Why Eminem’s Keyboardist Switched from Motif to Montage

Date:2020/2/12 21:37:15 Hits:

In the summer of 2017, I had the opportunity to travel to Europe with hip-hop legend Eminem to play music festivals. I’ve been working with Eminem since the summer of 2013, and I have always used the Yamaha Motif XF 8 as my main keyboard for pianos and Rhodes sounds and another Motif XF 7 as my auxiliary keyboard. I always like to put my best foot forward in rehearsals and on a gig, so I never use gear on the road that I do not own at home. I’ve owned a Yamaha Montage for a little over a year now but was reluctant to make the switch from Motif XF to Montage because I know the Motif inside out. I finally did make the switch, and I’m so thankful that I did. Switching from one keyboard to another for gigs can be challenging, especially if you’ve been using your main keyboard for a while and have it programmed exactly the way you like it. I’ll offer some suggestions if you’re considering upgrading from the Motif to the Montage that will make the process easier.

First, I suggest calibrating the Montage touchscreen and disabling its auto power off mode. You’ll also want to make sure that your Montage is up to date with the most current software, as Yamaha continues to add more sounds and features with each update.

About a week before rehearsal, I plugged a flash drive with all of my saved Motif XF data into my Montage. This turned out to be a pretty awesome experience because all of the sounds that I designed and saved on my Motif XF loaded right into the Montage. That saved me a ton of time since I didn’t have to re-create all of them.

The next step was to replace the Full Concert Grand Piano patches from the Motif with the Montage’s new CFX Concert Grand Piano patch in all of the performance patches that I loaded in. The CFX piano sample really sings and is a beauty to play.

After that, it was time to add my sounds into the Montage’s Live Set. I started from the top of the show and added in the sounds I use for each song. The Live Set grid is 4 x 4 on each page, but I suggest using 3 x 4 or 3 x 3. This leaves space on the grid in case there are set list changes. You have room to simply add new sounds in those additional spaces instead of trying to create new spaces. Something else I really like about the Live Set is that you’re able to edit the volume of each space. Sound engineers hate when the keyboard player’s sounds aren’t balanced, and this feature lets you easily adjust the volume of each sound so that nothing jumps in level from song to song.

Making the switch from the Motif XF to the Montage was seamless. I felt as if I already knew how to use the new keyboard, and the only thing I had to learn was where everything was located. For all of you Yamaha Motif users, take it from me — it is safe and well worth it to make the switch from Motif to Montage.

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Why Eminem’s Keyboardist Switched from Motif to Montage

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