancient cursor buttons. But that’s just me!
I need one single usb cable to connect my Montage to my Macbook and I’m ready to sequence and record: midi and audio. And I have tools under my finger to accomplish tasks within seconds which would need hours to do on a keyboard sequencer.

Regarding Roland and their new Fantom: isn’t it a littlebit early to praise it before you even tried it? No user multisamples, practically no new sounds, it is all the same old set from the xv/jv line with the add of an VA and V-piano, no ability to load single patches, it’s all or nothing, and all that for some 800 Euros more than what a Montage or Kronos costs here in Europe.

I’m not satisfied with all things Yamaha has done on the Montage, there are quite some fails IMHO, but again, for those few enthusiasts how think that operating a keyboard sequencer which looks like a MS-DOS program from the nineties counts as making music instead of doing in in a easy, fast and funny way, I’m sure Yamaha did the marketing search and find that probably less than 10% of users ever touched the sequencer. Funny thou, Roland even doesn’t call the new Fantom a workstation. It is labeled as a synthesizer. :)

Sani, I see where you’re coming from., Its all good.

But there’s this old saying., Its better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it.

Roland, Korg, and Yamaha have been the top three synthesizer workstation manufacturers for about the last two decades.  IMO Yamaha was leading the pack with Motif.  Yamaha then tells us in 2016 that the consumer is no longer interested in the synthesizer workstation in the music production market. 

The question is, if that is true, why does both Korg and Roland have new support for fully loaded synthesizer workstations in 2019?  What does Yamaha know that they don’t?  King Kronos 2, and now the Fantom.  There must be a lot of demand still out there!

I perform live regularly our band squeezes as much gear on stage as possible.  I can’t imagine taking my mac book pro and cubase to one of my performances.  And yep I do live realtime sequencing as part of the show :-) Cubase is not designed for realtime sequencing and pattern sequencing in a performance scenario.  It may okay for home studios.  But it sucks as a musical instrument for live performance sequencing.

Cheers

Manufacturers typically do market research. Sometimes the gathered data results in a successful new product, and sometimes it doesn’t. An example of a well-known failure is New Coke. Coca-Cola eventually had to admit the mistake, New Coke was phased out in 2002, and only the Classic formulation remained - that is, until earlier this year, when they started trying New Coke on the market again.

I don’t mean to imply that the Montage and MODX aren’t successful, or that Yamaha will bring back the Motif line. Different users have different needs. There will always be those who like New Coke, and those who prefer the older version. To each his own.

I’m personally sticking with my Motifs. For now, they satisfy my needs.

Just as a sidenote:
O song made in Cubase can be exported and load into Montage! On the other side, there are a lot of downsides on the Fantom which are for me an absolute no go: the lack of user sampling and loading individual sounds are just one of them.

sani - 07 September 2019 05:55 PM

Just as a sidenote:
O song made in Cubase can be exported and load into Montage! On the other side, there are a lot of downsides on the Fantom which are for me an absolute no go: the lack of user sampling and loading individual sounds are just one of them.

Sani, I’m not trying to talk down the Montage.  Originally I had my complaints and doubts, but once I realized Yamaha was selling Montage as a performance synthesizer and not a synthesizer workstation, I evaluated the Montage for what it is.  And as a performance synthesizer its FN Awesome, and totally rocks!

Its not a workstation and it does not replace the Motif.  It can be used as a very very nice complement or supplement to the Motif.  But to be sure its no replacement for the Motif.  So please don’t misunderstand my position on the Montage.

Also, I would never buy that new Roland Fantom.  I don’t like those PADS on top of the keyboard. But its a gorgeous musical instrument otherwise and has awesome capabilities.  Again, I would easily choose the Motif over the new Fantom and King Kronos for that matter.

I’m just pointing out that both Korg and Roland have a HUGE commitment to a workstation market that Yamaha claimed in 2016 no longer existed.  Or maybe they were kidding us LOL. 

King Kronos is a beast very nice, very powerful Synthesizer Workstation, that new Fantom is a beast very nice, very powerful Synthesizer Workstation., That said, the Motif is my preferred beast very very very nice, very powerful Synthesizer Workstation.

I’m betting that Yamaha, will have to answer Roland’s and Korg’s commitment to synthesizer workstations.  Otherwise Yamaha will lose very important mindshare.  Its already lost some market share by conceding the workstation market in 2016.  If they continue that position, they will loose mindshare, which is even more important.  My crystal ball definitely has Yamaha coming out with a workstation synthesizer that has a scaled down Cubase built in.

If they follow their own Montage design, and the move that Roland made with the Fantom, the new Synthesizer Workstation will be modeless.  i.e.  everything is a performance, no more voice mode, pattern mode, song mode etc.  Modeless with Cubase built in.

Put another way, Take the Montage add built in Cubase, and the ability to play VSTs, throw in a User customizable interface (colors, fonts, and wallpaper) and sell it in some kool-aid colors and Voila, instant King Kronos and Fantom killer.

But as for me., I’m in the society of Motif and I will be there until the wheels fall off.  The more I learn about the Motif the more I realize that it is a FN power house capable of virtually everything.  It is limited only by my personal skill set , knowledge and musicianship.

The Motif’s full blown:

1. Subtractive synthesis engine, 8 oscillator, powerful filter, pitch, amplifier envelop generators,LFO’s digital filters and effects

2. Integrated Sampler
3. Full Blow 16 track Song/Pattern Sequencer
4. Powerful Ctlset, ribbon, after touch
5.  1 to 2 gig flash ram for virtually infinite upgrade
6.  8 Midi Zones (sky is the limit here)
7.  Audio input, and recording capability
8.  World Class Samples
9.  Built in jobs and utilities
10.  Tight integration with (Cubase) and other DAWS and with the computer through USB

Really gives me all the workstation synthesizer I can handle and more.  And TBH if I can’t get it done with the Motif, then no amount of synthesis or workstation capability can help me. I’m inspired by the Motif and it has the capacity to rise to my level of inspiration.

Montage is a awesome performance synthesizer, but its no Motif, and if Yamaha is the company I think they are, they’ll be releasing a new powerhouse synthesizer workstation in the next year or so.  Can somebody say Motif CI LOL!!

Cheers!!!

Just to make it clear, I don’t take it personally, nor do I try to defend the Montage on things one thinks it lacks. I just want to say that I firmly believe that workstation sequencers are a thing of the past in the same way as a keyboard sampler which almost nobody uses (instead, most of the users actually just need the ability to import the samples).

You may consider the Kronos as the king here, but don’t forget that Korg in the seven years since the Kronos was introduced, absolutely ignored the sequencer part. Hence, it is even a step back compared to the sequencer on the predecessor M3 which had a piano roll. That tells us that Korg simply didn’t care to much about the sequencer because there is not a big demand.

Kurzweil implemented the sequencer into their flagship model Forte. Do you believe they sell now more Fortes because of the sequencer? Absolutely not. IMHO, it was a pure waste of time which they could invest into far more important features. Just my personal opinion.

On the other side, I owned two Motifs and sold them because for my stage needs they were an absolute nightmare! Convoluted with dozens of modes, each mode lacking and making most easy things needless difficult:
For multitimbral setups you had the performance mode with just 4 parts and all them on the same midi channel, for more parts you need to use the workaround by wasting the sequencer and pattern memory. And to avoid jumping between sequencer and pattern mode, on top of that hassle, you had to put them into the master mode, so that you could stay on the same mode while performing on stage. And then, if you wanted to recall your master setups from another keyboard, you couldn’t because the master mode doesn’t react to standard midi commands (msb, lsb, pc).
See, that’s how different we all are and work.

I personally think that Yamaha didn’t anything wrong with the concept of the Montage without a sequencer and I don’t think that Roland will win more users because they implemented a sequencer on their new Fantom.

Some clarification/comments…

sani - 08 September 2019 05:47 AM

[...] For multitimbral setups you had the performance mode with just 4 parts and all them on the same midi channel,

Performance mode is not multitimbral, since the four Parts can’t be addressed individually (due to being assigned to the same MIDI channel, as you stated).

 

sani -

for more parts you need to use the workaround by wasting the sequencer and pattern memory.

The sequencer modes, Song and Pattern, are up to 16-Part multitimbral. Song and Pattern modes each have 64 available locations, for a total of 128 possible places to store multitimbral Mixings. Mixings use very little sequencer memory. Although having 128 Mixings available at a time is likely to satisfy most needs, access to more by loading “All Song” or “All Pattern” files takes little time.

 

sani -

And to avoid jumping between sequencer and pattern mode, on top of that hassle, you had to put them into the master mode, so that you could stay on the same mode while performing on stage. And then, if you wanted to recall your master setups from another keyboard, you couldn’t because the master mode doesn’t react to standard midi commands (msb, lsb, pc).

External selection of a specific Master is done with a Parameter Change SysEx message. Sending such a message may not be possible via some synths. However, if the Motif is acting as the master controller (which is the concept of Master mode), then that typically doesn’t present a problem.

 

sani -

See, that’s how different we all are and work.

Although I’m not currently using them, I have other synths besides the Motifs. Some are workstations, others are rack modules, etc. - samplers, ROMplers, FM, and analog. The Motifs cover most, but not all, of what those other synths can do. No synth is all things to all users, but unfortunately many users don’t learn how to take full advantage of the synth they have.

Touche 5pinDIN! Sani you would be well served to study 5pinDIN’s response to your post.  Perhaps read it a couple of times and let it truly sink in.  Its unfortunate that you had two Motifs and sold them both before you really understood what you had.  Good news is you can still find Motifs for sale. You cold purchase another one.  I’m told the 3rd time is often a charm.

My friend, it takes years (often decades) for trumpet, violin, french horn, organ, flute, guitar, bassoon, oboe, harp, piano, etc players to really understand their instruments. To master the articulations , tones, mechanics, embouchure,nuance, approach, techniques, aural complexity, and musical possibility of their instruments.  There is an intimacy of intricate interaction and understanding, give and take between a musician and his or her instrument.

A music production synthesizer, or workstation synthesizer is one of the most sophisticated and comprehensive musical instruments ever devised.  And the Motif is among the finest workstation synthesizers.  Like any other musical instrument we are talking about many many years of devotion, interaction, commitment, study, practice, exploration, experimentation to have a musical command of a workstation synthesizer, especially one as comprehensive and sophisticated as the Yamaha Motif.  It is truly a masterpiece.

By your responses in this thread, its clear that you:

1. Did not understand the architecture of the Motif
2. Chose not to or were unable to read and comprehend the reference manuals for the instrument
3. Missed many of the informative videos explaining and demonstrating the instrument
4. Did not see or was unable to digest the many many white papers detailing Motif’s operation
5. Did not spend sufficient time and effort to get to really know the Motif
6. Did not engage the Motif community about your misgivings and misunderstandings.
7. Are not aware of the many and diverse contexts workstation synthesizers are used in

Perhaps it was best that you sold a musical instrument that you did not or could not understand.
But I can’t help but wonder how many people you influenced or led astray with your misunderstanding.  Sadly, fake news can do a lot of damage.

Sani, I can only suggest that you give the Montage the time, effort, and commitment that it deserves.  It is a beautiful instrument.  Its one of the finest performance synthesizers available to day.  Its very deep.  As you should know it includes both AWM2 synth engine and a FM synth engine.  The motion control has a crazy amount of possibilities.  Like the Motif and any other musical instrument it will take years to really appreciate the musical possibilities.  I hope you give the Montage more due diligence than you gave the Motif.

I do have a few questions for your though.  Earlier you had a few criticism (unfounded), but criticism nonetheless for Motif.  Are you aware that since the release of Montage, Yamaha has added back in to the Montage as much missing Motif functionality as the firmware, time, and cost will currently allow?

What will you do with your Montage if Yamaha adds full sequencing and sampling through some kind of innovative firmware update to the Montage?  Will you sell it too?  Will you ignore the new features?

If Yamaha comes out with a new powerhouse workstation/synthesizer or music production synthesizer would you consider buying it?

Just curious…

Nothing personal here my friend, no worries....  we all make mistakes and are sometimes misinformed.  In today’s society we are inundated with so much information in so many areas that it is a challenge to keep everything straight, to know what’s true and what’s not.

You really didn’t understand the Motif, and my guess is you’ve got a ways to go to have a grip on the Montage.

Fortunately for you, you’re in the right place!  There are folks on Motifator like 5pinDIN that do really understand the Motif and they are happy to help put you on the right path.

If there is anything Motif related that you have a question about someone here can give you an informed answer.  I strongly suggest you find a similar source for Montage and spend lots and lots of time there.  And please; use caution when disseminating your technical knowledge about Motif or Montage.  There are a lot of impressionable minds out there.

Cheers!