One thing about the Montage, and most Yamaha synths in general, is that they tend to specialise in reproducing “real” instruments. You get hundreds of sounds that are pretty close to real guitars, flutes, electric pianos, trumpets etc. There are the more synthy sounds too, but Yamaha gear tends to have a bias towards the “real” instruments. This is even more the case with arranger keyboards. And actually I would say it’s possibly not easy to replicate that huge range of real instruments easily with VSTs. There are dedicated VSTs that will give you much better pianos, organs, Rhodes, strings etc. For everything else, probably the best route would be a big sample library like Kontakt, and a “jack of all trades” plugin like XPand!2, which has a good range of real instrument sounds, but might not be quite up to the Montage in all categories.
But that aside, if you’re looking for “arranger” functionality, I don’t think you’re going to find that with VSTs and a host.
I think this is good advice. I’ll just start building racks. I have Xpand!2 and I’ll pick up the Korg M1 VSTi and get started. I have to do this. The older I get [I’m 61] the less I want to lug all the gear around. I guess I just need to get started.
I appreciate your response and the time it took to write. Thanks.
I’ll give Xpand!2 and M1 a try. I like the bread and butter sounds. Most of my audiences and material are older so I’ll try that.
I’ve got many good channel strips so I’m hoping one of them will work for vocals. iZotope Neutron advanced and Alloy2, Eventide’s UltraChannel, etc, etc. I could also create a vocal rack using individual compressor, reverb, gate, etc VSTs. I really would like to make that work but I won’t sacrifice the vocal component if I can’t get something that satisfies me. I’ll keep the hardware.
I appreciate your help. Thank you. I guess I better get started in earnest!
Actually, yes, I do play the accordion, top to bottom. And most of my audiences prefer that because otherwise if they don’t hear their preconceived idea of what an accordion sounds like, and see my fingers on the keys, they don’t think I’m really playing when they hear backing tracks. Horizontal keyboard guys don’t go through that scrutiny in my impression. But I also use backing tracks too, depending on where and what I’m playing. I also use a Korg i5m arranger at times because it follows me forever until I stop, not me following a backing track. I’d be very happy if there was a VST version of something that would do that!!
Anyway, I’ve got to get this thing going. Thanks very much.
Seriously? I just bought it and it’s downloading now. I hate flaky installs like that. I’ll go offline for the install at your advice but I hope there isn’t a problem.
Thanks for the tip. I’ll report back if it wigs out on me.
yup, I hear you and feel with you. I’m also (amongst other things) a trained accordionist, but (still) very un-MIDI at the moment. I’m a Hohner man - a good old Imperator V (see below) as my main beast and an Atlantic IV as a lighter alternative when playing standing up.
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I suppose the whole concept of an accordion at large is still that it’s totally old-fashioned and acoustic, without any kind of technological enhancement. Probably there are a lot of keyboardists out there still today who don’t realize there are such things as MIDI accordions- let alone lay people. It would be interesting to craft a vertical controller that has a keyboard and a recreation of bellows movement, without the bulk and weight. Kind of like what a wind controller is to a sax.
For me this is not the only problem with vst’s that I need the arranger functionality.
So there is the question of what PC Beast I need? …I had problems with my i7 intel board …optimizing,optimizing,optimizing and ?? …short latency ends in dropouts.
also my i7 Surface pro …2instances of Avenger with many osc’s and I can use it as a heater… so in the end for me thats no realy fun…
Yes i have testet also with cubase effects and that sounds great, also the mixer is great …only the dropouts i can not control
my problem was i tested with latency mon and all tools i could find…
ProcessLasso to optimize but no chance to find the problem…
Normal use of vst Monitor was about 20% but then suddenly …Bääämmmm
That’s a beautiful accordion. I’ve ALWAYS loved the sound of a Hohner. Wonderful tone!
As an aside, I like doing solo street gigs sometimes for fun, and with the MIDI stuff everything is available. I’ve had smart alec kids come up and ask me for Freebird, or Stairway to Heaven, or other classic rock songs, just as a joke thinking it’s just a silly old-fashioned accordion. They’re usually pretty stunned when I give them a taste of MIDI. I love changing their minds about accordions!
Actually Izotope Nectar is such an app And when used in “Tracking Mode” latency is pretty much zero. It also has harmonies that can either be auto generated or via MIDI input!
I’m aware of Nectar, and I’ve tried the demo. It’s definitely a great tool for production, but its Harmony module is not at the same level for live playing as the TC Helicon offerings. With TC, I simply play (either on my guitar or my keyboard) and the harmonies follow. With Nectar, you need to be very specific with the MIDI you feed it, and its auto discovery is not designed for playing live.
When I sing backing sections, I need the chords created follow my playing (near) instantly - I sing an E, and depending on what I play, the vocal section needs to change from an E major to maybe an A major or an F#7 chord. And I’m not simply holding 4 notes - I play a pretty dynamic piano or guitar chords.
This is where the TC Helicon stuff shines. They used to have a plugin, but that was TDM only and is now discontinued.
So anything outside live harmonies, I’d agree - you can get that very well out of Nectar. But live harmonies are still too difficult with any plugin I’ve seen.
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And when used in “Tracking Mode” latency is pretty much zero. It also has harmonies that can either be auto generated or via MIDI input!