Yamaha MONTAGE M8x 88-Key Synthesizer With Polyphonic Aftertouch

This Keybord was desighned to have 1500 notes of polyphony, so if you put 6 times more polyphony in this box it will be all it is obviously supposed to be. It can play 16 sounds at once but when you are playing supper fast it only has enough polyphony to play 3 sounds at once. all of the best keyboards, The Korg Kronos, have this same problem Kurzweil K2700, Roland Fantom, and Jupiter 80, all have this same polyphony cap, that cripples keyboard innovation, when it comes to taking Keyboards to the next level the sky is the limit, anything is possible unless you have a Polyphony cap. Computers can ezily give you that much polyphony so we know its possible, IF you remove the polyphony cap and let the operator select different fade outs for each sound, with daper pedal down and up, you could mix sounds never heard before, you could hear 16 dirrent sounds fade in and out of each other, you could also make poliphony drop outs fade out instead of abruptly cut off. of you put different selected effects like an octive up fade out on the way sounds end, you could really make great use of those 16 tracks the software is programmed to handle. That and double up the bending controls so they are on both the left and right. and you have actually broken through the cap and made the best keyboard on the planet. If the high end keyboard actually enable the player to do stuff they could not do before than they sell. All these keyboards would have sold allot better if someone in charge would stop pretending there is a Polyphony cap on this tech. Computers have been getting more powerful and more affordable every 6 months. we all know there is not polyphony cap. I love this machine but its time to dish out the polyphony so it can be what its actually desighned to be. right now its a mighty battleship with 16 guns but it can only fire 3 of them at a time. Lets get all 16 firing at once shall we. : ) there is not reason to nerf your flagship keyboards, but every company has agreed to do so. if there must be a polyphony cap it should be 1500 not 250. Otherwise these machines are all phelomenal. they really deserve the 1500 notes of Polyphony they are disighned to make use of.

It has a plugin for your DAW with ALL of the MONTAGE sounds. Who else does that? You could leave you Montage at home and take a laptop, MIDI keyboard and go through keyboard aux or monitor. Weight issue resolved!!! For what you can't just stumble through, there's You Tube. Too easy🌟

Overall there is a huge library consisting of 90+% sounds that you may not want -- and everything drowned in reverb. Yamahas is not alone in this approach. Also the marking materials place a huge focus on the technology. For example, you might se mention that a given sound has 200+ modifiable parameters there is a dearth of straightforward instruction on getting it to work with Logic.

not much different than last version and this version we waited 7 years. buy used montage 8 for professional stage and church work. the extra gizmos are not worth it, still have the small 7"screen, no ssd internal drive, still no xlf out-ins, synth 88 keybed is still slow not fast like the cp88 keys, the organs are still the same as before not good, worthless you spend on this money and no 9th drawbar, disappointing that it is not 15" depth, and less than 40lbs, cannot gig with this 18" deep 65lbs behemoth and buy the time you put ata tsa gator case and travel it is 110lb load. the pianos, other sounds have not been upgraded at all.. buy a used montage 8 for around 1400 you are better off. churches buy a cp88 you are better off... professional keys man here...

Very advanced synthesis,

I've played on a ton of keyboards (nord, korg, roland, moog) and I have to say that the action on this specific model is the closest to that of a real piano. I've never owned a montage previously but I did own an MOXF8, and I have to say the differences are stark in contrast. This board has one of the easiest user interfaces I've ever engaged with and I love how there's a sub-panel display that can be integrated into the main one seamlessly. I'm a huge fan of ANX and FM synth engines on this thing, it shows through once you start messing around with the parameters (Filter, Envelop Generator, ADSR, etc.). To think that the sound bank hasn't been upgraded or has remained the same is not true in the slightest. I've been delving into each bank category for HOURS. Plus the scenes for each patch are versatile and allows very fast (and seamless) transitions. THE MAJOR THING that I love about this board is the flexibility you have between being a performer, composer, synthesist, and sound designer. I wouldn't recommend hauling this around to gigs because it's 60 lbs, but for a studio or as the in-house board definitely. Also when recording MIDI, being able to turn off local control and assign a channel takes me less than 5 seconds to do--that's massive for working with multiple parts. The price on this unit is hefty but when I think of Nord this to me offers way more for less the price. But it's silly at this price point why yamaha didn't include polyphonic aftertouch to the Mx6 and Mx7 (those are more for gigging because they're easier to carry, just less keys and semi-weighted action). Overall, it's worth the investment, get it you won't regret it!