Sam Mullins

I went to guitar center and played a P45 and MX-88, which are supposedly both GHS. Very different. P45 key travel was a bit shallow and bottomed out hard but overall was acceptable. The MX-88 action was uneven, sloppy and sluggish…couldn’t deal with that. Hopefully CK88 is more like former.

Thanks all....sounds like it's a possibility that I would find it acceptable but will obviously have to play one to be sure. I can continue plotting

I've been off the Yamaha train for several years and haven't played a recent "GHS" action. I tried to find one of the existing GHS (MODX8, MX88) models to play locally to no avail. Understanding that these things are inevitably subjective, can someone comment just on the general quality of the action. I can deal with differences as long as it isn't a cheap, noisy/clacky keybed (e.g. when I transitioned from S90ES to Stage 2, it took me a while but in the end i was fine with it.) How does the current Yamaha GHS compare to say the Stage 2/3 weighted 88? Contemplating complete overhaul of rig to be much lighter than current Stage 3/Kronos...for later this year. Would definitely make a trip to Chicago to play a CK88 before making any decision, but wondering whether it's even a candidate based on keybed.... any thoughts appreciated. Sam

Iowa women make it to Final Four. Clark’s line: 41 pts 12 assists 10 rebounds yowza

And while leading the nation in assists. We are a .500 team without her. So much fun to watch.

Hoping my Iowa Hawkeyes can pull it out tomorrow night. They have benefitted from some upsets in their bracket and of course the outlandish play of Caitlin Clark…oh wait, you guys are talking about the men. Forgot they also play basketball 😉

One more positive aspect on this thing: it's in a price range that I might actually be able to play one at the local Guitar Center. 😏

This is a good summary. I've been in the process of doing a light-weight rig to duplicate say 75% of what I do with my normal rig (Kronos 61 + Stage 3 88)....for short gigs in tight spaces. I'm pretty close with: - Casio CT-S500 - ipad Pro - Camelot Pro + apps (mostly Korg Module, B3-X, Neo-Soul Keys, Ravenscroft, and Pure Synth) - Airturn B500 S-2 foot pedal to advance scenes (to make up for fact that I don't have two keyboards) Why do I bring all this up here? Because I've now invested enough time to determine that: a) I can cover most of the sonic territory with high quality sounds and I can overcome most of the compromises in keyboard real estate b) There is NO WAY I would gig with only a pure controller that can't act as a decent sound source...I've had enough flakiness to make me very cautious. So from my POV, a CK61 + ipad/iphone would really be a nice combination especially with the built-in audio interface.

The last Yamaha I owned (MOXF), it was 3/16" per octave...so a little over a half mm per white key. Most people don't seem to mind. I can't definitively say it caused me problems...but when I was playing on a more "standard" width keyboard with one hand and the other on the MOXF, I had this perception that things were a little off. Could be just some form of psychosis on my part

The CK61 is a good candidate for a "high-end" couch keyboard. Only slightly bigger and 2 lbs heavier than a Casio CT-S500. Apples and oranges since this has a lot more capability (real-time controls, FX options, more midi zones, audio interface, etc) but also is 3 times the price. And I would be surprised if it didn't have the narrow keys that Yamaha unweighted synths have had since the DX7.🙄 But if you needed both a semi-pro stage keyboard and a couch keyboard...not sure there are any other options that fill both needs.

Too cool! And nostalgic for me; my first rig in high school was a 59 Hammond C3 and a Micromoog on top of a Wurly.

After listening to the new Beatles cover album a few times…overall I like it a lot. The exceptions are For No One, which I found a little undeveloped (probably because of hearing Fred Hersch’s sublime covers of same song) and Maxwell’s Silver Hammer which I found meandering. otherwise good stuff!

Yeah, I had to reprogram a bunch of stuff because of this when I went from Stage 2 to Stage 3. It's that kind of stuff (combined with not really needing any of the new features) that means I will likely pass on Stage 4.

Yeah...I have no data either but see lots of touring bands with them. OTOH, I've never been a full-time musician and given my limited talent, I doubt I could have afforded one if I was But old age and a fruitful engineering career now allows me to buy expensive toys. Not like when I was 30 with young kids, a mortgage and was trying to figure out how to cover all these songs with a Yamaha P90 and a Roland JV-1010 module.

I'll add that although I would like to make my rig lighter, I do like the fact that my whole MIDI interconnection is two cables between Stage and Kronos. Keep extra cables in bag and nothing else that might cause failure. I bring this up because I was testing out some possibilities yesterday with my iPad and existing keyboards with a (admittedly cheap) USB hub...and the inside of the USB A connector on the hub broke...had to toss it in the garbage. So yeah...everytime you add something, there's that accumulation of reliability risk.

Yeah this was the backup plan. Could also be done with iPad off of USB of Arturia and routing YC MIDI out to Arturia IN (it has an option to echo MIDI IN to USB)., although this doesn't utilize the YC audio interface. Thanks for the replies.

For you YC 61/73/88 owners, suppose I wanted to do the following: - YC73 with iPad connected on USB audio - External controller (e.g. Arturia Keylab Mkii) MIDI out -> YC73 MIDI In Will the YC73 pass the midi messages from the Arturia through to the iPad? If so, can I do the following simultaneously: - Play piano on one zone of the YC73 - Play an iPad sound A on another zone of YC73 - Play the YC73 organ from one key range of the Arturia - Play an iPad sound B from another key range of the Arturia Planning for old age downsizing of rig at some point

I had a brief pang of GAS yesterday before the thing was announced, but I'm over it already. Some nice user interface changes (panel architecture and drawbars on the 88), additional synth and FX. But same piano memory and same organ engine. So not worth it to me to upgrade from Stage 3. Frankly, I have a lot of time invested in learning and programming on my current rig (Stage 3/Kronos midi'd back to back). It does everything I want and has been reliable. But if I wiped the slate clean (new material, didn't need the programs, etc), I'd probably do something cheaper and lighter. Maybe Yamaha YC-88, Arturia Keylab Mkii controller and iPad?

Yeah, I got two iPad's with a bunch of VI's (Module, Ravenscroft, Neo-Soul Keys, B3-x, a bunch of synths) and probably could get along with my Stage 3 and that. But a few things have kept me from going that route: a) Got lots of complicated splits for songs between Stage and Kronos (midi'd back to back) and just don't want to do all the reprogramming b) keyboard redundancy c) stability d) Kronos Set List (which could be replaced any number of ways on iPad of course) Having said all that, I can envision a time when I go the route of one 88 weighted keyboard + iPad....and my CT-S500 in the trunk as a fail-safe.

Looks deeper than Stage 3...so I would probably have to buy a new hard case, but I guess that's in the noise money-wise given the likely price. Looks like a lot of new features in the hardware interface. But I'm guessing I won't be tempted unless there is significantly better sample-player engine (with sound libraries to take advantage of it), i.e. velocity switching of samples to make it competitive with modern ROMplers (MODX, Kronos, Fantom, etc) on instrument emulation. If that were the case, I could probably do gigs without my Kronos....and less schlep is becoming increasingly appealing at my age.

Beatles record is out now. Most surprising is a rollicking boogie-woogie version of “I Saw Her Standing There” that I would never have guessed was Mehldau on a blindfold test.

Obviously there are objectively bad actions...but there is some truth here. I LOVED my Yamaha S90ES and when I got my first weighted Nord (Stage 2), I was really not happy. Now that I've been on a Stage 2/Stage 3 for many years, it is fine. I suspect if I went back to same action I loved so much on S90ES I would find it to be too heavy now.

Bummer. Was probably way more influential on me than I ever realized; my Mom would play his recordings (on LP and 8 track!) and associated acts (e.g. Dionne Warwick) when I was a kid. A master of sophistication without sacrificing hooks.

Back on Brad's pop cover explorations...I like this version of Elliott Smith's Independence Day he did with Chris Thile:

Same...never clicked with me although I love both artists.