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Yamaha YC61 Announced


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I wonder if developers frequent these forums?

 

Probably like the computer world I came from and developers don't have much say in anything it all driven by Marketing department who collects customer wishlists, competitors bullet points, and then if engineering has some new offering to present. Then Marketing makes their bullet points they think they need to sell/compete with and that's given to engineering. To complete the process then the Accounting bean counters come in and set the release schedule based on their needs for juggling the books for tax or stock market reasons. Manufacturing gets the dates and say we need X days lead time and everyone in engineering, QA, and doc' starts screaming schedule is too short. Then bean counters come back and say do it and ship even if not ready. Aw the behind the scenes mess of the corporate world.

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I know my 3 cents has already been hashed and rehashed in this thread already, but after perusing all 19 pages, I went into my studio and fired up my Electro 5D 73 and spent a good amount of time revisiting it. FWIW, I'm still in love with it despite its obvious MIDI controller drawbacks and lack of the ability to have both sounds share the same effects. Although I've been gravitating towards Gig Performer and Blue 3 for my go to organs, I still find that with a little bit of tweaking, the organ in the Electro still sounds more than passible (sp?) to my ears. That being said, I am intrigued with the how different the action my be on this new Yamaha. I used to work retail with Blake many years back and can possibly elicit some hints as to the possibility of a 73/76 key version being introduced next. The current 61 note is definitely a deal breaker for me, as it's one of the features I really love about my Electro....

�Ah, music," he said, wiping his eyes. "A magic beyond all we do here!�

J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

 

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Spent some time with it yesterday. The keybed is EXTREMELY light. Like, MX61 light. However, it sounds good and is super-tweakable. I want to spend more time with it in a music store before making a decision.

Soul, R&B, Pop from Los Angeles

http://philipclark.com

 

Cannonball Gerald Albright Signature Alto, Yamaha YC73, Fender Rhodes, Roland Juno-106, Yamaha MX61, Roland VR-09, MicroKorg XL, Maschine Mikro, Yamaha Reface CP, Roland MKS-50

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Real Hammond pedal does not go to silence. Tone does change over its travel, mellower on the quiet end of the travel.

Maybe this is the best place for a shameless plug! Our now not-so-new new video at https://youtu.be/3ZRC3b4p4EI is a 40 minute adaptation of T. S. Eliot's "Prufrock" - check it out! And hopefully I'll have something new here this year. ;-)

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Volume+Overdrive makes sense and would be more faithful, but for authenticity it should not go to zero. But it could be confusing to have some sounds go to zero and others not. Ideally, the user could configure this behavior.

Maybe this is the best place for a shameless plug! Our now not-so-new new video at https://youtu.be/3ZRC3b4p4EI is a 40 minute adaptation of T. S. Eliot's "Prufrock" - check it out! And hopefully I'll have something new here this year. ;-)

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Recently the OB3 squared - so part of my NAMM exploration was for an improvement on my organ situation. Since selling the OB3, I'm temporarily relying on iPad apps that I midi to one of my keyboards - but a better permanent solution is needed. I spent a LOT of time the Hammond XK5, as well as the Skx. Viscount Legend was also a stop for me. The big readers digest on the YC61, is after spending as much time as I did with the XK5, the Yamaha just sounded like a cheap toy in comparison to a rather respectable instrument. I believe I'll be placing an order for the XK5 this weekend. It just "felt right" to play. It's the priciest and the heaviest of the options, but will likely suit me the best with given the type of music I play, which is organ centric in a big way. Lucky to have access to several real Hammonds in the studio - but now need to step up the game for live gigs. I'm sure the YC61 has its place for certain players - I'm not one of them.
Hammond XK5, Alesis QS8, Yamaha DX7IIFD, Roland XV2020 (SRX-11 & 12), Kawai RX7, Scheidmayer Clavichord, Strymon (Flint, Big Sky, Timeline, Mobius, Ola, El Capistan), Neo Ventilator II
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anybody know for sure if the acoustic pianos have the damper and string resonance of the CP73/88? It wasn't mentioned in the specs for the YC.

 

EDIT, found it in the user manual, damper resonance is listed as an insertion effect, no fancy sympathetic string resonance as far as I can see.

Woody-

 

I don't think the CP88 and CP73 have string resonance, either. The CP88 gets knocked in other forums for not having the virtual resonance modeling from the P515. Apparently it was an intentional decision for a stage piano. I think it's a fairly big mistake in Yamaha's "flagship" digital piano, anyone that uses it on stage will probably also use it at home or in more intimate setting where it is exposed and they might want the extra detail. Make it an option to turn the resonances on or off (studio vs. stage?), or include different instruments that include it or not. It seems a silly thing to keep from the CP's.

 

Again, Blake Angelos says that Yamaha takes feedback at their IdeaScale forum. Here's my comment about this issue there:

https://yamahasynth.ideascale.com/a/dtd/Add-Yamaha-s-best-piano-sounds-with-resonance-modelling/243901-45978

 

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Interesting tidbit from the video posted earlier... some people have suggested that this organ implementation is based on the Reface YC, but in the video, the designers talk about how the YC61 organ is entirely modeled and not using the sample-based AWM technology, which is what was used in the Reface.

Maybe this is the best place for a shameless plug! Our now not-so-new new video at https://youtu.be/3ZRC3b4p4EI is a 40 minute adaptation of T. S. Eliot's "Prufrock" - check it out! And hopefully I'll have something new here this year. ;-)

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I was expecting the EPs to be killer, but I couldn't find a single preset that sounded good. Especially the Wurli sounds. I can't imagine they are the same samples from the CP88/73, because those do sound really good.

 

The organ sounded better on rock stuff. But for jazz? Nah.

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It's true the demos online have used a lot of fx on the electric pianos, either auto-pan, phaser or distortion so impossible to tell if the samples are any good. The CP88 EPs sounded fabulous, actually best, with all the fx switched off. I remember not digging the EP presets on the CP, the usual too much fx syndrome, but once you dialed it back to basics it was fine. Maybe you're running into the same issue here Jim?
hang out with me at woody piano shack
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The organ sounded better on rock stuff. But for jazz? Nah.

I've thought before that some of the disparate opinions you hear about different clones is not merely a matter of taste, but whether someone is a jazz player or a rock player. In the video earlier in the thread where the YC is discussed by the developers, one of the designers mentioned how he always loved the organ sound of progressive rock. So they may have been guided by a larger focus on its rock suitability. I wouldn't be surprised if a jazz player could try Keith Emerson's actual Hammond and come away from it with a feeling of, "not one of the better Hammonds I've played."

 

Maybe this is the best place for a shameless plug! Our now not-so-new new video at https://youtu.be/3ZRC3b4p4EI is a 40 minute adaptation of T. S. Eliot's "Prufrock" - check it out! And hopefully I'll have something new here this year. ;-)

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I was expecting the EPs to be killer, but I couldn't find a single preset that sounded good. Especially the Wurli sounds. I can't imagine they are the same samples from the CP88/73, because those do sound really good.

 

The organ sounded better on rock stuff. But for jazz? Nah.

 

That"s a fair point about the EPs, Jim. I hope we can get an answer on that from Blake and/or Yamaha.

And, yeah,my feelings as well about the organ.... but, I still say the YC sounds better than any Nord and I"d wager the YCs C/V cant be any worse than the awful-ness of the Nord!

 

"I have constantly tried to deliver only products which withstand the closest scrutiny � products which prove themselves superior in every respect.�

Robert Bosch, 1919

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When someone says "organ not good enough for jazz," I would usually interpret that to mean not good enough to be front and central in a jazz organ trio. And I think jazz organ trio is the toughest test to pass for a clonewheel. It's the context in which the listener is most l likely to scrutinize for "that sound" in all it's dimensions: tone, chorus, leslie, percussion, leakage, key click, etc. The organ trio is the context in which the clonewheeler's hand-wringing about the weedy details of their sound sounds less like nerding-out and more like well-placed practical concerns.

 

I'd say there's a select and limited group of clones that are organ trio worthy. Based on what I've heard, the best I can say about the YC in that regard is "the jury's still out." Jim Alfredson is a pretty good juror, and I trust his objectivity notwithstanding his Hammond associations, so if he says it's not, then it's probably not.

 

What I'm hearing from people in this thread (including myself) is not a hope that the YC will be a strong choice for organ trio, but that it might be a great, very portable, all-in-one gig solution. Maybe not good enough for a Jimmy Smith Tribute at Dizzy's, but more than good enough for any Saturday night cover band gig.

 

 

Gigging: Crumar Mojo 61, Hammond SKPro

Home: Vintage Vibe 64

 

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Okay, I now know something about the YC61 that I didn"t know before, after talking with product marketing manager Nate Tschetter at Yamaha USA. As I mentioned in my previous post on this thread, a question on all our minds is, 'Is this organ emulation truly new, or just something like the Reface YC in a bigger package, or a trickle-over of Organ Flutes mode from the Tyros and Genos arranger workstations?'

 

The answer, thankfully, it that it"s new. The YC61 is the first organ emulation Yamaha has produced that employs Virtual Circuit Modeling (VCM) technology. Yamaha is mainly known for this in their effects, both in keyboards such as the Montage and digital mixers such as the TF series. In the YC61, they"re applying this to the behavior of tone wheels, the famous AO28 preamp from Hammond organs, etc. As the name implies, VCM applies algorithms to mimic the behavior of vintage analog circuits and how their components interact. So it would seem the YC61 is doing a lot more than merely dirtying up some sine waves with key click and leakage samples.

 

As to how that's gonna sound hands-on, I'm angling to be one of the first journalists to find out!

Stephen Fortner

Principal, Fortner Media

Former Editor in Chief, Keyboard Magazine

Digital Piano Consultant, Piano Buyer Magazine

 

Industry affiliations: Antares, Arturia, Giles Communications, MS Media, Polyverse

 

 

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When someone says "organ not good enough for jazz," I would usually interpret that to mean not good enough to be front and central in a jazz organ trio. And I think jazz organ trio is the toughest test to pass for a clonewheel. It's the context in which the listener is most l likely to scrutinize for "that sound" in all it's dimensions: tone, chorus, leslie, percussion, leakage, key click, etc. The organ trio is the context in which the clonewheeler's hand-wringing about the weedy details of their sound sounds less like nerding-out and more like well-placed practical concerns.

 

I'd say there's a select and limited group of clones that are organ trio worthy. Based on what I've heard, the best I can say about the YC in that regard is "the jury's still out." Jim Alfredson is a pretty good juror, and I trust his objectivity notwithstanding his Hammond associations, so if he says it's not, then it's probably not.

 

What I'm hearing from people in this thread (including myself) is not a hope that the YC will be a strong choice for organ trio, but that it might be a great, very portable, all-in-one gig solution. Maybe not good enough for a Jimmy Smith Tribute at Dizzy's, but more than good enough for any Saturday night cover band gig.

 

 

Agreed about this mainly being due to how central the organ is to the music. But whether a clone can pull it off or not depends on the registrations. Much (but not all) of jazz organ relies on the first three drawbars plus third harmonic percussion on the upper manual, and a comping sound of 8' and 4' drawbars on the lower. Jimmy Smith himself didn't deviate from this much, and hardly ever used fast Leslie speed. (To make sure, I once asked him.) As I"ve said elsewhere (probably too often), many, many clones can pull this off quite nicely. Heck, my Roland VK-7 can and it"s over two decades old.

 

Wanna make a clone sweat, whether the gig is jazz or Mustang Sally? Pull the 'Erroll Garner' setting (bottom drawbar plus the top four), spin the Leslie simulation to fast, and don"t supplement it with the vibrato-chorus. Those high frequencies are very directional, so any flaws in making them sound like they"re being thrown around the room by a spinning speaker are now going to be exposed.

 

I know, a lot of other things go into the B3+Leslie sound. But for my money, this is the acid test.

Stephen Fortner

Principal, Fortner Media

Former Editor in Chief, Keyboard Magazine

Digital Piano Consultant, Piano Buyer Magazine

 

Industry affiliations: Antares, Arturia, Giles Communications, MS Media, Polyverse

 

 

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I've always felt the clean, non-distorted tone from Roland VK/VR series has a warm, gauzy quality that works well for the typical Jimmy Smith registration. It's been there since the VK-7.

Gigging: Crumar Mojo 61, Hammond SKPro

Home: Vintage Vibe 64

 

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I don't know when Jazz organ became the bench mark for organ emulation? This always pops up and it's a small subset of the guys that are playing consoles or even clones. What about all the gospel/rock/reggae/country organ players? There are more of them than trio players for sure and just as good musicians. The vintage Hammond market caters to more of the church market than the jazz market. I know as I am a part of it.

"Danny, ci manchi a tutti. La E-Street Band non e' la stessa senza di te. Riposa in pace, fratello"

 

 

noblevibes.com

 

 

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I don't know when Jazz organ became the bench mark for organ emulation. What about all the gospel organ players? There are more of them than trio players for sure and just as good musicians. The vintage Hammond market caters to more of the church market than the jazz market. I know as I am a part of it.

 

I suspect this forum is not very representative of the real world population of organ players. My very unscientific sense is that KC is about 70% rock/prog, 25% jazz, 5% gospel.

 

Sorry if anything I wrote seemed dismissive of gospel. I've never played it!

 

Gigging: Crumar Mojo 61, Hammond SKPro

Home: Vintage Vibe 64

 

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I know what you"re getting to SF, but the use of drawbars is much more varied as jazz performances progress from the first three into more. A great jazz organist of today really works the drawbars constantly during a performance, often in subtle and gradual growth from the Jimmy Smith sound. So every single drawbar get exposed for what it adds as a tune progresses. It"s this constant interaction with every frequency that makes jazz (and gospel) a much more demanding test of a clonewheel that most rock/prog/blues playing. Watch our forum brother Jim Alfredson play, and he is constantly nudging drawbars to coax a wide palette of sounds from his instrument. And he/they do it to compensate for the sound in a given room as well. Masters - all of them. That"s why I always look to them for their 'take' on a given instrument.

 

Jerry

 

 

When someone says "organ not good enough for jazz," I would usually interpret that to mean not good enough to be front and central in a jazz organ trio. And I think jazz organ trio is the toughest test to pass for a clonewheel. It's the context in which the listener is most l likely to scrutinize for "that sound" in all it's dimensions: tone, chorus, leslie, percussion, leakage, key click, etc. The organ trio is the context in which the clonewheeler's hand-wringing about the weedy details of their sound sounds less like nerding-out and more like well-placed practical concerns.

 

I'd say there's a select and limited group of clones that are organ trio worthy. Based on what I've heard, the best I can say about the YC in that regard is "the jury's still out." Jim Alfredson is a pretty good juror, and I trust his objectivity notwithstanding his Hammond associations, so if he says it's not, then it's probably not.

 

What I'm hearing from people in this thread (including myself) is not a hope that the YC will be a strong choice for organ trio, but that it might be a great, very portable, all-in-one gig solution. Maybe not good enough for a Jimmy Smith Tribute at Dizzy's, but more than good enough for any Saturday night cover band gig.

 

 

Agreed about this mainly being due to how central the organ is to the music. But whether a clone can pull it off or not depends on the registrations. Much (but not all) of jazz organ relies on the first three drawbars plus third harmonic percussion on the upper manual, and a comping sound of 8' and 4' drawbars on the lower. Jimmy Smith himself didn't deviate from this much, and hardly ever used fast Leslie speed. (To make sure, I once asked him.) As I"ve said elsewhere (probably too often), many, many clones can pull this off quite nicely. Heck, my Roland VK-7 can and it"s over two decades old.

 

Wanna make a clone sweat, whether the gig is jazz or Mustang Sally? Pull the 'Erroll Garner' setting (bottom drawbar plus the top four), spin the Leslie simulation to fast, and don"t supplement it with the vibrato-chorus. Those high frequencies are very directional, so any flaws in making them sound like they"re being thrown around the room by a spinning speaker are now going to be exposed.

 

I know, a lot of other things go into the B3+Leslie sound. But for my money, this is the acid test.

 

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It's been many years since I had a hardware ROMpler, but my recollection is that when VCM came along in the MOTIF/MONTAGE family, it was said to be built atop FM, with maybe VL as well (though some say that even VL is built atop FM, and there's the longstanding argument of whether FM is a form of Additive Synthesis).

 

A friend who is pretty well-known in the industry sent me his own private NAMM report this morning, which is why I won't share his name (though he is known to many here), and he was blown away by the YC organ and even liked its keybed, saying he felt the raw sound and the C/V (and maybe Leslie) sounded better than the XK-5 (them's fighting words!).

 

But he's mostly a rock player, and has often used Korg CX3 family organs/sounds in his arsenal. Just another data point, to my mind.

Eugenio Upright, 60th Anniversary P-Bass, USA Geddy Lee J-Bass, Yamaha BBP35, D'angelico SS Bari, EXL1,

Select Strat, 70th Anniversary Esquire, LP 57, Eastman T486, T64, Ibanez PM2, Hammond XK4, Moog Voyager

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The answer, thankfully, it that it"s new. The YC61 is the first organ emulation Yamaha has produced that employs Virtual Circuit Modeling (VCM) technology.

 

 

I wonder if this is a result of Yamaha purchasing Line 6 a couple years ago, Line 6 was doing all sorts of modeling of amplifiers and effects pedals.

 

 

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Interesting point: is the VCM used for Leslie, Chorus/Vibrato, maybe even Percussion, or also for the Tonewheels?

Eugenio Upright, 60th Anniversary P-Bass, USA Geddy Lee J-Bass, Yamaha BBP35, D'angelico SS Bari, EXL1,

Select Strat, 70th Anniversary Esquire, LP 57, Eastman T486, T64, Ibanez PM2, Hammond XK4, Moog Voyager

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VCM (Virtual Circuit Modeling) obvious naming, is just the branding for Yamaha's circuit modeling - which is what everyone is doing to do amps and fx. It sounds great on most every effect Yamaha has used it for - I don't see why it wouldn't pull off a good Chorus / Vibrato (exception being if the developer has a different idea of what this should sound like). As the YC61 starts making it to dealers, we'll have a much better idea what the raw tone wheels sound like. Lots of software also does a good job on tonewheels. The Leslie cabinet and its rotary horns is another story - very few models of this have pleased forumites. Either way, time will tell.

Yamaha CP88, Casio PX-560

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I know what you"re getting to SF, but the use of drawbars is much more varied as jazz performances progress from the first three into more. A great jazz organist of today really works the drawbars constantly during a performance, often in subtle and gradual growth from the Jimmy Smith sound. So every single drawbar get exposed for what it adds as a tune progresses. It"s this constant interaction with every frequency that makes jazz (and gospel) a much more demanding test of a clonewheel that most rock/prog/blues playing. Watch our forum brother Jim Alfredson play, and he is constantly nudging drawbars to coax a wide palette of sounds from his instrument. And he/they do it to compensate for the sound in a given room as well. Masters - all of them. That"s why I always look to them for their 'take' on a given instrument.

 

Jerry

 

 

When someone says "organ not good enough for jazz," I would usually interpret that to mean not good enough to be front and central in a jazz organ trio. And I think jazz organ trio is the toughest test to pass for a clonewheel. It's the context in which the listener is most l likely to scrutinize for "that sound" in all it's dimensions: tone, chorus, leslie, percussion, leakage, key click, etc. The organ trio is the context in which the clonewheeler's hand-wringing about the weedy details of their sound sounds less like nerding-out and more like well-placed practical concerns.

 

 

I hear ya brother Jerry, and looking back at my post I didn't mean to suggest jazz organ was simplistic overallâthough my poor choice of words certainly could be taken that way. It's more that I've seen so many clone demos in the past 20 years or more that rely so heavily on the "first three plus third harmonic" sound that I've almost wondered what else they don't want me to hear. Agreed: All those details are most exposed in jazz playing. My point was more that if an organ's Leslie emulation can't convincingly reproduce what happens to higher harmonics at fast speedâwhether that's Jim evolving a registration as a tune evolves or a full-bars-out Gregg Rolie soundâthen great key click, leakage, custom tonewheel sets, or whatever is not going to make me forgive it for that.

 

Of course, organ emulation is not the same as Leslie emulation, so such an instrument may be perfect for someone who always plays through a real rotary speaker or a highly regarded simulation such as the Neo Ventilator.

 

Conversely, a great rotary emulation makes up for a lot. I'll even go so far as to say that playing through my 142 made the organ sounds in my original DX7 quite enjoyable.

 

Stephen Fortner

Principal, Fortner Media

Former Editor in Chief, Keyboard Magazine

Digital Piano Consultant, Piano Buyer Magazine

 

Industry affiliations: Antares, Arturia, Giles Communications, MS Media, Polyverse

 

 

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