Opinionated (flame warning) Nord Stage 4 vs Yamaha YC88

[Bjosko]

Really? I thought it was his new nickname….

[SynMike]

In this video: I think Jack is a better demonstrator. He plays the right licks to show off the sounds.
I'd prefer to see him have the 2 stacked and play the same licks on both.

Here's my take:
I have a Nord Electro6 and a YC61.
Piano: Nord has a wider variety and more pianos. I think the Nord pianos sound slightly more natural to me. Perhaps they are not as tightly tuned as the Yamaha? The Yamaha has really great pianos, but sometimes they are almost too good. Nord wins for me, but I love the YC pianos more and more each time I play them.
Rhodes: Nord has a wider variety. But the YC has great Rhodes. Either one works equally well for me. I finally sold my great old Rhodes last year.
Organ: The Yamaha is _far_ better than the Nord. I think many keyboard players have never played a real Hammond+Leslie. The Nord is passable in a pinch. The Yamaha is quite good but not truly great. There are organs out there that are better than the Yamaha.
Synth: The Yamaha is better than my Electro. But I have to assume the Nord is a significant step above the YC for the way I would use it. But I have several other synthesizers that can run circles around any Nord for synth sounds, so I've got an Electro instead of Stage.

I am in a position where many people, especially church players, ask me advice on keyboards. I will recommend the YC over the Nord to most people. You have to be pretty serious as a player and in your willingness to deal with the technology to get the extra value out of the higher cost of the Nord.

[analogika]

Analogica didn't criticise my observation that the more expensive one was favored.He must work retail too ? Like a retailer was EVER going with the Yamaha......DUH.

I didn't reply to that bit because you've obviously made up your mind, and I don't know. But now that you're hammering it in:

a) You have ZERO idea what the margins are. For all we know, the dealership makes MORE off the Yamaha than off the Nord. Retail often stocks products they're not going to make meaningful money on, just because not stocking them would make them look bad. The money is in bundles and accessories.
Case in point: I don't know how it is now, but back when I worked in retail a little over a decade ago, Apple would not give distributors/dealers a wholesale price on iPhones here in Germany. Every. Single. iPhone. my employer sold was bought from Apple AT FULL RETAIL PRICE. We absolutely couldn't just not have iPhones, though. Effectively, every unlocked iPhone sold was sold at a loss, because we sold it without a markup. The money was in bundled cellular contracts, cases, cables, etc.

b) Retailers build trust over recommending the better product for your needs. At least, I always did. People would occasionally come in with an idea of what they wanted, and I'd take their use case apart and sell them what they needed. They'd save a whole bunch of money, I'd sell them some necessary cables and a backup hard drive instead, and the customer (and sometimes the dealer) came out ahead — but they'd always be back (and ask for me), because they had a guy who built them the better solution.

[analogika]

Also:

Analogika takes the bait EVERY time!

Yeah… I'm dumb that way. :shrug:

[tsss27]

Here's my take:
I have a Nord Electro6 and a YC61.
Piano: Nord has a wider variety and more pianos. I think the Nord pianos sound slightly more natural to me. Perhaps they are not as tightly tuned as the Yamaha? The Yamaha has really great pianos, but sometimes they are almost too good. Nord wins for me, but I love the YC pianos more and more each time I play them.
Rhodes: Nord has a wider variety. But the YC has great Rhodes. Either one works equally well for me. I finally sold my great old Rhodes last year.
Organ: The Yamaha is _far_ better than the Nord. I think many keyboard players have never played a real Hammond+Leslie. The Nord is passable in a pinch. The Yamaha is quite good but not truly great. There are organs out there that are better than the Yamaha.
Synth: The Yamaha is better than my Electro. But I have to assume the Nord is a significant step above the YC for the way I would use it. But I have several other synthesizers that can run circles around any Nord for synth sounds, so I've got an Electro instead of Stage.

I am in a position where many people, especially church players, ask me advice on keyboards. I will recommend the YC over the Nord to most people. You have to be pretty serious as a player and in your willingness to deal with the technology to get the extra value out of the higher cost of the Nord.

Pianos: I think the Yamaha pianos are indeed too precisely tuned overall. But many people like that sound, and it could also be part of the reason why some people say they cut better live?

I think Rhodes are great on either board. The Yamaha rhodes samples on their recent models are very nice.

The Leslie in the Yamaha seems to have a much wider 3D stereo image. But having played the Nord Hammond model live in context it sounds excellent to everyone involved, and we've compared it with a real Hammond side-by-side. But I'm sure someone who has spent many years on a real one would know exactly what to listen for in isolation. I'm not sure which I prefer in the video demo, both have a useful sound signature. When the YC first came out the Leslie sim sounded awful to me, but Yamaha has made big improvements in their updates.

The Nord Stage 4's synth is far more comprehensive than the Electro. It's still fairly basic and in terms of possibilities my Prophet X is a far deeper machine. But it depends on what you need, really. For me the NS4 and Prophet X are an ideal pair.

[Nico38]

The comparison is not very relevant, the two keyboards do not really play in the same category.
The Nord Stage 4 offers 7 parts (that's more than double the YC), has a real synth (the Wave2), triple arpeggiators, morphing, better ergonomics, has a super complete effects section per part with a very high quality, can load user samples, etc...
The Yamaha YC is really small compared to it, it's just a CP88 with an organ engine, cheesy FM and still that old Yamaha AWM2 synthesis which is over 30 years old, still happy that it costs less than the Stage 4. I find that even compared to the Electro 6 (if we don't take the keyboard into account), the latter remains more interesting than the YC.
I'm not even talking about the Nord Piano 5 which, for more or less the same price, is much better for me.
Yamaha is in trouble, they just wanted to copy Nord without any brilliance: no point, it's better to take the Nord Piano 5 or save a little more and take the Stage 4.

[Walker31415]

The Yamaha YC is really small compared to it, it's just a CP88 with an organ engine, cheesy FM and still that old Yamaha AWM2 synthesis which is over 30 years old, still happy that it costs less than the Stage 4. I find that even compared to the Electro 6 (if we don't take the keyboard into account), the latter remains more interesting than the YC.

YC73: $2599
Nord Electro 6D 73: $2999
Nord Electro 6 HP: $2999
For $400 less, Yamaha gives actual synth controls (pitch and mod control) for the (somewhat limited) synth sounds so that it's actually usable in House of Worship (CCM) music that requires pads, better MIDI, A/D Outputs, and an Audio Interface.

I'm not even talking about the Nord Piano 5 which, for more or less the same price, is much better for me.
Yamaha is in trouble, they just wanted to copy Nord without any brilliance: no point, it's better to take the Nord Piano 5 or save a little more and take the Stage 4.

This is an even more pointless comparison.
YC88 (US): $3149 (On sale on Amazon rn, $2599)
Nord Piano 5 88: $3499
For $350 less, Yamaha gives an organ simulation that some people find better than Nord's C2 (preference, will get the job done at the very least), a WAY BETTER Piano keybed (NWX Natural Wood keybed, IMO better than the Nord Grand), and actual pitch and mod control, better MIDI, A/D Inputs, XLR Output, and Audio Interface

I do give you, that the Nord Piano Library and the ability to load samples is an added benefit, but it can also be argued that the same result and much more can come from hooking up a laptop to the Yamaha's audio interface.
I also agree that the Stage 4 is much better (7 part multitimbral and the best synthesizer in any stage keyboard) but it *is* almost DOUBLE the price of the YC88.

It is obvious that Nord really markets to House of Worship for their sales, and from the parts that piano/organ players get on these types of songs, the YC is more than able to cover these parts. Heck, even the $1300 CK88 gives enough granular and accessible control and layers to cover these parts. With the saturation of the band, as long as the piano sound cuts through, it is indistinguishable to tell between a Nord or a Yamaha or a Keyscape sound, even on recordings.
What these keyboards can't cover is the synth parts of modern CCM music, where the Stage 4 comes into play with its Wave engine, 3 individual parts, and the ever-exclusive KB HOLD functionality for drone pads, a staple for worship music.

[zahush76]

Price-wise, an even more sensible comparison would be the Nord stage 4 vs Yamaha Montage M8X.
The Montage M8X costs $1200 less, has way more polyphony, touch screen, more memory, poly aftertouch, acoustic and electric pianos which are on par with nord and sometimes better, a deeper synth engine, more envelopes, lfos etc.
Some might claim that it is a "workstation" but it's not really. More of a stage piano + synth.
The main downside is the size and weight.
But if you purely look at features and sounds - it is a very capable competitor to the NS4 that costs $1200 less.
Trying to make up my mind myself.
All of the above is appealing to me, but also the size and weight is something that doesn't.
The nord sounds great, more compact and lighter - but a whole lot simpler.
Some might claim that the important things are having very good bread and butter sounds, strong pianos. ep's, organs, synths - and less super complex / bombastic sounds that you would rarely use, with a good controls that gives you hands on interaction in real time.
But you can also use the Montage that way if you wanted to. You don't really have to use 16 layer sounds with motion sequencers and complicated arps and modulations. The Montage can also be used as a straight forward stage piano with all of the most important controls assigned to the knobs and faders.

So the dilemma remains.

[Walker31415]

@zahush76 is right.

Every time I've sat down at a Montage, I've been very overwhelmed and couldn't dial in a sound for my life. However, with a lot of practice, this can be done. I just fear that getting a decent sound out of it that I have in my vision would probably take longer on the Montage than the Nord Stage. My life is very busy and I don't have much time to make patches before rehearsals so the Nord really helps with that.

I also noticed that it doesn't have a dedicated Organ simulation, and this is pretty important to me.

However, the MODX version of the M8X should be coming out soon (?, MODX+ came out pretty recently) and this should resolve all weight constraints. Not to mention that at that price it will be busy beating up the Electro and Piano.

I noticed some churches are going back to their Motif days and buying Montage, but there is an increased amount of use of MIDI rigs...

[Valpurgis]

The Montage M8X costs $1200 less, has way more polyphony, touch screen, more memory, poly aftertouch, acoustic and electric pianos which are on par with nord and sometimes better, a deeper synth engine, more envelopes, lfos etc.

The pricing differs from market to market, I would pay considerably more for a M8X than a NS4 88. And no, I would not gig with stage piano weighting more than 28 kg.