New Yamaha YC 61 vs Nord Electro

[lucascastro]

What you guys think about this?

[dmamfmgm]

Yamaha is clearly “learning” that deep menus are truly not the most important aspects of a live stage piano...

As always, it comes down to personal preference - I didn’t see a price comparison yet...

The described features sound quite promising.
I’m curious how the waterfall action, which they describe as “Totally new designed keyboard” will compare against the Fatar TP/8o.
USB Audio out is nice.
Real drawbars including LEDs is also nice.
FM Pianos sound very nice - and they’re not sampled, so there’s no noise etc..

One MASSIVE benefit Nords will always bring are the replaceable sounds...

[maxpiano]

Price and availability
The Yamaha YC61 is available from June 2020. The UK SRP is £2,015 inc VAT.

https://yamahamusicians.com/the-superb- ... namm-2020/

[PScooter63]

it’s almost as if they designed an instrument around 90% of Nord complaints in the forums...
But at the end of the day, a ROMpler is still a ROMpler.
Remember when someone recently suggested Nord get into this product space?

[spookyman]

It's almost a clone of the Nord Electro 6...take a look at the sections and general layout :



Organ section on the left, "Live" section near the screen, Keys/Synth section right from the screen, then the effect section, speaker emulations, reverb section, etc...it's about 90% like Nord Electro. And Yamaha is talking 'bout "Reinventing the Stage Keyboard"... It's a little bit low level marketing from a "heavyweight" company like Yamaha.

But other ideas are really cool, like the half-transparent drawbars including LED's, or the add of a pitch bend and mod levers.
Soundwise, the first demos are really not bad !

Let's look on the bright side...competition stimulates business.

[tomzi]

In the product video they also had 2 Swedish keboard players. This is a frontal attack on Nord.

[Schorsch]

In the product video they also had 2 Swedish keboard players. This is a frontal attack on Nord.

Second one after the CP88, but this YC61 is much more obviously shooting directly towards Nord

[Spider]

Yes, this is basically an Electro with arguably a better synth section (if only for the mod-pitch controls) but maybe a bit less versatility especially for the piano sounds, on which Clavia is still unbeatable for quality and variety.
A big point will be the feel of the new keyboard (possibly better than FATAR? Optimized for organ or trying to be playable also for pianos?) and the quality of their new organ emulation: historically Yamaha has been very lacking in this respect, but this new organ sounds pretty good to me on a quick listen on cell phone speakers. We'll see how it performs in real life.

Price-wise it's not really cheap but I trust Yamaha stuff to be built like a tank and this looks to be a very solid all-around product. Much more interesting than the Roland VR series, for example. Very curious to try it out in person as soon as it hits the stores!

[dmamfmgm]

Definitely taking aim at Clavia and the Nords.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery.

It seemed to me that, for a demo, they spent a massive amount of time doing these really quick, impossible-to-judge sound bites of the instrument. Then they'd cut it off before you could really hear it or get to know it. Then you'd listen to someone talk for a while. Then another quick sound bite.

I don't think Yamaha understands their audience very well. Just my opinion.

(What really drove me mad was that around 5:50 in the video when they finally started doing more extended playing sessions, YouTube immediately cut it off to play an advertisement for a lobster restaurant! Just proves my point - Yamaha, why did you set "monetize this video: MAXIMUM" on your promo video!?! )

[Elias]

In the product video they also had 2 Swedish keboard players. This is a frontal attack on Nord.

Second one after the CP88, but this YC61 is much more obviously shooting directly towards Nord

I would not call it an attack but they must be hinting something. So many things almost exactly like on Electros and Stages. And the Swedish demonstrators.
I find it quite humorous