The current FM-X engine inside of Yamaha's flagship "Montage" is the same FM engine that was in FS1R with enhancements, particularly when it comes to effects, filters and most importantly polyphony. FS1R when used with the resonant filters only had 16 Voices of Polyphony, you can get 128 voices of FM with Montage and no limitations on filtersanomandaris1 wrote: Sat Jan 24, 2026 9:21 pm From what I have read, SY77 and the subsequent FS1r are the most advanced FM synths by Yamaha, more complex than their current flagship,
FS1R also had formant synthesis for making vowel sounds, and mimicking human voices but that was really separate from the pure FM side. Montage also has Formant BTW it's just differently
Montage is without a doubt more powerful than FS1R and it's far more approachable and easier to use, because the interface is more hands on, and the screen is significantly better
SY77 is a totally different beast than FS1R. It can do some things that FS1R/FM-X can't. It's an entirely different approach to doing Yamaha style FM. It's not that one is better than the other it's just different
