Kier Darby

I have been working on a new tutorial series , designed to demystify the Yamaha MONTAGE family of synthesizers, including MONTAGE , MONTAGE M , MODX and MODX+ . Whether you are new to these instruments, or if you’ve owned one of them for some time and are looking to learn more about them, this concise step-by-step guide should help you to get started, or to deepen your knowledge. The videos are designed to be watched in order first time around. Skip ahead and you may miss a set-up that is required for the video you are watching.

Once your studio has its fair share of boutique, analog and modular synths that you love to tinker with, and your virtual instrument collection is brimming, you may find yourself considering a multi-timbral hardware synth that can provide your bread and butter sounds, but also be a great instrument in its own right. You’ve narrowed your selection to Roland FANTOM and Yamaha MONTAGE , because you’ve heard that both can be a great centrepiece to a studio, or for a live rig. So which is better? There are a number of videos online on this subject , but they tend to focus on a fairly shallow review of which sounds better, rather than what these instruments are actually like to work with. I’ve owned both of these synths for several years, and I think that there are some important differences between them that tend not to get discussed in enough detail, so I have produced a video to do just that . Although my video compares the original 2017 MONTAGE with the 2019 FANTOM ,...

The Yamaha MONTAGE , MONTAGE M , MODX and MODX+ synthesizers work great with DAW software, but Yamaha's own documentation concerns itself primarily with its own DAW, Cubase , leaving Logic Pro users scratching their heads. This playlist is a comprehensive guide to getting the most out of your MONTAGE family synth with Logic Pro, covering subjects from basic setup, different ways to record MIDI and audio, working with multiple audio interfaces, MONTAGE connect, putting the DAW remote to use, using external controllers and even integrating virtual instruments into your performances. The videos are designed to be watched in order first time around. Skip ahead and you may miss a set-up that is required for the video you are watching. The Complete Playlist Individual Videos Initial setup Managing audio devices About MIDI Recording MIDI and audio together Recording an arpeggiated performance Recording multi-channel audio MONTAGE Connect (or MODX C...

Lots of covers of ABBA's Lay All Your Love On Me (1980) either miss off the final synth solo, or largely make it up as it is quite difficult to hear it clearly through the mix, but if you want to play it correctly, this is for you. Following on from the excellent video from Jérôme Pech , transcribing the synth part from the end of Lay All Your Love On Me , here I have completed the work to include the final four bars heard in the fade-out on the album version of the track. The sheet music for the complete synth part is available at the end of this video All credit to Jérôme Pech for doing the majority of the hard work here, as seen in his original video: https://youtu.be/pAEnenB-q2g Copyright for the original song belongs to ABBA, of course.