Yamaha Montage Vs . Roland Fantom: A Perspective of the Workflow from the Players experience:

[ElectricEddie]

I am familiar with the sounds and fairly familiar with the keybds. However what I am looking for is the keyboard players perspective. What is the workflow of the Montage Vs. the Fantom? Has anyone played both and have some decent experience with understanding the workflows? Which one make more common sense for the Player under Live & Studio circumstances.

Thx
ElectricEddie

 

[ChrisNabil]

I had the Montage for a while but can't answer your specific question and I suppose it depends on what you are going to do. However, there are detailed youtube clips of the workflow on both. The limited experience I have after having the Montage and seeing many clips of the Fantom is that you might find the Fantom a little more logical.

Wish you luck!

Chris

 

[Biggles]

There are plenty of tutorial videos that might help if you are not already aware of them.

I like Ed Diaz’s presentation style in these for the Fantom, there is a whole playlist of them.

I am not a Yamaha fan so I have no idea if they have anything similar.

 

[b3maniac]

Please do not double post (send the same post to more than one topic). B3

 

[ElectricEddie]

Please do not double post (send the same post to more than one topic). B3

Sorry I didn't know I did. I was having trouble posting, I guess something happened.


ElectricEddie

 

[ElectricEddie]

Hi All,

I have been scouring the Internet, Google and mostly pages on YouTube. I really found mostly - Montage vs. Fantom Piano sounds, Montage vs. Fantom "No Talking" type sound comparisons. I have found individual videos of Montage & individual videos of Fantom with guys exploring sound workflows, but it seemed like most videos the guy was only 75% sure of what he was demonstrating, except for the Roland Guys. Also, as for Yamaha, I did not find that many Reps doing as many demos etc.

I have not found any strong video's of someone who's familiar with both keyboards workflow comparing the logic of the workflow, only (Sound Comparisons) . If one guy knows Roland and not Yamaha & Vice-versa, its kind of difficult to make a Workflow comparison. I know it may be far and few between finding this. Unfortunately Roland & Yamaha Manufactures are going to show there own keyboards in a Good light and I have not found Roland (Ed Diaz) comparing the Fantom to the Montage or a Yamaha Rep doing the same for Yamaha. I have seen many videos of each keyboard in good demo's but just not actually against each other in any type of a Keyboard Shootout.

I do have experience with older models of Korg, Moog & Roland, just not Yamaha and the newer keyboards that are now available. So with the High price Tags on these Flagship Keyboards, I just want to get the right keyboard for me. I have decent knowledge of navigating these types of menu structures, but I guarantee one is more user friendly than the other. So in a Live situation sometimes not only minutes but seconds count between songs, if you know what I mean...LOL..

Thx for your support....
ElectricEddie

 

[happyrat1]

Well, I have no Fantom experience, but My Juno DS88 is current generation Roland and I have to say the menus are intuitive, easy to navigate, and not 50 layers deep.

Then again it's not a touchscreen either and I personally refuse to buy anything that uses one.

A bad touchscreen is worse than a wet fart and I prefer not to toss the dice on these matters.

Me Likey BUTTONS THAT CLICK!!!

Gary

 

[ElectricEddie]

There are plenty of tutorial videos that might help if you are not already aware of them.

I like Ed Diaz’s presentation style in these for the Fantom, there is a whole playlist of them.

I am not a Yamaha fan so I have no idea if they have anything similar.

Hey Biggles,

Thanks for reminding me to go back and review Ed Diaz's Tutorials. So I also found the similar ones for Yamaha Montage. LOL..... So I spent hours watching almost all of them & Unfortunately now I just fell in Love with both of them even more. LMAO...

ElectricEddie

 

[Biggles]

I am lucky, pre Covid I had plenty of Music Stores to visit and hence kit to play.

What I did was watch the tutorial series, make notes, download the manual to my iPad then go and play.

I totally dislike the overly deep and non intuitive menu systems on Yamahas (not a fan of the to me very harsh brass and strained string sounds either), for me Korg and Roland were better to use and sound so much better than any Yamaha I have played. I learned the Roland OS for both the Juno and FA, both of which were pretty easy to get into and creation of custom layers very easy.

You cannot beat getting the basics learned and then going to have a play.

With this thread and your post on another forum at this moment I would say you favour the Montage more.

Throwing a curveball, why not forget about either are go the MIDI keyboard controller and software solution, it will certainly be kinder on you back given all the kit you have to lug around with your guitars and amps.

Over on the other forum one of the members is Reese who plays with The Average White Band and he uses the MIDI setup when plsying with the band so do search his posts he was certainly very helpful to me when I was having problems setting up a MIDI controller on my Wife’s iMac.

 

[ElectricEddie]

Hey Guys ,

From what I have read "Mainstage" is an App that Roland seems to use along with the Fantom. I have also seen that it is supposed to be MAC based, but I have seen web sites saying that you can run "Mainstage" on a PC. Can anyone shed any light on this as to whether its true & how does it preform with a PC or are there issues trying to make it run?

Thx
ElectricEddie

 

[b3maniac]

"Mainstage" is an Apple product that is a companion program to Logic Pro (DAW). As far as I know these two programs only run on Apple computers (ie, such as Mac Book Pro running MAC OS). I have both on an older Macbook Pro but I have not become well oriented with either since Covid hit. Last I heard Apple does not have this software in IOS for Ipad. ADDED EDIT- Apple does have a seperate Ipad App with alllows you to wirelessly connect with Mainstage, but only to control certain parameters within Mainstage running on your Mac computer. Don aka B3

 

[ElectricEddie]

Hey B3,

I am not a Mac guy at all and most likely never will be. I have seen articles on the Internet that say that it can be done and they refer to it as a "HackinTosh" but I also heard that it can crash a lot. I was trying to decide if the whole "Mainstage" software is something that I should even care about to begin with. I also use "Ableton "Live-11" as well which you mentioned Logic instead which is also Apple. I am really torn between the "Montage" and the Fantom" although the more I research lately the more its starting to seem like the "Fantom is a little more user friendly than the "Montage. Although I do really like the "Super Knob" / "Motion Control" and how it seems to work. Trying to make a decision soon and hopefully the price may come down a bit...LOL...

Thx
for the Advice.
ElectricEddie