How to fix the thin piano sounds in the Yamaha MODX and Montage

Thanks so much for post this. I just got one of these (waiting for it to arrive) and got it because I liked the piano compared to the Kurzweil and Roland. I was shocked to see the title but I knew what this was about when you played the demos. This velocity setting exists on DAWs and I use it all the time and I usually bump them up for sound level consistency. I have an old E-MU that has various settings for this expression so you don't have to edit one.
I would like to make a couple of suggestions for your videos. 1. Don't do a Christmas Light display on the other keyboard , it distracted me and I didn't hear a word you said while I watched the pretty lights flashing. 2. Please say what you are pressing before you select it. I couldn't tell what you pushed you did it so fast. I am thinking I will need to play that section about 10 times and slow it down just to see what you selected. Think of new people not just those who are familiar with it.

Very interesting observation. One of the first things that I noticed when I bought my montage was what I felt was a very low output level on many of the patches.

Thank you

Nice one. Thanks :)

Stupidly somehow Yamaha thinks keyboard musicians are programmers when most are not especially on stage boards. I was reading below how many players had no idea the velocity parameters needed changing. Had Yamaha actually done research on regular players they would have understood all about the impacts of their default velocity settings being erroneous. Many times I'm floored by Yamaha ignorance. Their gear is great but when it comes to common sense they have none. Just because the parameter is there doesn't mean it should default to 64. 64 is a stage board sound and expression killer so why set it to that value? Once you understand that you have to change it, then you get to go through every voice and part A and part B if desired and physically modify those values. It's beyond belief Yamaha decided to do this. It must be an error because it's so bad.

I had to fix the Yamaha YC73 too because it wasn't even playing the high velocity samples (sounded dull and boring) until I turned it up the preset velocity to over 100 from 64. The bad news is you have to edit every individual voice. Why isn't this a global setting? Touch velocity is a global setting but it's just preset no way to customize it. Mike if you know was battling on the YC against the Nord stage 4 and probably didn't have it set correctly. It had no volume or fullness and it was probably 100% the same issue. Nord sounded better because he didn't know how to fix it.

maybe this is an issue which stems from not having the montage's stronger keybed with aftertouch, and a wishy washy port.

I had the Modx 6. So depressing that the piano sounds so flat and cheap. I tried everything, velocity, using my CP300 as a weighted controller, eq, different speakers. No matter what, I found it unusable. If it simply had the same piano sound as a Yamaha P125, I would have been thrilled! Why Yamaha...WHY????

I've had the MODX8 for almost three years and you just taught me how to make the piano sound like I've been wanting it to sound. Thank you!

Its actually the very opposite.
Yamaha tends to have big and full bodied pianos,which is perfect for solo piano gigs, but in a band the bottom end of the pianos has to be eq'd down so they can cut through.
Fortunately, you have eq settings on the knobs to the left to quickly make it so, otherwise use bright, thin pianos.
Fyi:
Thin pianos cut through the mix better than thick pianos in a band setting and Yamaha has the thickest sounding pianos of them all bar none.
....and its been that way since the P200 (pre Motif).

Isn't it ridiculous that you have to reduce touch sensitivity to the point where every note sounds equally loud?
The Japanese don't know what a piano should sound like. And that goes for acoustic pianos too. No warmth, no depth, no character.

Stay blessed 🙌

That’s really helpful! Thank you!

Good tutorial yeah this haopens a lot with the montage where the piano is just always somehow weak in the performance

Put the keyboard touch on soft or normal. Problem solved :) I had the same issue

Good work! I had the same problem, I traded in my MOFX6 on a MODX7 and found I had to hit the keys harder for both my new patches and the ones from the MOXF. The MODX7 seems to be set up for players who prefer a heavier action. I just changed the global setting for key response to Light instead of Medium and that worked for me. When using layered sounds, I vary the depth and offset of different layers to make some sounds pop out while others lay back depending on velocity. Nice vid.

THAN"S FOR THE TIP

Thanks for the tip. When playing in a band, the piano sound doesn't cut through the guitar and bass. Hopefully now it will.

It is really poor that you schall use so much time on getting a signal from your sounds out of your Yamaha Montage out of the speaker to hear a sound. The volume on everything is turned up all the thru the signaling pathways. And the masterfader and other faders are turned up too. But still there is no sound. Then sometimes you can press “Performance (Home)” and then the sounds come. Shouldn’t be necessary. And why should that be necessary. The sound and the signal thru should just work fine damn it. It’s so lame it often doesn’t work!!!

Make your programs like you used to. It’s a big step backwards in you development not to do so.
Pull yourself together Yamaha.

So make your programs come clearly loud out of you synths and keyboards.
And no drop outs of tones. Like it is with the piano program “CFX Concert”. All the programs must & schall fuction 100% when you turn the synth or keyboard on. And they schall all sound good and correct at once. And that diffenetly is not what you hear with the piano programs when you turn the Yamaha on.

So get to work Yamaha team.
And go fix all these problems.

Great Vid Steve Thanks I recently bought a Modx6

Is't there a general setting to set the overall velocity setting higher?

What's the black keyboard on top, dude?

Big thanks for this tip! I'm still navigating my way through the ModX and every little bit helps!

Dumb question: of course then you have to save the Performance (patch) as a User Performance, right? You can't "overwrite" the factory Performance.

I agree with comments that you lose dynamics doing this. If you are out playing Journey, Elton John and Billy Joel, this answer would be OK for live. But the minute you have a quiet part you'll lose the dynamic emotion of the instrument. Of course this setting is impossible for Jazz/Classical.

well… you pretty much turned off the velocity sensitivity.. but yeah pianos sound kinda cheap on the modx

I saw the same problem with my MO6 years ago, some presets have rather low velocity setup but you can always alter it. I do not know why Yamaha does this ... interesting

Thanks for sharing

Hi there I am new to keyboards. Trying to set my modx 8 to my laptop. What the best cable to use. Also I am using Nanohost to run a pluggin for the vst vox continental used by The Doors and can not get the sound of the vox continental coming out threw my keyboard. Can you help please. Ty.

Thanks, was wondering why my piano wasn't cutting through live..great job..

Yamaha likely did this on purpose thinking everyone knew you can go into Utility and set the Velocity curve Globally. That would suck if you had to adjust and save velocity for every single sound.

Thanks for helping me decide I don't want one of these.

I watched this video a year ago and really helped on my Montage-centered gigs. I had the synth for some time already, but had not done any editing to its sounds. And, yes, pianos were weak. This changed my playing life and also opened my mind about editing sounds, which now I do quite a lot. So, BIG THANKS!!!
As a late comer musician (began at 50, now I am 55), this kind of information from the pros is INVALUABLE to get me fastly on track. I am playing with a pop/rock band for a year and it has been possible thanks to videos like this one. Thanks Scott 🙏

Thanks - between this and Tony Winston's video on smoothing out the response curve, you've added a lot of value to this product.

Halo sir ,Witch Roland system is that above Yamaha ?

Or you could just go to Utility > Settings > Sound and change Velocity Curve to Soft.

Btw, the velocity curve issue isn't unique to the MODX. My old Kawai MP6 had a standard velocity setting which didn't allowed me to hit the highest velocities values (even with maximum force), my new Roland RD 2000 is even worse. I would really like to know why these manufacturers set the velocity curves up by default like that - doesn't make any sense, except to prevent people from purchasing their keyboards.

Definitely it’s very different than preview sounds. But it not only piano sounds! Also guitars and other acoustic instruments!

Nice tip. Still weak though (just louder and brighter). Acoustic sounds on a synth will always be a compromise. They either don’t sound right or don’t behave right. Best case are sounds you might be able to tolerate (at least in a mix). Example being I might think a guitar sound is decent, but a real guitarist would probably puke upon hearing the same sound. Same for string players, drummers etc.). What saves us is most listeners aren’t all that critical.

Very usefull video

i may use bad\ fake phonoline cables, it sounds terrible through the soundcard which didnt seem to make a bad job with my older synth the KORG Minilogue

Thanks for that info it was so important to me!

Great video, But you still have the Motif Pianos. That’s why I bought the MODX+, cause it still has the XS/XF sound banks

This board sucks!!

What is better Roland fantom 06 or modx plus 6.. ??

The latest OS update fixes that. The motif pianos sound alright even without the update.

They are perfectly EQ to cut through in the mix in a loud church that's why it's such a popular sound . I take other boards and EQ them so the pianos sit in the mix correctly. A very popular gospel trick is to remove reverb and have zero decay. It sounds weird by itself but that fast playing in the mix there's nothing to compare it sounds amazing with the right style

Hey Scott, my new MODX just arrived and the touch screen isn’t working. Any suggestions or am I doing something wrong?

I'm reorganizing my studio to more keyboards than sound modules. Is it a good thing to sell my Integra 7 to buy a MoDX?