Korg Forums

[sosvos]

This is a beast! https://europe.yamaha.com/en/products/music_production/synthesizers/montagem/index.html

[Pedja]

While Korg plays with recycling, Yamaha works and improves. The Yamaha M series is a real upgrade. I don't understand why Korg surrendered?
Yamaha M seria of instruments are fantastic, Bravo Yamaha!!!
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Pedja
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[average_male]

[TheKorgDude]

Meh, I think Korg has proven that there's far more ergonomic and intuitive approaches to the pitch/mod wheel, and I don't know why other manufacturers don't seem to be picking up on that.

I don't think I could go back to a separate pitch/mod wheel style keyboard at this point.

[ChrisDuncan]

Having recently bought a Fantom, I saw a lot of features in the video that seemed to come from that platform. Largely, it felt like Yamaha was playing catch up to Korg and Roland.

Their big features are the analog synth engine and polyphonic aftertouch. The latter is a step ahead of the pack to be sure, but both Kronos and Fantom already had robust analog synth environments, and the Kronos has an FM engine as well.

It's definitely a cool keyboard, but nothing that would make me want to sell my Kronos or Fantom to buy. About the only thing I could do on the M that I can't already do is the polyphonic aftertouch, and that's not a major factor for what I do.

I did find it interesting that Yamaha opted to refresh their flagship and keep it a flagship where Korg deprecated the Kronos in favor of the ModX / Fantom-0 / "Kronos Lite" style Nautilus.

That said, it remains to be seen which was the wiser path in terms of making money. Korg is assuming that there's no longer a market for higher dollar flagships. Yamaha's pricing on the M is... optimistic. We'll see how it fares after the initial new product excitement (and holiday buying season) fades.

I can't imagine that Korg has hung up its design hat and given up on new products. My gut feeling is that the Nautilus was playing catch up to the ModX and Fantom-0, and also buying them time to figure out what to do next. Honestly, these flagship platforms do so much already that it's difficult to imagine a next generation flagship doing anything that would be considered groundbreaking.

And sadly, my crystal ball is still in the shop.
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Studio: Cubase 13 | Windows 10 | Yamaha TF5 | Mackie MCU | CMC AI, QC
Keyboard Station: Kronos 2 88 | Fantom 7 | JV 2080 | Cubase 13 | Windows 10 | Focusrite 18i20 | CMC TP
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Chris Duncan
Atlanta, GA, USA, Earth

[average_male]

Another noteworthy point is that there will be a VST M released next year and will be free for owners of a physical M. Wondering if the sound will be 1:1 between the two. From what I gather, this is what a lot of folks wished Korg would have done with the Kronos.

[MartinHines]

[ChrisDuncan]

[TheKorgDude]

[ChrisDuncan]

[kronoSphere]

Maybe Korg is waiting for the quantic motherboard !

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trees are going fast.

https://www.lairdeparis.fr

Current Gear : Kronos 88 / Seaboard Rise / Triton Extreme / Sequoia / Motif Rack XS / TC Helicon voicelive rack /Awave 11 / Audio & VSTi plug-ins connected /wide touchscreen / iPad Pro 512.

[steveyoung29]

I think Yamaha have missed some things. Sequencer should be at least 32 tracks. I can't see it started but midi also over USB. And there needs to be additionally at least one USB C connection, that can also send video over USB C to a monitor, or two, or three....

The £4,000, those things should be included without the asking, particularly if it really is to be considered the new Flagship Workstation Synth. Nearly there, but missed the target this time round.

Steve

[blazerunner]

Wasn't expecting to see a new flagship of this level but Yamaha knows it's customers and what they want when it comes down to their flagships. That's a brand that listens. I liked the Montage but at the time the Kronos was still fresh and the Kronos was what I was familiar with so I went with that. It's odd that now the Kronos is dead in the water and the Montage M is a fresh new fish. I'm curious to see about the depth of the sequencer and the ability of this keyboard to interface with a DAW.
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I make all the mistakes for you so that you can learn what not to do.

[Mike Conway]

First impressions are that the Montage M is magnificent. The Kronos still kicks ass with wavesequencing, sampling, sequencing/HD recording, and more engines. I could not complete a project on the M, like I can on the Kronos, but I sure would not mind having one.

Interesting that AWM tops out at 128 note polyphony, while the 13 year old Kronos SGX2 pianos are 100 dual stereo voices (400 mono), 140 on lossless sample RAM/ROM. The only way to achieve 400 note polyphony on the Montage M is to combine internal AWM (128) with user sample import AWM (128), FM-X (128), and AN-X (16). Powerful, but a little misleading.

The Montage M has 10 gigs (when converted to 16 bit linear format) of ROM and 3.7 gigs of User sample import space. So 13.7 gigs of waves.

Korg Kronos streams up to 20+ gigs of lossless waves.

My biggest draw to the Montage is multiple filter types, the easily recordable 8 part arps, the secondary display and overall UI. I would love to have this as a 2nd main board.

[ChrisDuncan]