Did you know that all the synthesizers in the Yamaha MONTAGE family (MONTAGE, MODX, MODX+, MONTAGE M, MODX M) support external displays to mirror the on-board screen?
This video will show you what you need to buy, and how to use it to display the synth’s interface on any HDMI-equipped display.
For MONTAGE and MONTAGE M, we can go even further, and use an external touch screen, completely replacing the internal display with a larger view you can place anywhere.
This is undocumented and unsupported functionality, but it’s there for the taking if you want it.
USB 2.0 DisplayLink adapters with DL-165 graphics chipset:
* HP NL571AA
* Plugable UGA-165
* Diamond Multimedia BVU165
Known working touch display for MONTAGE M:
* YODOIT Touch Screen 15.6″ FHD
Vote for a fix for font rendering when external touch is active on MONTAGE M:
I have had no success in getting external touch screen functionality working with MODX M. If any of you follow the steps in this video and do manage to get MODX M talking to an external touch screen, I want to hear from you in the comments!
00:00 Introduction
00:11 OS support for external displays
00:47 USB 2.0 DisplayLink DL-165 adapters
01:10 Sourcing these is difficult…
01:16 Watch eBay and Amazon
01:36 Making connections
01:54 Start up with adapter connected
02:11 The black bar
02:34 This works with any HDMI display
02:58 MONTAGE and MONTAGE M
03:03 External touch screen
03:23 Finding a compatible display
03:39 Look for Raspberry Pi support
03:53 MODX does not (appear to) support touch
04:08 Two USB connections required
04:22 Use a passive USB hub
04:32 Extra ports for USB memory!
04:46 Connections for touch
05:28 On-board display will be black
06:04 MONTAGE screen calibration
06:30 Calibration technique
08:03 MONTAGE M
08:44 MONTAGE M font rendering is horrible
09:02 Vote for a fix!
09:09 MONTAGE M screen calibration
09:44 Hit and miss compatibility…
10:01 YODOIT 15.6″ Touch Screen
10:35 Pisichen 10.1″ QHD Touch Screen
10:52 Restoring the internal display
11:10 Conclusion
source
Good job on your part. However, yet again this strikes me as evidence that the Montage M was just slapped together from old designs. The reason to look for Raspberry Pi compatible displays is because the Raspberry Pi family uses the ARM architecture on SoCs, just like the Montage/MODX. Not only is the SoC in the Montage M rather old by now, the system design (operating system) is also.
What is the red cable for? Power?
It seems like it would be possible to use ai to code a software version of the two adapters and eliminate them completely.
As a Korg Kronos owner I'd love an external monitor setup….I think the big hardware players have to realise we could really enjoy our respective systems if we can enjoy seeing all that detail, its been a LONG time since I was a teen and had great eyesight, totally agree we need to canvas our hardware platforms to start offering this type of functionality rather than a couple more buttons/sliders or dials.
will it work on the modx6+?
That is awfully kludgy. It would be awfully nice of Yamaha to actually directly support external displays. I'd personally love to use my iPad as my touch display but, who are we kidding, this is Yamaha after all.
This is stupid, i mean the video is brilliant, what is stupid is Yamaha doesn't support this, it would be another selling point (that means money for you Yamaha…) Great explanation
Does this work for the old Montage Models too? Or only for the actual Models.
I 2026 this should be second feature listed after keybed
Good to know this. Great detail explanations.
Same crap as with Genos 1: External display output via USB port is (officially!) supported, but you have to use a usb-to-display adapter, which was very hard to get and not every external monitor worked with this solution. At least not very satisfying … Genos 2 and Korg Pa5x now have direct HDMI connectors …
Thanks 👍
I have the UGA-165 display adapter, it works great to connect an external hdmi screen to the MODX M6.
However, still looking for a compatible touch screen for the MODX M 👀
Would the SX-720 or SX-920 be able to do this? Thanks for the video.
Its cool that you can do this – but I cannot see a reason to do it if the screens cannot display different information. If it's literally the same data on screen as the internal monitor, this seems kind of not worth doing.
this is pretty cool!
TNX 👍👍👍 !!!
It's a pity Yamaha hasn't changed this in the the M models. I am using the Diamond Multimedia USB 2.0 to DVI / HDMI which also works perfectly. It was available in Amazon a few years ago but now it's not. Seems to be available in Walmart, at least for people in the US.
Nice video. Thank you for the valuable content. I would guess the font rendering issue could just be a typical screen resolution consequence between the size and type of the different displays. Some fonts scale well. Others don't. Again, great content and much appreciated.