This is one of these hopelessly sugarcoating kind of articles, which have earned „Keyboard“ the dubious reputation of being an overly andulating, industry-dependeant publication hyping gear to stay alive themselves, with „reviews“ making the impression of not offering much beyond some inflated promotional information from company leaflets. As subscriber of „Keyboard“ I meanwhile only read artcicles related to music making (workshops, interviews) etc. from them, and completely ignore these mostly third-rated “reviews”.Mosquita Muerta wrote:Keyboard article ...
What Stephen Fortner, a very experienced person I have a lot respect for, is writing here, really makes me wonder what the heck he was thinking experienced keyboarders would swallow blindly from such a "review".
One example: He seriously names only one predecessor “among some other brands” for seamless sound switching, namely Kurzweil – as if not Roland (in an imperfect way) and Korg (perfectly well done) had offered that since many years. And instead of writing, what would be appropriate: that it was high time that Yamaha, being a lot behind and the last(!) of the big four just named, finally closed the years long gap, Stephen Fortner goes as far as claiming that they were the first where you don’t hear “bumps in the audio” due to effects changes. I don’t hear “bumps in the audio”, using my Kronos’ completely smooth seamless sound switching, since 5 years.
Next: instead of naming the terribly weak organ sounds in the Montage as what they really are, just miserable, Fortner seriously claims that while the Leslie sim is weak, „the organ sounds themselves are good enough that with the aid of a better rotary pedal (or real Leslie), you could use it as your main source of B-3 sounds all night.” I dare to doubt that using a sample set, even with a better Leslie, would be an option even worth considering for keyboarders wanting to play B3 sounds all night, while they can have all kinds of fully and well working B3 clones, of which most do a better job by a big margin. Why would they want to use a static sample set “as your main source of B-3 sounds all night” instead???
Next: not being able to deny the missing of further useful engines besides AWM2 and FM in the Montage, Fortner seriously claims, that while that’s a valid point, it wouldn’t really matter, because motions control in conjunction with AWM2 and FM-X engines would “generate any sound you might need, with fidelity that just may edge the Kronos a few feet down the bench at this point.” This, from my view, is a double load of pure nonsense:
a) comparing the possiblities of VA synth and B3 clone sound shaping with Montage functions, which simply don’t deliver any of that, while not at all comparing the automation and controller functionality of motion sequencing, superknob etc. from the Montage with automation and controller functionality of AMS, Karma, vector control etc. in the Kronos, leads to a complete mess of comparing apples and oranges.
b) claiming a “fidelity that just may edge the Kronos a few feet down the bench at this point”, without naming a single valid argument for this steep claim, beyond pure claiming, just looks funny. He neither has done any serious DAC comparison or the like, concerning the resulting basic sound quality, nor can he seriously claim, that the quality of big sample streaming libraries (both from commercial offers and user sampling) in the Kronos can’t compare with the factory samples of the Montage.
All in all Fortner talks in this article, as if Yamaha had just invented rocket science for the Montage, instead of naming, how much they have profited from ideas for the Kronos and other synths, like Setlist functionality, really smooth sound transition, advanced controller functionality etc.
Then the overdoing bathos becomes completely ridiculous, when Fortner tries to sell the Montage's modulated sounds to his readers as a completely new, unheard of level of sound shaping, resulting in something like “running multiple instances of Omnisphere, only with shoulder-devil versions of Brian Eno, Deadmau5, and John Williams weighing in on what to do next.” (sic!) I don’t know what kind of pills Fortner takes, but I want the same!
The first and most important, of about two and a half deficits really named at all in the cons summary at the end, seriously is not being able to create user arpeggios directly. And the blatantly missing sequencer functionality is immediately downplayed there to something "some" users possibly miss (just like the missing of engines was completely downplayed as being irrelevant some paragraphs before). Of course you don’t find a single word about the incredibly unhandy form factor and heavy weight of the Montage 88, and you don’t find clear critical words about the small sampling space with missing sampling functionality.
If you really want to get informed about the strong AND weak points of a keyboard, you can completely forget about this funny kind of “reviews”. In this case it wouldn’t make a big difference to get a PR article directly from Yamaha’s marketing campaign. If "Keyboard" only consisted of this kind of “reviews”, I would cancel my subscription tomorrow. Thankfully, it is not, and skillful writers write great articles about music making there.
). So I agree that AWM due to the quality of the filter with good samples can sound very good and "quite analog", but compare the AN engine in the EX5 (or undeed the AN1x) compared to a Motif (or EX5) "analog patch" programmed in AWM and there is a world of difference to my ears - but depending on the sound you are after.
, but it's when you want to use techniques like cross mod or oscillator sync and PWM here a VA (or indeed a real analog synth!) will come into its own. Sure you can sample a synth doing those, but it won't be the same.
- so this will have to get to the back of the queue for now !!
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