Montage M: All the Inner Secrets of Yamaha's Flagship Synth
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- Опубликовано: 4 июл 2024
- In this video I show the internals of the Montage M, talk about what is different from the original Montage, and go into detail over all the changes. This is a fairly technical video with a lot of information that explains why the Montage M works the way it does...and what we might expect from it in the future.
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0:00 Intro
0:23 Montage vs Montage M6
1:08 Changes
1:25 Analog Board
2:45 DAC/ADC Spec Comparison
4:50 Power Supply
6:10 Keybed
7:07 The Fan
7:58 SWP70 DSPs in Montage
9:39 SWP70 DSPs in Montage M
12:33 SSP2 USB FX in Montage
13:33 SSP3 USB FX in Montage M
14:29 Montage CPU
15:24 Montage M CPU
17:05 Faster Speeds
17:38 AN-X
18:19 Graphics
18:51 ESP Plugin
19:20 New OS 2.0 Firmware Features
#MontageM #Yamaha 
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Excellent video! There is almost no RUclipsr who is willing to do a review of the hardware, or even understands the components and their meaning! Very useful both to understand the capabilities of the tool, and also how to access it to make repairs. I think you are the first to do this on the montage, which is a very expensive tool.
I wish there were videos like this for many other tools 👍
Well I've done teardown/restoration videos for quite a few older synths, you might want to check those out too.
Let me add to your video if I may, Yamaha’s top workstations are made in a clamshell design to access them, that is more expensive to make, but much better for servicing and diagnosing, only some analog synths still do that.
the internal switching brick power supply is quite normal nowadays, plenty of pro and consumer electronics do it that way now, I’d make nothing of it, I prefer that because it’s just 1 rail, its a better way that’s also cost effective
Do notice the big faraday cages on emf sensitive electronics I love that Yamaha does this, the others don’t.
The foam blocks are dust protection and I’d imagine they want to keep pressure inside the montage and don’t get air on your fingers from the flowing fan air.
the adding an extra chip for “double” but not not of the same thing is creative way of boosting a spec sheet, Korg did it with the triton line when it introduced the triton studio, its gimmicky but it works, and it’s we’ll implemented on the MM
Buys yes as you brilliantly pointed out the new processor that brings it all together is what brings everything together and makes the MM feel next gen, snappiness is a feature that’s hard to boast about but it does a lot to impress the player
Excellent presentation
I think the fact that it uses a Clavinova PSU internally will be a good thing in the long run; easier to replace the whole unit rather than asking a tech to replace caps etc when it starts to fail in 30+ years from now....
I respectfully disagree: I repair a lot of synths, and changing a cap, regulator or diodes is way faster and cheaper than getting a replacement which will be hard to find in 10 years… I hate these power bricks inside pro gear with a passion ;-)
Agreed, I would FAR prefer to pull the PSU of the old Montage, replace a capacitor for 25 cents, and put it back together, than to pay $80 for another disposable power brick because the old one failed somehow.
@@reinardsynth6581 ah but that’s possibly because you have the skills to do so :-) I don’t, so someone like me would be reliant on a tech to do it for me (at least $150 plus parts!!). This internal PSU looks far easier for someone like me to replace and there will be lots of choice available, if not the original Yamaha one. Just needs to deliver the correct voltage, polarity and wattage I’d imagine.
@@ScottsSynthStuff. Great if you have the skillset to do that :-) I don’t and would have to rely on a tech - and they’re not cheap. For someone like me (and most owners I’d imagine) this ‘off the shelf’ power brick looks like a great way forward. Even if the Yamaha one isn’t available, there will be after market ones. 👍
@@iixorbyes, it is an “end user replaceable part” if it is done that way, and there is an end-user cost benefit here (no costly repair person-hours to pay) The sad state of affairs is that is cheaper to throw away stuff and install a new hardware module. Coupled with how these bricks are made almost un-repair able (ultrasonically
Welded plastic case, potting inside; of course no schematics available…) and the labour cost of component level repairs… to end users it becomes expensive; to the environment…
GREAT detailed look inside the Montage M. Thanks for the vid!
Great overview thanks for sharing. Very excited to see what else the future holds for the Montage M
The weird thing is the output from the Motif XF is amazing, but they really dropped the ball with the original Montage - everything was treble heavy and pianos sounded like Marimbas through a p.a. It’s good to hear that they have improved the output with the M, but really this is just correcting a major flaw in the original Montage.
Ooooh fascinating! ❤ and indeed, smart morph is only for AN-X or FM-X not a combination of the two ;)
I figured as much. But wouldn't that be cool! :) I can't wait to try it out on AN-X.
This board is unbelievable! My GOD! This is the first Yamaha im super excited about since the Motif XF! THIS is what the original Montage should have been!
Thank you very much Scott. Love how you detailed all the inside electronic boards.
Outstanding. Thank you!
Amazing work and explanation!
Entertained very much!
Thanks Scott! Very interesting break down on the differences between the Montage and Montage M. It has inspired me so off to my garage to get my duct tape, hacksaw and hammer to start upgrading my Montage. 😄
Thanks for doing this Scott! The power supply deal is surprising in a flagship Yamaha, but it seems lots of manufacturers are doing that now. Same in most Rolands too.
Yeah, I was really surprised by it!
So cool! Thank you for detailed explanation.
I usually repair old digital synths and was wondering what the contents of the latest models consist of. However, the latest models are very expensive and out of my reach. Your video was very nice and satisfied my curiosity. Thank you very much for the great video.
what an excellent video I really feel like my brain is getting massaged as I watched these things. Wonderful explanation of the chips and services. Be exciting to see how this works with my daw
Hey Scott ! I'm a 5-year MODX owner, I couldn't afford the Montage when it was released and I've been sufficiently happy with the MODX for the last couple of years. When the Montage M was released I thought it was time for an upgrade, but I wondered if perhaps I should just get a regular Montage now that the prices have dropped.
Your video helped me immensely, and was just what I needed. I will definitely save up for the Montage M, because these upgrades are fantastic. Thank you so much.
Honestly, I was really on the fence when the Montage M was announced, but I finally bit the bullet and went from my Montage to the Montage M, and I'm SO glad I did.
If you gig, you might regret upgrading. The MODX is so much easier to transport and practically the same instrument as the regular Montage, but you do get a better keybed & premium build quality, a few extra controls and a ram upgrade if you if have the older MODX. If the regular MODX & Montage were the same price, I'd still pick the MODX because portability is something I value. The MODX+ even more so.
Certainly some nice upgrades going from a MODX to the Montage M, but nothing I really absolutely have to have. My VST's offer a lot of additional sounds engines however. That would be a lot of saving you'd have to do as the price difference between the MODX & Montage M is a gigantic price difference. You probably get 2/3's of the sonic functionality of the Montage M in a MODX, but still there is the 1/3 difference. If your well off and don't gig, then by all means.
The Montage M is probably best for people that hate computers and want an all in one keyboard that does most everything they need. But for me, it still wouldn't do a lot of things I want.....but VST's would.
@@classicarcadeamusementpark4242 I actually ONLY use the MODX for gigging - when I dabble in music production at home, I use VSTs because it's easier and they (mostly) sound better.
The MODX is insanely practical for gigging, and it's paid for itself many times over, so I'd really like to upgrade to a better keybed, better sounding analog output, and more storage space for samples.
fantastic info, great vid and wow, look at the length of those keys and the pivots!
Thanks Woody! Those key lengths are the "key" to a good feeling keybed! And it's why your JD-Xi feels so miserable (I had one, too, just not as "decorated" as yours)
Great video Scott, really enjoyed it.
Nice. Thank you so much for the info and explanation 🙏
Excellent review 🙏🙏🙏
Thanks Scott!
Great video Scott !! coming from a technical background myself, I enjoyed the detailed info about the Montage M internals and contemplate the evolution that the technology took since the 80's (1986) when my small music equipment company was building an 8-voice polyphonic synthesizer with aftertouch based on Analog and digital technologies: Dual DCO's, DCF and VCA using OTA OP Amps, 1xDLFO per voice, BBDL Effects, a Z80 CPU board dedicated to Keyboard and control panel scanning and display control. Unfortunately, this synth never saw the light of day due to company bankrupsy (no money to invest on a critical moment...)
It's awful when dreams go away like that, I've been involved in projects like that as well! Although I wouldn't want to write Z80 assembler, it's been a long time...
Very interesting video. I like your video's about the Montage M
Great breakdown. I wonder on the circuit boards layer count. Ground layers are signal integrity's friend. Great to hear on the SW update coming.
Thanks Scott, I'm interested in this geekery, TBH the old Montage sounded very good to me, now I couldn't have imagined how Yamaha would have been able to improve on that but apparently they did, kudos !
so much info scott... I might just have to watch the video a couple more times... 😅
Excellent stuff Scott. I'd be very interested to hear more about the internals of the Hydrasynth Deluxe, Fantom & Fantom O models! :)
The hydrasynth will be underwhelming, very, the most interesting thing in there would be to take apart the key bed to see their implementation of poly AT, and the Fantoms, can be done but there not as easy to show on screen because of the way they are build, as stacked boards, so that involves a lot of tearing apart and disconnecting stuff, very different than Yamaha, bu5 I would love to have a peek inside too
This very helpfull even if I didn't understand what all the words mean. It helps too see if it holds up to the price
Excellent information thanks. I was shocked (no pun intended) when I saw that power supply. I'm still disappointed with Yamaha for the lack of stock in the UK and Europe for the Montage M and it makes me wonder if it is deliberate to keep the prices high.
great video, thx!
That was a super interesting insight video on the M. The only comment I have is one that your fellow youtuber who also just got an Montage M is that the first thing he mentioned was the sound of the fan. He didn't know it had a fan it it, and he said it's driving him nuts, and he couldn't 100 percent determine if it's a fan or not, you just validated that. Also, the fan seems like an "whoopsie" afterthought, we just put a way too powerful CPU in there, and we don't have the time to do it properly like laptop Fans (which has cooling pipes and takes the heat away with channels. They obviously just drilled it right on top of it, and the intake there, hm, is it blowing heat away (in which case it will heat up the PCB right above it) or drawing "cool" air into the cooling element? Since I'm an old tech this would be the first thing on my mind when seeing that "afterthought", because that's def. not something they planned, everything else is beautiful with a lot of improvements in the right places.
Honestly, I have my doubts the DACs and Opamps make a significant difference in sound quality. Yes, they are different on paper, but noones gonna hear
Great info as always Scott. I have to wonder though, the MODX+ proves that one SWP70 can do 128 voices of FM-X and 128 voices of AWM2, so why do they have a separate SWP70 for FM-X on the Montages?
I think that foam on the back of the keybed is to either keep dust out now that there’s a fan, or to reduce fan noise escaping from the case.
I’m pleasantly surprised at how powerful the CPU is in there! I have a Korg Nautilus which uses a dual-core Intel Atom (I think it runs at 1.9 GHz??) and when it boots up, the fan is very loud. That’s only during the boot-up process thankfully, the fan is otherwise virtually silent.
Hah Brilliant. At first I thought you were saying it sounds better when you took the lid off 😂😂 We should spread that as a rumor!
Awesome video Scott! Is it possible there would be an OS upgrade for a poly aftertouch for M6/M7 in the years to come? It's possible with other synths.
Not possible. The keybed hardware is completely different.
Thanks Scott for showing Ms guts and an enormous amount of information. Will there be a grey/white version of Montage M ?
I have no idea...but I won't be surprised if a white one comes out eventually.
Scott, very good video. Does the original Montage also have a fan?
No, it did not!
Thanks for the info, this power block puts me off.😂
I love this wonky stuff. Please do as many of these as you can. I would love it if you could do this for a high end PSR keyboard.
Great content. Roland and Yamaha are due for new hardware when the next Fantom and Montage replacements come into play. Both have stretched the existing chips to the limits.
It’s also crazy when you consider the development of regular CPUs in the time frame since those chips came out. I’m curious if it’s a complete in house development or if they are buying IP from third parties for those chips.
Surely this montage-m is Yamaha's next gen?
Thanks for the interesting video! I wonder about the wavefolding in os 2.0...
Isn't that already in the current version?
There is a wavefolder insert effect currently, but this new feature is wavefolding for the individual AN-X oscillators.
@@ScottsSynthStuff oh, nice to know 👍🏻. Thank you for your kind answer! I hope I'll get my montage m soon. Currently they are hard to get in Europe.
Please!! I would love to see those details on MOTIF XF 8 vs MONTAGE M8
My korg m3 has a PSU like this (not sure if its yamaha) but I wondered if they did it due to the modular frame where you can link another synth with it so maybe it powers that too
🙋♂️ Hi Scott - Great Job... 👍
Greetz from (occupied) Germoney... 😢
Very informative video. I've yet to try one out, but I'm hoping one of our Guitar Centers in the area has one on the floor. I know one store did when I called when it came out, but I haven't made it there yet.
While the sound quality of the M is improved, and some of the samples cleaner, for my purpose of playing in cover bands or tribute bands for live performance, I still think the difference in sound between my MODX would be minimal in a full rock band situation. Only if your going to do piano solo without the band or something. Some of those strings might be fuller, but most of the sounds used would probably still be the same or almost the same. The AN-X engine is nice, but.....all the VST analog synth engines are probably going to closer model the sounds I'm after of the original synths.
Portability to a live band is key. A MODX M could be something I'd eventually be interested in. Even better...If Yamaha offered "at reasonable cost" a new upgrade board installed by their service centers to upgrade an original MODX to a MODX M. Surely I'd pay $500 or something like that to upgrade.
MODX + laptop full of VST's still seems like the best solution to me what what I want to do. The Montage M has some nice upgrades, but still relatively smaller compared to what upgrading to the MODX did for me vs my older synths I used previously.
I agree - I would not be dragging a Montage around on tour unless I was a huge artist that had a road crew doing it for me. My live board is a Fantom-06 for this exact reason: compact and lightweight, and still does most of what the big Fantom does.
@@ScottsSynthStuff My Fantom is Roland's VST's on my laptop. I'm generally not that big a fan of Roland's sounds compared to the ones available for the Yamaha though for what I do, which is 80s/70s rock covers. The Fantom is more ideal for synth pop.
Roland offers probably 90+% of what the Fantom 0 does as software that can be run on a laptop. The B3 engine isn't offered, maybe not the arpegitator, nor the Super Natural sounds but I hear there aren't that many in the Fantom 0 to begin with. Zenology offers the same ZenCore sounds and all the synth modeled expansions like the Jupiter 8 and all the sound packs are available as VST's. The regular Fantom has the V-Piano which you can't get as a VST but there are good alternatives in other VST's, same with the B-3 engine. I think there are more super natural sounds on the regular Fantom too. But one huge advantage to the software route is all the more faithful sounding ABC models Roland offers only to computer users that aren't available to their Fantom/Fantom 0 users. These are of desirable synths including the D-50 you can't get for the Fantom's (so far) and also come in a form factor more representative of the original keyboards than the ZenCore models offered for the Fantom's.
The choice that works best for me is my MODX + laptop VST's which include most of the Fantom sounds.
Hello Scott, very informative video, thanks. 👍
I have a question about AWM2 elements in the new Montage. The manual says "AMW2: 128 Elements (max.)".
The question is, each part can use up to 128 elements, or the AWM2 engine's limit is 128 elements, and these elements can be shared on one or more parts?
With more simple words, can we have, for example, a 4-part performance with 32 elements per part (total 128 elements) or we can have a 4-part performance with up to 128 elements per part (total 512 elements/performance)?
Thanks for any answer.😎
You could do both...but you would end up with massive voice stealing if you had all that sounding at once.
Basically you have 128 preset voices and 128 USER voices. You can distribute those amongst your performance as you see fit. But if you are using up all 128 preset voices on a part that is using factory preset sounds, you don't get any more even if NONE of the user voices are being used.
@@ScottsSynthStuff Yes, i know all that about polyphony, i had the MODX7 and now i'm thinking to buy a Montage M.🙂 The question is specifically about the elements of AWM2 engine. If we can use up to 128 elements per part, we can do crazy things that no other synth can do. For example, we can make a performance of, say, 4 parts, and in each part we can put 128 elements to run in Cycle or Random mode, so we won't have a problem with polyphony. But the potential for sound design here is really enormous.
Thanks Scott! I'm not too knowledgeable about the techy stuff, so I wanted to ask if it is possible for the ANX polyphony to increase with future updates, or is the ANX polyphony limited to the current internal components? Is that a reasonable question...ha? Thanks :)
It's likely limited to what the CPU can do today.
@@ScottsSynthStuff Ok, thanks a lot.
I own Motif XF
I’m thinking about upgrading to Montage or Montage M.
How easy is to copy my custom voices / performances / patterns?
Does both Montage and Montage M have realtime pattern playback sequencer with 5 scene mute states / Pattern A-P bar quantize?
Thanks. Good to know as Arturia has this new MPE full touch key action that's another dimension. I wonder if the M8x is capable of something similar using the GEX/PAT and higher processing power and whether the electromagnetic system can be customized. With the new 2.0 OS forthcoming will the M8x be exactly the same or different? That power brick is nothing new as the $6,000 Genos 2 has exactly the same crap as well as other manufacturers. Obviously that brick will go bad eventually and we'll have to replace it along with the fan.
Here's really hoping Yamaha releases the ESP plugin as a standalone product for those of us who would LOVE to have a montage M but, cannot in any way shape for form afford one.
Considering the specs of the CPU and DSP chips on the Montage M, it makes me wonder how much more it could theoretically do on an advanced CPU/GPU chip like the Apple M3. I also wonder if Yamaha is emulating the hardware inside the synth in ESP or if they have ported the code to run truly natively on Intel and Apple M series ARM chips.
Really great video. I was wondering if there is any way to somehow "copy" some of preset sounds into user memory so that I can use built in sounds however physically stored as user sound and thus taking advantage of double polyphony. Such guide would be really priceless 🙂
As far as I know, there is no way to copy the actual factory samples into user memory outside of actually sampling them (i.e. Sample Robot). So it's not impossible, but it wouldn't be easy.
@@ScottsSynthStuff Unless Yamaha provides an expansion to load up as long as it's not proprietary content because I had already asked the exact same question. It appears to be a total waste of that chip and 128 poly because what if some of us never load anything? I'd rather have a duplicate of the internal ROM and double the AWM2 options.
Waiting for the white edition
We're gonna need a Montage montage.
Yes my good Man......could You check the Fluids...and the Fan is squeeling....a little WD-40 will remedy that. ❤.....GREAT VIDEO SCOTT!!!!
Hi Scott, excellent video, I could do the same thing with the new fantom.
The new Fantom (hardware wise) is identical to the old Fantom, actually.
@@ScottsSynthStuff So, in terms of hardware, the Fantom EX (New Fantom) is similar to the Fantom G (Previous version of the Fantom)?
@@LeandroSantos-jv4ex no, that is the previous generation. The current Fantom came out in 2019. The new Fantom EX is identical in terms of hardware to the 2019 Fantom, the only difference being the operating system.
I see, but have you made a video showing the New Fantom's hardware in detail like this Montagem M video? If so, I don't think I've watched it yet.
I wonder how good is the sequencer, because I have a modx and it can be tedious when it comes to editing.
Scott, can you give a rough guess what the cost of all these parts and chips are "at cost"? Cheers!
Is the first AWM2 chip really only for factory presets, or is it for factory samples? In other words, if you make your own preset using the factory samples, which chip plays your preset (or Voice in Yamaha speak)? By the way, as I recall, the TG500 had two chips that each referenced a different sample ROM way back in the early 90s. An easy way to double the polyphony, at the expense of some flexibility.
Factory SAMPLES, yes. If you make a user preset utilizing a factory sample, it's going to play on that first chip. If you make one using a sample from a library that you have loaded using custom samples, it's going to play on the second chip.
The sitara chip is still hillariously underpowered, the a15 architecture is 14 years old and no longer supported by ARM, the last release with it was in 2015!, the M4s are probably faster despite running at 1/6th the speed.
The OG montage/modx used an archaic Arm9 CPU if i recall, an architecture from the 90s discontinued in the mid 2000s but still used for some reason by TI.
It needs a fan because its an ancient 40nm chip that drinks power and performs like a 2010 smartphone. The most useful things in it are the DSPs, but if yamaha did a korg and just used the significantly (we are talking magnitudes) faster pi compute modules or similar, evetything could run on the CPU anyway.
The a15 has an FPU, the Arm9 CPU in the old systems doesnt have an FPU.
Dont give yamaha credit for using a 10 year old chip that they could have used in the OG systems.
6:00 Scott, what "word" did you use to describe the power supply set up in this Montage?
Chintzy! 🙂
Wow
With 32bit architecture the hope for increased user flash memory is out of the window, but you mentioned sata support. What could this potentially mean?
It means the CPU is capable of it, but there is no circuitry on the board that shows that Yamaha has any intention of implementing it.
Something you said in your first montage m videos and I don't see mentioned often is that the montage m solved the "one midi input channel - one part" limitation. This was huge for me because I bought a modx 6 with the hopes of using it as a lightweight synth to which I could plug my external 88 key weighted keyboard. This in theory allowed to be able to have a full sized keyboard while still retaining the possibility of a portable setup. My hopes came crashing down when I realized there was no way of controlling more than one part at a time from an external keyboard (at least one with a single fixed midi channel output). Nor was it an option for changing the part that the ext. controller plays, so you can't control different parts with different scenes. And this wasn't even different for the montage. It seems completely insane to me, and I've wondered many times if it was due to hardware limitation or just an option Yamaha purposely wasn't interested in delivering. Now the montage m finally gave us this capability, but the smallest model still is too heavy for it to be as convenient as I wanted.
I don't know if I understood you, bur you can easily control multi part performances with Single or Hybrid MIDI control in the Montage / MODX utility menu.
@@lumer2b That's right, but those two modes basically allow for the external controller to play either only one part or all parts. What is not possible is to have an option similar to the "keyboard control" feature of the built-in keyboard. In other words, you cannot have the external keyboard control different parts with scene changes. I don't even know if this is possible with the montage m, but from what I've gathered you can select a specific subset of parts to control, in contrast to controlling only one or all at the same time.
@@teo_lp Ah I see. You can store the 'keyboard control on/off" state for each part in different scenes, so I think it should be possible to change scene and have it play a different part (with MIDI mode Single or Hybrid it will play whatever parts have 'keyboard on').
Hello, is it possible now touse I SP without Heading Montage M.? Thanks for Anyanzer Rainer
does it have a better, more reliable touch display?...i'm one of those, probably rare cases with a montage 6, that has a touch display that only reacts correct after 30 to 45 minutes 'warming up' time, wich is weird (calibrating does not help) with only in house use...i'm concidering buying this as a replacement.
I've had a MODX, Montage, and now a Montage M, and none of them have ever had that problem. The touch display on the new Montage is the same as the old one.
@@ScottsSynthStuff thanks, i stil going to buy the m6 afteral, hoping i get a somewhat reasonable price for my current montage.
But the guarantee is now gone! ;-) In any case, everything is very tidy and you can probably fix most things yourself if you have the spare part. It would have been interesting to see what the hard drive looked like?
Anyone...
Any guesses when the new MODX (MODX-m) will be due ??
Korg does the same stuff with the power supply and in a much worse way. I don't feel it's a problem here, in fact standard parts make for much easier servicing (also reduces manufacturing costs). What really strikes me is the M appears to be a hacked-together evolution of the classic rather than a new design. It's a more-of-what-we-know thing, arranged in a weird split personality way (one for presets, one for user performances) instead of a new unifying architecture. It is still an amazing keyboard but I have the feel Yamaha overpromised and underdelivered (or lets say we were all overhyping this ourselves):
- No new higher resolution capacitive screen
- The HDMI output (which is now directly on the sitara chip) does not come to an external port
- No polyphonic aftertouch on the 6 and 7 where people are more probable to want/need it.
Looks like I will skip this generation.
Its not a new strategy in synths, its been used as far back as 2000 in the waldorf Xtk except the power brick was rotated so the cord plugged into it directly through back of the case.
The team at Yamaha is very small, much smaller than I had thought. And they are budget starved. Not surprised at all about the power supply.
Hi Scott! Are you expecting Yamaha to offer a keyboard upgrade to poly aftertouch? With love, Ken
There is no facility in the existing M6 and M7 for polyphonic aftertouch. Also, polyphonic aftertouch keybeds need to be individually calibrated to the synth at the factory before shipping.
@@ScottsSynthStuff I think he might mean to the M8x
@@ScottsSynthStuff ok, thanks!
Yowza, that PSU is janky AF. There must be some sort of "rub and buzz" thing going on that the foam strips solve.
Considdered all the features the new CPU have, it's kinda weired why they havn't used some of them to adapt a way of having samples on an sdcard of some kind. to swap sample sets in and out. Even the type used has different speeds, in my mind it should be sufficient to move 4-5gb reasonable fast, I mean they use EMMC memory which isn't especially fast compared to hi speed DDR and SDD storage in many raspberry pi or other single board computers and compatibles to load the OS. It only need to be fast enough to move those avg 5gb max of samples once in a while. The instrument could have a small dock underneath where you could easy mount 1 or 2 cards of anything between 16 and whatever max size a compatible type of memory it supports. It would just be used like you used a harddisk in the old days to store anything from samples to midifiles.. etc. It's kinda the same as with some computer parts .. they have a chip that is able to give you USB 3.1 but it has to go thru an usb 2 switch, how silly is that. Its the same as hdmi 2.1 has been out for years but Monitor brands keep giving us new Monitors that only has 2.0 just to save a few bucks and people then have to live with 60Hz thru hdmi on a panel that supports 240 hz. The world is silly.
It's not a new CPU, the architecture is 14 years old, the sitara chip itself is at least 10 years old. It's hilariously underpowered compared to the likes of the pi powered korg synths, AN-X is only 16 voices because the a15 CPU is barely fast enough to do that.
@@lewisd56 In synth language or timeline, 10 years old is really new because synths are trickle down technology else they'd be double the cost. If they sold like I-phones the latest tech would be cheap as dirt because of the law of supply and demand. In comparison, no one is/are demanding synths from the general mass of population. There's no money or not much in making synths but I'm glad someone is doing it.
I highly doubt Yamaha is using CANBus - that's a low bandwidth interface/protocol mostly used in the automotive industry. Guessing the TI CPU is an off-the-shelf part intended for a variety of verticals - just because it has SATA doesn't mean Yamaha will ever use it, especially if they didn't add all the other required components to the mainboard.
I'm very familiar with CANBus actually, and there are some serial interconnected components...but without the service manual, I'm just guessing at this point. And you're right, this is a processor meant for all kinds of vertical applications, and there is no visible support for SATA or most of the other things I mentioned anywhere on the PCB.
Easier to change and find a power supply. I like it.
The fan will eventually start screeching like the old worn out PC power supply fans.
That was my thought.....every fan has a lifetime and will sooner or later start signing their own melody....
Yeah 😂
You won't hear the difference between a good quality 16 bit and a 24 bit samples.
Better converters might have an effect indeed.
Definitely a well made instrument. Not some Celeron based... Korg? Do You see?
The Raspberry Pi compute module used on the newer Korgs is much more powerful than this chip.
-- 😊👍🎹
The power supply is kind of janky. Even the older Motif XS has the better power supply as the older Montage. Cost savings perhaps?
Power brick may be lame, but easy to replace with an inexpensive 3rd party unit. Replacing a custom power supply is expensive!
But REPAIRING that custom power supply is cheap, it can usually be done for a dollar or two in parts. Much better than pitching the brick in the trash and spending $80 on a new one.
@@ScottsSynthStuff Not all power supplies are salvageable. Not everyone is a competent power supply rebuilder. By contrast, substituting a third-party part would be a breeze.
The fan on the montage M is quite noisy. This is the first time I have a synth (idle) that makes as noise as a laptop (when CPU is working hard) that's my only regret with the Montage M.
That's odd...I have NEVER actually heard the fan on my Montage M7 until I opened it up to make this video. For all I know, it could have been inoperative. It does sound louder in this video, because I put the camera and microphone RIGHT NEXT to it, but even with the top open I had to bend down close to it to actually hear it myself.
Respectfully, does comparing 0.0016 % THD with 0.0008% make any sense ? If yes, was the old Montage just sh*t in terms of audio quality, despite being Yamaha's Synthesizer top-line for several years ?
From a memory perspective, it sure was, and is. With a Boesendorfer Piano and some a bit thicker multisamples it was already full, a bit later than the MODX, but still easy to reach its memory capacity. While other brands were able to implement standard SSDs. And I fear, the technological advancement is not that great. Now there is a fan. While very silent, fans do tend to degrade mechanical. Coming from a no-fan engine and going to be fan-dependent seems to me counter-cyclical, too. Processors get faster by using less and less power, yes ?
The software got an overhaul and utilizes a second display, but I cannot fathom anyone who has already a Montage would long after the new M.
When the Montage M vst plugin will be available for all I will sell my Montage 6. Today lots of bands use a Mac and Mainstage with plugins. M4 or Arm processors today are enough powerful to run multiple instances of our hardware synths. See for example the OsTirus, it's the 1:1 emulation of the Motorola cpu + the Virus os. I have many vst plugins from Korg and some of the Roland Cloud, all of them sound great. I never will buy a new hw synth.
That power supply was super janky. Yikes.
Thank god I got rid of the Modx. Too bad the UI is absolutly atrocious and a mind fuck to work with, because it actually has some pretty amazing sounds (orchestral) on it. And the enphasis is on Some.
Yamaha getting really greedy. The synth is way overpriced and they use spare parts for internals to keep the manufacturing costs down. Most likely they have a bunch of cheaply made powersupplies laying around. And no new keybed, that’s lame. And that low quality extra screen with washed out bleeding lcd background. And using same main screen as before. They’ve could have upped the size at least.
Esse tipo de equipamento tem obsolescência programada. A cada ano se tornam "melhores" para serem comprados. Só ilusão.
Baboseira. O Montage anterior foi lançado em 2016, 8 anos atrás, e continua funcionando mesma coisa que antes. Quem comprar um novo leva um com mais tecnologia, quem não quiser não precisa.
Minimoog foi lançado em 1972 e vale mais que o Montage 2016. Roland Juno 106 foi lançado em 1984 e é comercializado a 10.000 dólares. Fantom, Kronos e Montage, é só ilusão.
Old synth had rom chips, that had a lifespan of more than 40 years. And you could back them up as well and burn new chips. This new model has NAND flash that will wear out every time you use the synth. After a couple of years the custom Yamaha chips with embedded flash will fail and the synth will be a brick. Nobody will be able to repair it.
First off, the NAND is not inside the custom Yamaha chips, it is generic external dedicated NAND chips. Second, these synths using this architecture for over two decades now, and have never heard of a failed NAND flash.
@@ScottsSynthStuff I will have a second look on this synth then. Still have a Motif es6 with a couple of PLG boards. The only thing i had to repair was some buttons that needed excessive force, and did not always work. But gave many years of excellent service .
I cannot believe -- I mean I cannot even reconcile it in my brain -- that Yamaha basically installed a standard external power brick inside the Montage. That is so half-baked, corner-cutting dog shit that Yamaha should be ashamed of. This is Yamaha not Bontempi. Do you think the M8x is the same way? Ive been planning to buy an M8x but there's part of me that wants to say "no" just for that internal power brick to vote with my wallet and tell Yamaha "thats unacceptable" especially when the original Montage didnt have it.
If it makes repairability easier and reduces the overall cost of the unit because they are using a part that has probably paid for any capital expenditures many times over, why does it matter? If its literally the same components that go into a custom PSU and doesn't affect sound, who cares?
@@sergiodeoliveira5358 Part of the reason you buy a high end keyboard is a higher end internal PSU to avoid the flaky nature of those bricks. Its the deception of Yamaha that is as much as problem as the PSU itself. They didnt even create a properly sized power cable for it. They just wadded it up and zip-tied it together. Its like buying a Ferrari and noticing all the Fiat parts inside it. Its the posture and process and lack of attention to detail. If they are so sloppy in something as simple as this, I have to assume they cut corners elsewhere too. That's the moral hazard. Everything matters at this price point -- even the stuff you can't see.
@@UDPride Everyone is doing the same thing including Korg on the Fantom or PA5x. The Genos has it too which is $6,000. It's pretty silly and probably saves them $100 a unit. Maybe it's lighter too.
My korg m3 from 2008 has the same. Doesn’t mean its bad, maybe by design it allows them to use it rather than make one just for it
LOL. The inner secretes to all digital workstations are that they are low end cheap, basic CPU's with custom designed midi controller attached, and a cheap LCD screen. There is literally almost no value in the hardware! It's crap! Not sure the last time we had dedicated silicon providing key functions! Almost all the shelf parts. Well, as long as us fools keep giving money to the greedy corps, they will keep making junk, with decent software. It's all a joke. Almost everything has a VST version for 100-200.00 LOL. Not sure why anyone still buys these! At this point? Only way I'll spend money on synths would be analog! At least someone took time to build something out of actual hardware and no CPU hidden in there pretending to be something special.
you realize the Prophet 5 from 1977 was run by a CPU, right?
How's PSU from a piano bad? All of those are just computers anyway, as long as it provides stable 3.3, 1.5 and 12 volts it's just fine.
The PSU in the original Montage was a metal box with individual, high-quality components in it. If something failed, you could take it apart and fix the PSU by replacing a failed component on the board. The new PSU in the Montage M is just a potted brick that is thrown away and replaced if it fails.