Sam Mullins

Oh, I'll turn off all that stuff like Photo sharing. As I said, my primary concern is that I will lose in-app purchases (like Ivory within Korg Module) if I don't use the same Apple ID.

Decided to go with 256 GB ...just in case I have future uses I don't anticipate now. Thanks again for everyone's input. Another question for people in the know: Up til now, we have used one Apple ID for my wife's phone and the iPad Air that we share (with my existing music apps.) I have an Android phone (for work reasons I need to be familiar with both technologies) so don't have an Apple ID for myself. I looked into creating my Apple ID for this new iPad and using "Family Sharing" to get my old apps. But I read somewhere that even if all the apps support that feature, the in-app purchases do not get shared. Can anyone confirm this? I'm leaning towards just continuing to use my wife's apple ID since I don't really need one for any other reason. Opinions?

Thanks for the input and I was unaware of that new forum...will have to check it out. You also got me thinking "yeah, maybe I would take this on vacations and download movies". Good point.

Not sure where you are looking but on the App Store, Neo-Soul Keys Studio says 3.9 GB required. The "Studio 2" says 800MB for the app, but it looks like they are doing something with external SSD and reference 21GB (8.4 GB Downloadable Lossless Compression)....so that's as clear as mud. In any case, it starts me thinking that maybe I would regret 64GB at some point. On the other hand, it might keep me from buying all these relatively cheap apps, half of which I'll never use

I got an Amazon gift card as a reward for long hours on a work project. I couldn't find anything I really wanted from the normal musical instrument/sound pickings. I already have a decent selection of music apps that I run on our family iPad Air 2 ...but it's oldish and not always available when I want it. So I've decided that I might buy a iPad mini 5. Some relevant points: - This is mostly just to run soft synths. It won't be used by anyone else. I'll do some web surfing on it, but no email, photo storage, etc. - Although I have Cubasis and Garageband, I only use these occasionally. So no big storage requirements for recording. - The small size is a feature for me...gonna have it velcro'd it on my "couch keyboard" most of the time. Given above use cases, do you think the 64GB unit is enough? Or should I pay the extra $150 for a 256GB unit?

Bad Mister @ YamahaSynth: â The new YC61 has neither a piano action, nor does it have an action like the MX61. Also, contrary to Internet conspiracies, there is no 'standard piano key width".' ð That particular person is very knowledgeable about Yamaha keys and will generally defend Yamaha design decisions when they are questioned. I will concede that there isn"t a published standard that manufacturers can quote and say 'we are compliant'. And there is some variation. I just measured 5 of my keyboards and there was about 1/16' per octave variation across all of them. When I had my MOXF, it was around 3/16 ' per octave shorter than my other keyboards. It didn"t tend to bother me if I was playing just that keyboard; I seemed to adjust subconsciously. But it did bother me slightly if I was playing with one hand on another keyboard and one on the Yamaha. Not a huge deal, but I don"t understand why they want to deviate arbitrarily that far from the 'norm'. It can only cost them sales...I don"t see them touting it as a feature. Oh well, there are plenty of choices out there.

This. When I"ve had Yamaha unweighted keyboards in the past it was just under an inch for 5 octaves. Still silly...but not THAT silly.

Got mine and it looks like a goldmine of information. Can't wait to bore my guitar-player friends with all the history...only fair after all the endless discussion of guitars and amps I've endured

I think I agree but maybe I would phrase it this way: - All opinions on the value are necessarily personal, i.e. related to the specific needs/wants of that person. So it's perfectly valid for one person to say "it's way too expensive" and another to say "fair price" ...as long as everyone understands that there is an impliciit "...for my needs" in these opinions. - The only "objective" judgement of the price will be made by the market. If people buy it in quantities that support the business case at Nord...then it was priced correctly.

With you there...when I used to go to a lot of shows during that period, two common "uh-oh" moments were when a band would come on stage and it was either a) rock band with harmonica player or b) rock band with violin player. 90% of the time they tried to fill every non-vocal space with their "embellishments". Oy vey.

Yeah, I'm guessing that's their thought process for putting the waterfall keyboard on it. Although if you are putting it above an HA 88, you are still missing drawbars.

Yep, I played that piano when my Mom was there a couple years ago. A nice respite on those long days.

Just looked a bit at the manual: Nice that they gave plenty of foot controller inputs and options for controlling rotary speed.

As usual, the crowd here has done a good job of pointing out pros/cons vs. competitors. If I was in the marked for an organ-centric all-in-one (which I'm not), my thoughts would be: - Great that they included audio interface in case I need to augment sounds. - Disappointed that there is no aftertouch. I don't buy the "it's a clonewheel" argument since it has pitch bend and mod wheels. I realize that most of the competitors also don't have aftertouch but that could have been a selling point for Yamaha. Roland got it right on the VR-760 (one of the original attempts at this type of keyboard): really nice waterfall keyboard with very smooth aftertouch response. - As a person who has owned several Motif-line and Nord electro/stage keyboards: I would gladly trade the Nord sample library for a useful set of Yamaha high-quality multi-samples. The Nord samples are OK in a pinch and useful as raw synthesis options on the Stage. But for most acoustic instrument emulations they don't hold up to modern ROMplers. As an example, find the "Velo Growl" acoustic bass sound on any Yamaha Motif/MOX series and compare to anything on the Nord library. No contest. - None of the above would make any difference unless the Yamaha is in the same league as the others on Hammond/Leslie emulation. Doesn't have to be the best but it better be darn good.

Hopefully, the keys are standard width, unlike most of their unweighted pro keyboards for the last couple decades which are 3/16 " narrower per octave. Maybe that stopped with the Montage/MODX...I jumped off the Yamaha train when I sold my MOXF so I can't speak to those newer models.

Just curious what you mean by "nord format" and what you don't like about it. The overall layout? The push buttons with LEDs?

My nomination for quote of the week

I see there is a "like new, open box" Nord Electro 5 HP for $1900 on ebay. That seems to fit the bill if you can live with 73 keys. (Electro 6 is closer to 3k).

As Judge John Hodgman is fond of saying " Nostalgia is a toxic impulse".

I am now because: - I'm old enough to afford the flagship. (i.e. house paid off, kids long out of college, etc.) - I've lost the patience with hooking lots of cheaper stuff together to accomplish the same tasks. - I don't let stuff collect; I've probably owned 30 keyboards/modules over the years but I try to keep my number of keyboards to 3-4 at any one time so I want those to cover as much territory as possible. But there was a time when I was quite thrilled to be playing in a band with a Yamaha P90, Roland JV-1010 and an Alesis QS6.

Nice playing Mitch! If I was more of a bread and butter keys guy, I could really see the appeal of Mojo61 on top of Crumar Seven running into one of the new Motion Sound amps. Simple, great sound-sounding setup.

Thanks Vonnor!

Not that I can tell. There are some tones which have splits built in (e.g. bass/piano) but even then you don't hae control of the split point.

To be more accurate, the problem is the fact that USB is not isolated (the way 5-pin MIDI is, for example). Can be solved with one of these: USB Ground Loop Isolator - Jimbo Interesting. Probably won"t spend the $45 to find out if it solves my particular issue. Not a big problem for me and also trying to minimize connections on my couch setup . Thanks for the info though! Update: I did go ahead and order the device that Jimbo suggested (actually $50) and it did indeed drastically reduce the noise. Was originally hesitant to spend $50 for a keyboard I spent $115 for, but I figured it might come in handy in other audio situations with USB devices. So now happily playing Ivory Grand with CT-S300, an iPad and a two short cables...on my couch! Thanks again Jimbo.

Vonnor, what material did you use for the actual pedalboard? I just ordered a StudioLogic mp-113 and now have to figure out how to put that, my two expression pedals, two sustain pedals and footswitch on one easily transportable pedalboard. Should be an interesting logistics problem to solve. There is room inside my stand for the sustain pedals to go on each side, but the expression pedals will have to be mounted above somehow. I sit for gigs so hopefully that can be done without making them too high.