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Yamaha montage review8/7/2023 Like the Montage, the MODX range features a powerful arpeggiator with 10,000+ presets. It’s actually brilliant that Yamaha have managed to retained so much for the price though. Regardless, the screen feels largely responsive and the OS feels almost identical to the much more expensive Montage, showing just how much power has been packed in.įurthermore (compared to the Montage), the ash ROM is slightly smaller for samples (and sample rate is down from 192kHz to max 44.1kHz), FM-X polyphony has been halved (from 128 to 64 notes), the Pure Analogue Circuit (post DAC circuitry) has gone (and we’d say a little clarity/air and richness has been lost as a result), the outputs are unbalanced versus balanced and there’s no ribbon controller. Also, as the MODX has lost many of the Montage’s direct parameter access buttons, there is a greater reliance on the screen for deeper programming. Like the Montage, the heart of the MODX programming system is the same full-colour, 7” touch-screen and data wheel/cursors, though you still can’t use the real-time controls during the editing process which would speed things up considerably. The soft feel pitch/mod wheels from the Montage have also made way for the harder plastic type found on the MOX and older Yamaha boards for compactness, they are now placed above the keyboard, instead of to the side. Talking of lost controls, the MODX has lost the Montage’s eight rubberised knobs with LED ring dials and now has four multi-function knobs, two assignable buttons and four plastic-capped multi-function faders instead of eight (this time with no LED meters) which can be assigned to various duties including (among others) part/element volume levels, organ drawbars and scenes (which are snapshots of performance control data for quickly changing up your sounds). One other downside to all the MODX actions is no aftertouch - as we’ve said many times to manufacturers, we don’t think aftertouch should ever be lost, especially for a board as deep in the synth department as the MODX! In contrast, the 76-note action feels light and very fast to play, though some will find it too light for accurate piano playing (ironically, we preferred playing piano via this action to the GHS keybed). We’d have liked a more authentic and better-balanced weighted action, especially as the slow response impacts on playing fast piano lines and synth stuff too. This description is spot-on as it does test out your fingers, arms and wrists (even for someone like me, who has 35 years of piano technique) and also the bounce-back is quite sluggish for fast note repeats. Yamaha describes this action as “great for the aspiring pianist, because it can help you build proper finger technique.” The 88-note weighted action GHS (Graded Hammer Standard) MODX8 weighs 13.8 KG (a notch over 30lbs) and is aimed at those wanting to get the most from piano and electric piano sounds, or to use as a weighted controller. For this review, we’re going to be taking a look at the MODX7 and 8 (the 76-note synth-action and 88-note weighted models).įirstly let’s take a quick look at the form factors. There are three models in the MODX range including 61 and 76-note synth-action models and an 88-note weighted model.
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