Yamaha CK61 and CK88

[Stokely]

I dislike wall warts too, but that's good advice above.  Buy a backup, keep one with your backup stuff (I'm guessing most of us bring a backup bag/case with cables etc to gigs, mine usually stays in my car  ).  One stays with the unit it goes with, when that was a keyboard it went into the gigbag pocket.

I dislike needing batteries even more, I don't currently use anything including an ipad these days that needs charging.

One thing that improves wall warts a lot IMO is to thicken up the cable with a flex sleeve.  Get the split kind, I have 3 different sizes for custom "snakes" for my other cables.  I find having the sleeve on makes it much nicer to deal with the wall wart I still have to use (for my headphone mixer).  No tangling with itself or anything else.

[Rand L]

Thanks for the reponses. You are probably right.  This conversion looks to be a bit more than I want to get into.  I almost ran and got 8 AA batteries.  I am glad I didn't.  Saw today online, regular batteries only last an hour and a half. I'll look up some spare wall warts.  BTW, I still hate wall warts. 

[StickMan393]

15 hours ago, Stokely said:

One thing that improves wall warts a lot IMO is to thicken up the cable with a flex sleeve.  Get the split kind, I have 3 different sizes for custom "snakes" for my other cables.

What a great idea! Thanks.

[stoken6]

Suggestion is to velcro an external PSU to the side of the board, and permanently wire it. (I bought a little guitar-pedalboard right-angle barrel-jack adapter thing for one of my PSUs to avoid impact damage). You can get external PSUs with IEC connectors so you can plug in a standard cable.

 

Cheers, Mike.

[To B3]

How hard (or easy) would be to "replace" the internal organ engine for an app like the VB3m when my ipad is plugged?

Can I do this in all my registrations (single organ sounds, splits with organ and piano, with clav, etc) Including all control mapping and stuff like that?

[John Tweed]

12 hours ago, To B3 said:

How hard (or easy) would be to "replace" the internal organ engine for an app like the VB3m when my ipad is plugged?

Can I do this in all my registrations (single organ sounds, splits with organ and piano, with clav, etc) Including all control mapping and stuff like that?

Not too hard. You don’t exactly replace the internal sounds, just set the organ to zero volume and use the master keyboard function to set up the key range, midi channel etc for VB3m. Then you’ll want to map the midi cc numbers in the app to match the hardwired ccs transmitted by the CK. There is a list in the manual that tells you what each controller sends, or you can use the midi learn function in VB3m. On the CK you need to have a part enabled and set to organ (with vol at 0) to enable the drawbars. Each part sends drawbars on different ccs, so you can easily map an upper or lower set. I have mapped several of the knobs on the CK to different switches or sliders in VB3m. I also set any I don’t want to be controlled by the CK to cc 0 so that it doesn’t inadvertently change settings I don’t want to change. Good luck 😄

[APP]

Opinions on how the CK "short-throw" drawbars work with VB3m (I have the android version if that matters)

[John Tweed]

12 hours ago, APP said:

Opinions on how the CK "short-throw" drawbars work with VB3m (I have the android version if that matters)

They are fine on iPhone or iPad, unless you wanted to dial up a specific fiddly setting, as there are no numbers on the CK. In my case if a db is not all the way in or all the way out, I adjust it on the fly by ear.

[Bobby Simons]

On 8/14/2024 at 9:09 PM, John Tweed said:

They are fine on iPhone or iPad, unless you wanted to dial up a specific fiddly setting, as there are no numbers on the CK. In my case if a db is not all the way in or all the way out, I adjust it on the fly by ear.

The db numbers appear onscreen when you move a slider. I've gotten quite used to the short length.

 

[To B3]

As I already know that the organs are not in the same level of the YC, I´d like to know: how does the Pianos/EPs/Clavs/Vintage Synths/Mellotrons on the CK vs the YC? Same? Almost the same? Totally different?

 

Same question regarding the effects especially the ones more comon to vintage keys, like rotary, overdrive, tremolo, wah, phaser.

 

Another interesting thing is I´ve never seen some video comparison between the CK and the YC, nor between the CK and it´s more obvious competitors like the Roland VR09 and the Numa Compact 2X. Anyone compared those side by side?

[stoken6]

21 hours ago, To B3 said:

As I already know that the organs are not in the same level of the YC, I´d like to know: how does the Pianos/EPs/Clavs/Vintage Synths/Mellotrons on the CK vs the YC? Same? Almost the same? Totally different?

 

Same question regarding the effects especially the ones more comon to vintage keys, like rotary, overdrive, tremolo, wah, phaser.

 

Another interesting thing is I´ve never seen some video comparison between the CK and the YC, nor between the CK and it´s more obvious competitors like the Roland VR09 and the Numa Compact 2X. Anyone compared those side by side?

Hey, we both got a downvote from DroppedThumbBroham! I can almost understand mine (obviously not a velcro fan), but yours? You ask two questions, and get downvoted 

 

Cheers, Mike.

[CHarrell]

22 hours ago, To B3 said:

As I already know that the organs are not in the same level of the YC, I´d like to know: how does the Pianos/EPs/Clavs/Vintage Synths/Mellotrons on the CK vs the YC? Same? Almost the same? Totally different?

 

Same question regarding the effects especially the ones more comon to vintage keys, like rotary, overdrive, tremolo, wah, phaser.

 

Pianos: Similar but not as many. Could be placebo but CK CFX sounds clearer and brighter to me than CP CFX.

 

EP: Similar but not as many. They chose my favorite CP sounds for them.

 

Clavs: Almost identical if not identical 

 

Synths and other sounds: Waaaaaay more than CP, different than YC since YC features FM.

 

Effects: As far as I know, most of the same, more than CP, almost identical to YC. VCM is one of Yamaha's biggest strengths, they need to sell these in a modern standalone package. 

 

My dream that Yamaha would probably never ever do is sell a CK rackmount, the only big thing holding it back for me is the action on the 88. Otherwise, it's an amazing gigging board.

 

Never played the Numa, but Yamaha vs Roland: overall I'd give Yamaha the edge in most departments, but there's something about the VR organ I find really charming, and though you need an iPad to edit these in depth, I do give Roland for shoving a (sample based? Can't remember if it's based on Gaia or not) VA in there.

[DroptopBroham]

The CK is a great board for gigging. Numa Compact, not even in the same league wrt sound and the action on the CK88 and even CK61 is miles ahead of the Numa's vienna sausage keys. The thumbs down for duct taping a wallwart to the side of the CK, certainly.

 

The second downvote to OP is for too many simple questions. The CK has a limited selection of the good APs and EPs from the YC, a weaker B3 sim with horrendous fast leslie, a better UI, and much more synth and other sounds. The sounds that are common between the boards pretty much sound the outside of the organ. By now this is common knowledge to everybody.  Then the questions on using VB3m with it. Again, c'mon man. I don't think that there's ever been a time where we needed Sven more than now.

 

I personally use a CK88. Bought it over the YC due to weight and price plus like the action better for synths and organs. But really the OP needs to read through the forum. I'm sure all of his basic questions been answered dozens of times. 

[To B3]

4 hours ago, stoken6 said:

Hey, we both got a downvote from DroppedThumbBroham! I can almost understand mine (obviously not a velcro fan), but yours? You ask two questions, and get downvoted 

 

Cheers, Mike.

 

I find it really sad that. The purpose of a forum is to share personal experiences. To read or watch generic ones, I know how Google works. I asked here to know how other players feel about those questions. And the guy even finishes his message saying he "misses sven", the most annoying member this forum ever seen. 

 

To the "downvote guy": if you don´t like something, just pass it, like people should do on social media. No need to "disaprove" something from someone you never met.

 

To the other people that shared their experiences: many, many thanks.

 

Cheers, lighten up, people. Go play a little

[Dave Ferris]

4 hours ago, CHarrell said:

 

Pianos: Similar but not as many. Could be placebo but CK CFX sounds clearer and brighter to me than CP CFX.

 

Really? I haven't played the CK88 so I wouldn't know. But I'd be hard put to ask for any more clarity, at least with bass & drums in a straight-ahead jazz context, then my CP88.

[AnotherScott]

4 hours ago, CHarrell said:

other sounds: Waaaaaay more than CP, different than YC since YC features FM.

There are differences even not counting the FM sounds. I was disappointed to see that the CK is missing the "overblown" flute that the YC has.

[CHarrell]

1 hour ago, Dave Ferris said:

 

Really? I haven't played the CK88 so I wouldn't know. But I'd be hard put to ask for any more clarity, at least with bass & drums in a straight-ahead jazz context, then my CP88.

 

It could be my amplification settings, especially since the CP doesn't have an output dB setting, but the CK sounded brighter and more pronounced on my Spacestation v3. 

 

22 minutes ago, AnotherScott said:

There are differences even not counting the FM sounds. I was disappointed to see that the CK is missing the "overblown" flute that the YC has.

 

I did oversimplify, yeah, I felt like there are so many differences in that whole department between all three that it would take a lot longer to go in the weeds (I did forget about the overblown flute though).

[Dave Ferris]

16 hours ago, CHarrell said:

 

It could be my amplification settings, especially since the CP doesn't have an output dB setting, but the CK sounded brighter and more pronounced on my Spacestation v3.

 

 Yeah that makes sense. I had one of those for a minute when they first came out. I had a Nord Piano 2 and also a Yamaha CP4 at the time and each sounded way different through it.

 

There was an historically long thread here about the Spacestation. Aspen Pittman, the designer, was 20 minutes away over in San Fernando and I went back and forth trying it out. I ended up not keeping it after quite a few gigs, in the end  I just preferred my RCF TT-08As. You couldn't beat the convenience factor of it though.

[CHarrell]

2 minutes ago, Dave Ferris said:

 

 Yeah that makes sense. I had one of those for a minute when they first came out. I had a Nord Piano 2 and also a Yamaha CP4 at the time and each sounded way different through it.

 

There was an historically long thread here about the Spacestation. Aspen Pittman, the designer, was 20 minutes away over in San Fernando and I went back and forth trying it out. I ended up not keeping it after quite a few gigs, in the end  I just preferred my RCF TT-08As. You couldn't beat the convenience factor of it though.

 

When you get stereo effects dialled in right through the amp's settings, such as the CP/YC/CK autopan, it's magical, but for overall clarity and "everyday" sonic character without carving out a damn-near new instrument through EQ or effects, I think I've reached a point where I would prefer two conventional PAs as well.