Welcome to the new era from the company that brought you the DX and the Motif. Montage sets the next milestone with sophisticated dynamic control, massive sound creation and streamlined workflow.
Yamaha has taken the wraps off the Montage, its new flagship synth, which is very much an all-rounder, and a serious studio / stage instrument that comes in 61, 76 and 88 note flavours.
MONTAGE
MUSIC IN MOTION
Welcome to the new era from the company that brought you the DX and the Motif. Montage sets the next milestone with sophisticated dynamic control, massive sound creation and streamlined workflow.
Yamaha has taken the wraps off the Montage, its new flagship synth, which is very much an all-rounder, and a serious studio / stage instrument that comes in 61, 76 and 88 note flavours.
For more than 40 years now, Yamaha has created synthesizer milestones- from the revolutionary DX7 in the 1980s to the legendary MOTIF series, Yamaha has set the standard with its FM and AWM synthesis. Now it ' s time for a meeting of generations: With MONTAGE Yamaha presents a unique flagship synthesizer and re-defines the criteria for stage and studio. Its Motion Control Synthesis Engine, combining FM-X and AWM2 Tone Generators with controllers, allow completely new interaction with sounds and sound shaping, making MONTAGE one of the most flexible synthesizers of all time. At the same time the instrument is a dream machine for all songwriters and keyboardists and comes with 61 or 76 keys with synth action and with 88 keys with weighted hammer action.
At the heart of the Montage is the Motion Synthesis Engine, which combines Yamaha ' s AWM2 waveform-based subtractive synthesis engine with a new " modern version of synthesis " known as FM-X. This offers eight Operators, 32 algorithms and seven Spectral Forms.
Other features include Spectral Skirt and Spectral Resonance- which are said to enable widening of the harmonic curve and the shifting of harmonic peaks- plus filters, EQ, an additional Common LFO and effects.
You ' ll probably be familiar with the AWM2 technology, but in the Montage it delivers 128 notes of stereo polyphony, with the synth having ten times the waveform capacity of the existing Motif XF( in fact, it looks like Montage is the direct successor to Motif). This can be used at the same time as the FM-X engine- the engines can be played in up to 16 keyboard zones and also layered.
Montage also promises a new method of manipulating sounds known as Motion Control. The Super Knob can control multiple parameters simultaneously, Motion Sequences enable you to sync parameter tweaks to tempo, and there ' s also an envelope follower.
As you ' d expect, the Montage comes packed with presets, including a high-quality grand piano and synth sounds from Yamaha ' s DX and TX synths. It also offers direct connection to a computer over USB- audio channels for all 16 parts are sent to your DAW, as is MIDI data- and it can even be hooked up to an iOS device.
All three Montage models feature a 7-inch touchscreen; the smaller two keyboards have semi-weighted synth action keyboards, while the 88-note model has a hammer action.
The Score Magazine
24 www. thescoremagazine. com