Bad Mister just showed me the Montage.

Motif series is now officially dead. It was a fun product cycle, y’all!

RIP Motif 2000-2016

My XF8 is alive and well...vitals are great, very strong heartbeat!

cmayhle - 22 January 2016 08:25 PM

My XF8 is alive and well...vitals are great, very strong heartbeat!

That might just be the metronome.  :-)

Both my XS6 and XF6 are similarly still showing signs of life.
Most parents still love and will support their kids beyond age 16.

Hopefully the Motifs’ “parents” haven’t completely abandoned them.

I still use my Classic8 & ES6 all the time. But this is the end of an era. Montage is the new workstation we’ve discussed for years. It’s different enough to earn the new name. I won’t talk features and specs; they’ll do that. But it sounds and plays great and I’m honored to break the news here.

PatchChord - 23 January 2016 02:57 AM

...But it sounds and plays great and I’m honored to break the news here.

If by “here” you mean Motifator, the news was broken “Here” on January 11.

Ahhh, sure enough, thanks. Didn’t think to check the XF sub.

Yamaha`s service seminars Thursday covered their ‘new products’ but they didn’t breathe a word about the Montage. I didn’t see it until NAMM yesterday; now had more chance to check it out.

Montagefator.com anyone?

Although it seemed likely, this is the first I’ve heard of it actually coming from someone at Yamaha.

I half expected that the MoXF and/or MX series would keep going longer after the flagship Motif ceased in order to keep those lower tier points filled until whatever follows the Montage in that respect comes along.

Way_ne - 24 January 2016 06:51 AM

...this is the first I’ve heard of it actually coming from someone at Yamaha.

Yes, to quote Athan Billias (former ‘Yamaha USA’ on here):

“The Motif series is over.”

What this means to me specifically is that they’re not making any more Motifs and there won’t be an X+ or whatever.

Montage does have backward compatibility. I’m just wrapping my head around it, but Bad Mister kept pointing to the panel, saying, “Each one of these 8 buttons is 8 Motifs.”

There’s no more Voice, Performance, Master or Song modes; it’s all one mode now with no on-board sequencer editing. It will still record and play a sequence, though. But the mind blower was when Phil kept saying, “Each of these buttons is 8 Motifs”.

There’s also this big, funny knob…

Since the Montage is not a true replacement for the Motif, I wonder if Yamaha will continue to manufacture new XF keyboards?

Some still in stock, but no more being made from what they told me.

Okay if Motif Series is dead :-)

then this site becomes:

http://www.montagitator.com
http://www.montifagator.com
http://www.montagetifator.com
http://www.motifmontageator.com
http://www.montageator.com
http://www.motiftage.com

or..

http://www.yamahasynths.com LOL

Motifator
Support for the Motif Community

becomes:

Motifator.com
Support for the Motif and Montage Community

or

Montage.com

Support for the Yamaha Synthesizer Community

Eventually the website will have to be updated right?  LOL

“Bad Mister kept pointing to the panel, saying, “Each one of these 8 buttons is 8 Motifs.””

What a load of a marketing nonsense…

Yamaha states that it has 128 stereo voice polyphony in AWM2 engine. That’s nice but, there is some confusion or lack of clarity about polyphony across the whole montage system. Yamaha states that in the AWM2 engine, mono voices are still at 128. So 128 voice poly stereo or mono. Normally, x number of stereo voices is doubled in mono. Example, in the motif-XF you get 64 voice stereo/128 mono. This is fairly standard across the synth workstation market. Montage offers 128 stereo/128 mono-Curious! And even-though the other engine, the FM type is listed at 128 voices, Yamaha never says mono or stereo, so you can be sure it is probably mono. What I want to know is whether the system puts out 128 voice FM PLUS 128 voice AWM2 simultaneously. Does anyone know?

philmagnotta - 03 February 2016 02:33 AM

Yamaha states that it has 128 stereo voice polyphony in AWM2 engine. That’s nice but, there is some confusion or lack of clarity about polyphony across the whole montage system. Yamaha states that in the AWM2 engine, mono voices are still at 128. So 128 voice poly stereo or mono. Normally, x number of stereo voices is doubled in mono. Example, in the motif-XF you get 64 voice stereo/128 mono. This is fairly standard across the synth workstation market. Montage offers 128 stereo/128 mono-Curious! And even-though the other engine, the FM type is listed at 128 voices, Yamaha never says mono or stereo, so you can be sure it is probably mono. What I want to know is whether the system puts out 128 voice FM PLUS 128 voice AWM2 simultaneously. Does anyone know?

It’s 128 voices, either stereo or mono, period, divided amongst the parts. So if you have 8 parts in a performance, 4 of them AWM,4 FM, you still have the 128-voice poly limit. Obviousy
if you’re playing an 8-part performance and playing lots of notes and using the sustain pedal, you will run out of polyphony.

The system does not distinguish between a stereo waveform and a mono waveform. In other words, stereo waveforms don’t take up twice the polyphony. How does Montage do this? I don’t know exactly, ask the Yamaha engineers.

Ok, thanks Dave. This is what I had assumed. Its better than nothing. With all of the on-board DSP and or other processing/memory increases, its too bad the Montage nor anyone one else’s synth has been able to proclaim a 256 voice machine. Still, the montage looks to be a real nice synth.

It’s 128 voices, either stereo or mono, period, divided amongst the parts. So if you have 8 parts in a performance, 4 of them AWM,4 FM, you still have the 128-voice poly limit. Obviousy
if you’re playing an 8-part performance and playing lots of notes and using the sustain pedal, you will run out of polyphony.

The system does not distinguish between a stereo waveform and a mono waveform. In other words, stereo waveforms don’t take up twice the polyphony. How does Montage do this? I don’t know exactly, ask the Yamaha engineers.

I did watch a Yamaha rep. demonstrating the Montage and talking about this. He held one finger on a single note and said that it this were a Motif stereo voice that (2) notes of polyphony would be used. They have made a pretty big ta-do about the “stereo 128”. Stereo usually implies (2) separate channels and I suppose you could have a different waveform sounding in each channel. Seems like that would still use (2) notes of polyphony. Stereo is usually sound movement between channels sounding the same voice and not necessarily an FM EP on the left and a AWM2 on the right. If you sampled in stereo you could have a left mic and a right mic providing full nuance I suppose. If Montage doesn’t provide 256 poly, like some specs we observed early on, then how is it any different whether mono or stereo and why make a big deal about this in all of the presentations if there is no real difference? If it can do 128 poly X 2 channels then it has to be equal to 256 mono polyphony. This sounds like the typical Yamaha embellishment of product specs.

So if I have an FMX engine that is 128 poly and I have an AWM2 engine that is 128 poly (stereo or otherwise) and I make these 2 voices a single performance, are you telling me that when these 2 voices are played in unison that I still only have 128 total poly regardless of their individual abilities? or are they each capable of 128 poly individually even when played together?

I’m starting to hear that famous EX5 review stating that it’s something much less than the sum of its individual parts.