Yamaha YC61 Touch Sensitivity for Piano

[NosPup]

Does anybody have any favorite touch settings they are using on the YC61 for acoustic piano?  I just can’t seem to find an ideal place between soft, normal, and hard settings. I haven’t dug into the new curves yet.
 Just as a reference, I’m more of a synth guy, not a pianist, so I’m not requiring  a weighted action. I’ve been happy on Nord electros and older Roland’s like the xp30. I like everything else on the YC, but I’m just not yet connecting  with the AP’s. 

[AnotherScott]

None of the soft/normal/hard are good, as you've discovered. You need to tweak the individual Live Set with the much more nuanced Touch Sensitivity (Depth and Offset) velocity controls. I can't help with specific numbers to try, since I have the 73 which is an entirely different action, but that's where you need to focus your efforts.

[NosPup]

Thanks for the response. I’ll work from there. Do you start with “normal” as baseline before going into the deeper controls ?

[NosPup]

I worked with the settings last night and definitely created a much better feel. The settings didn’t really work as I expected, so it was more done by feel. I imagine I’ll probably end up still tweaking a bit more after playing with bands and through different amplification to see what is best. 

[Adam Burgess]

Yes, the amplification thing is sooo important. 

Anyone with any experience of a real piano feel has an expectation of how loud a note should be when the finger goes down on the key.
When amplified, this has to 'sit' somewhere in the (unknown/different) mix, and allow you to play comfortably in that range. 

 

If I can hear properly, I can play quieter, or less notes - but, I can accent when I need to. If I can't everything is at 100-127 velocity 😞
This is hard enough on a weighted board, but not impossible on a 61 if things are consistent. Consistency is hard with different bands and stages, which is where IEMs really come in. Like the airplane announcement says - sort yourself out first. 

When sound guys compress the s*** out of piano sounds live as a matter of course, it breaks my heart.

[JohnH]

I've left it at the factory setting and if running that keyboard stand alone usually am running it through two DXR10s. I love it. Sometimes I use it on one keyboard gigs as one gig I have to haul the PA , guitar rig and this. People in all my bands love the YC as it was a new addition last summer. I go to play the Motif XF and S90ES organ sounds and then don't enjoy them like I used to. I usually tweak all these plus have layers so they were never factory stock that everyone always complains about. I made them better.

[TWB121234]

I just recently bought a YC 61 and have been experimenting with the velocity curves. I hooked up the YC to Pianteq to check which global curve seemed to give me the best results. For me the normal setting gave me a decent velocity range. I have been working with the settings adjustments for piano sounds and Rhodes but haven’t settled on anything much better than default, though these do give you considerable options. I am hoping this keyboard can be an all in one solution for certain kinds of gigs which I don’t have at the moment 😉. I would not particularly want to play the pianos on a jazz centric gig, but for non piano heavy jobs I think they are going to work. I got inspiration from Reezkey who plays wonderful piano on an unweighted keyboard. 

[NosPup]

Had my first loud jam session with my adjusted touch settings. Much better than before but I’m still going to tweak a bit more. 

[Paul Woodward]

On 2/21/2023 at 1:16 AM, AnotherScott said:

None of the soft/normal/hard are good, as you've discovered. You need to tweak the individual Live Set with the much more nuanced Touch Sensitivity (Depth and Offset) velocity controls. I can't help with specific numbers to try, since I have the 73 which is an entirely different action, but that's where you need to focus your efforts.

I almost gave up on the YC pianos as I couldn’t connect despite being a long time Yamaha piano user. Connected a weighted piano to it today and wow. So it’s very much how the sounds respond to a weighted keybed. I know @NosPup isn’t a piano player, but if you really want to enjoy digging in to AP’s and EP’s might be worth trying a weighted board.

[NosPup]

2 hours ago, Paul Woodward said:

I almost gave up on the YC pianos as I couldn’t connect despite being a long time Yamaha piano user. Connected a weighted piano to it today and wow. So it’s very much how the sounds respond to a weighted keybed. I know @NosPup isn’t a piano player, but if you really want to enjoy digging in to AP’s and EP’s might be worth trying a weighted board.

Thanks for the heads up. I’ll certainly give that a try. Although I’ve gotten to a pretty good place with the velocity settings now, so I’m not as concerned.