Opinionated (flame warning) Nord Stage 4 vs Yamaha YC88

[zahush76]

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.

That's interesting since the Montage M8X is exactly 28kg

[zahush76]

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

It actually does, and they demo this on a few youtube demos. They also set the faders to function upside down like drawbars when simulating a B3 - and they added the vcm rotary speaker sim from the YC series

[Valpurgis]

That's interesting since the Montage M8X is exactly 28kg

Well, according to Yamahas own specifications it is 28.1 kg. Nevertheless I think you took my point,

[tsss27]

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.

For simply playing CCM pads you don't really need pitch control on the Electro, a mod wheel would be nice for volume but just assign the volume to the expression pedal and off you go. And with the user-made samples the quality of these types of pads is far higher and more varied than in the Yamaha. Now for more advanced synthesis I fully agree, in my view the more performance controllers the better. For example you could still have volume on the pedal but also open and close the filter to increase the intensity of said pad sound. But in this case neither an Electro or YC would be a primary option. I view the synth side of each as a bonus. Yamaha gives you more ways to shape the existing sounds; Nord gives you more flexibility in the sounds you can import to start with. Like a particular Yamaha synth patch? Sample it and load it into the Electro. Both can get you similar results but in different ways (except you can bend notes and add vibrato on the YC, of course!)

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.

A computer setup will always give you maximum flexibility, there's no way around it. Even with a 1 TB SSD inside of a Korg Kronos, the computer will be able to do more. But many players don't wish to deal with a laptop or iPad on stage, for whatever reason. You could get a keyboard like Komplete Kontrol or Arturia KeyLab and have all parameters mapped to knobs like hardware. But if this was the best solution for everyone there would be no market for either the Nord or the Yamaha. A computer with controller and some nice sample libraries is certainly cheaper than any Nord, so the value is there but the workflow is different for sure.

As for the rest of your post, the church I play at went from an old Motif, to a Korg SV1, to a Nord Piano 5. The difference from the Yamaha to the Korg was night and day. The Nord, primarily due to its deeper layering capabilities and wider variety of keyboard sounds, was a big difference again. Now in terms of how it sounds in the house? I am sure the differences are way more subtle and the average person doesn't even care what piano sample is being used. At that point even the Yamaha MX88 has enough layering power to work well. But when they got the Nord I took it home and spent time programming custom patches from scratch, many that were meant to re-create presets from gospel VST's like MKSensation XTreme as we like the big fat gospel stacks here, and loaded in lots of custom pad samples and other things. With the YC you cannot do that. The pianos it comes with are all you get, the synths it comes with are again all you get. You can tweak a little, but if you really want to create a custom sound you'd be better off with a Motif or Montage. But to set up these same sounds on a Montage would take far longer assuming they were not already included as pre-made samples. The Piano 5 lets you layer up to 4 sounds (2 piano, 2 synth/sample.) I do not believe the YC would allow that, and on a keyboard of this type the lack of wheels is less of an issue -- at least the piano player doesn't mind; I cover all the synths and my setup is accordingly different. The Yamaha YC, Korg Grandstage and a few others were all in consideration when they were going to buy the Nord in order to save some cash but in the end they said there really was no comparison.

[Walker31415]

It actually does, and they demo this on a few youtube demos. They also set the faders to function upside down like drawbars when simulating a B3 - and they added the vcm rotary speaker sim from the YC series

I think this is sufficient for most "set and forget" organ configurations, but I think its sample rather than model based (the reface and CK organs are sampled vs the YC is modeled? I think)
+ Theres 9 drawbars and only 8 faders so one of them is set to the mod wheel

[Walker31415]

For simply playing CCM pads you don't really need pitch control on the Electro, a mod wheel would be nice for volume but just assign the volume to the expression pedal and off you go. And with the user-made samples the quality of these types of pads is far higher and more varied than in the Yamaha. Now for more advanced synthesis I fully agree, in my view the more performance controllers the better. For example you could still have volume on the pedal but also open and close the filter to increase the intensity of said pad sound. But in this case neither an Electro or YC would be a primary option. I view the synth side of each as a bonus. Yamaha gives you more ways to shape the existing sounds; Nord gives you more flexibility in the sounds you can import to start with. Like a particular Yamaha synth patch? Sample it and load it into the Electro. Both can get you similar results but in different ways (except you can bend notes and add vibrato on the YC, of course!)

Definitely, the pitch bend is useless for pads . However, changing the filter of pads is really important to me...
Sampling is definitely the way to go to get a great all in one board with all the sounds you need, and the ability to choose your own from any source is great. However, in my (limited) adventures with the Nord Sample Editor, I find that it is a bit cumbersome to sample sounds (I'm most probably just bad and impatient to get loop points just right).

A computer setup will always give you maximum flexibility, there's no way around it. Even with a 1 TB SSD inside of a Korg Kronos, the computer will be able to do more. But many players don't wish to deal with a laptop or iPad on stage, for whatever reason. You could get a keyboard like Komplete Kontrol or Arturia KeyLab and have all parameters mapped to knobs like hardware. But if this was the best solution for everyone there would be no market for either the Nord or the Yamaha. A computer with controller and some nice sample libraries is certainly cheaper than any Nord, so the value is there but the workflow is different for sure.

I've also dabbled in MIDI and I use a Macbook to do drone pads so I can free up the last layer on the Nord Stage 4. However, to do this requires another audio interface and mixing your own laptop/keyboard before sending to FoH.
Not having XLR outs or an audio interface has been a frustration for many people on this forum, like when the NS4 came out. With the Yamaha, it's a one-cable solution for midi and audio.

As for the rest of your post, the church I play at went from an old Motif, to a Korg SV1, to a Nord Piano 5. The difference from the Yamaha to the Korg was night and day. The Nord, primarily due to its deeper layering capabilities and wider variety of keyboard sounds, was a big difference again. Now in terms of how it sounds in the house? I am sure the differences are way more subtle and the average person doesn't even care what piano sample is being used. At that point even the Yamaha MX88 has enough layering power to work well. But when they got the Nord I took it home and spent time programming custom patches from scratch, many that were meant to re-create presets from gospel VST's like MKSensation XTreme as we like the big fat gospel stacks here, and loaded in lots of custom pad samples and other things. With the YC you cannot do that. The pianos it comes with are all you get, the synths it comes with are again all you get. You can tweak a little, but if you really want to create a custom sound you'd be better off with a Motif or Montage. But to set up these same sounds on a Montage would take far longer assuming they were not already included as pre-made samples. The Piano 5 lets you layer up to 4 sounds (2 piano, 2 synth/sample.) I do not believe the YC would allow that, and on a keyboard of this type the lack of wheels is less of an issue -- at least the piano player doesn't mind; I cover all the synths and my setup is accordingly different. The Yamaha YC, Korg Grandstage and a few others were all in consideration when they were going to buy the Nord in order to save some cash but in the end they said there really was no comparison.

Interesting to hear that the Yamaha and Korg yielded a night and day difference. A lot of the guys I play with swear by Yamaha's CFIII and CFX sounds but have moved on to Nord Stage for its amount of layers. I have a moXF that I used before the Nord and one thing it didn't have was seamless patch transitions, which was really frustrating.
Kudos to you for being able to get gospel VST level sounds out of 2 pianos and 2 synths, though! (and also taking the time to sample pads)

As far as sounds themselves, the YC punches way above its weight class as it is one of the only "Nord form factor" keyboards that has the organ, so in that way it compares with the Stage. But Nord makes it really easy to sample sounds onto a stage/electro/piano keyboard as most keyboards that have sampling are workstations that take forever to program.

Moral of the story: Usually people buy a keyboard for like a handful of features that they know they will use, and this requirement is different for everyone. Also, everyone's time constraints are different and sampling and programming patches may not be everyone's cup of tea.

[Walker31415]

Sampling is definitely the way to go to get a great all in one board with all the sounds you need, and the ability to choose your own from any source is great. However, in my (limited) adventures with the Nord Sample Editor, I find that it is a bit cumbersome to sample sounds (I'm most probably just bad and impatient to get loop points just right).

Someone on this forum developed a python script which will locate existing loop points in the metadata of a wav file and add them to your sample editor projects. This is great if you're familiar with finding loop points from another editor as you can create them there and then load into the NSE if that workflow is better for you. Crossfading can help a lot too depending on sound. I find pads are actually the easiest to loop simply because they can be slowly crossfaded and if the values are right the loop is seamless. But even without that, there are loads of pads on this forum to try, some specifically designed for the CCM worship sound.

Not having XLR outs or an audio interface has been a frustration for many people on this forum, like when the NS4 came out. With the Yamaha, it's a one-cable solution for midi and audio.

For combining hardware with software I agree that would simplify things. I only use hardware and run my boards into some pedals, so even if there were XLR outs I'd still need a DI to run at the end of my effects chain. Almost all the pedals are hooked up to the Sequential Prophet X, with the NS4 it's not so necessary as the effects are good quality, I think I would only add a tape delay-style pedal. But I understand the majority of users probably just go direct, so having a pair of XLR outs would help many players and I agree it is strange that Nord has not added that feature.

The Yamaha is a great value, no doubt. Yamaha always gives a lot of value for the money -- just look at the MOXF vs Motif XF, or MODX vs Montage. I think as you say it depends on your exact needs. In the right application neither of these boards would let you down. I had considered the YC61 before the Stage 4 as it seemed so expensive (although there are deals to be had if you're patient) but it just doesn't do everything I'd want. Similarly with the Nord Wave 2, I went from that to the Sequential Prophet X and it's so much more flexible...but also more complex. However Sequential did a top tier job with the interface in my opinion and the menus are extremely shallow. Now I have 200 GB of space for custom samples with up to 20 velocity layers and 20 round robin alternating samples for each of those if necessary! But the polyphony is small (only up to 32 voices at absolute max.) It's a synth, not a stage keyboard...just happens to play samples. This and the NS4 are my ultimate pairing as any weakness one board has, the other can cover. But I would not recommend the PX to most people as unless you have the time and desire to create custom sample sets (most of the factory library is trash and I deleted it,) it's definitely not an instant gratification synth. The reason it works so well for me now is I was able to convert lots of Kontakt libraries to the right format, so essentially now that board gives me those sounds without the laptop. But that same Nord Wave 2 engine as part of the NS4 is not such a limitation when viewed as one part of the whole package and it's certainly a lot more flexible than the version on the NS3.

[zahush76]

It actually does, and they demo this on a few youtube demos. They also set the faders to function upside down like drawbars when simulating a B3 - and they added the vcm rotary speaker sim from the YC series

I think this is sufficient for most "set and forget" organ configurations, but I think its sample rather than model based (the reface and CK organs are sampled vs the YC is modeled? I think)
+ Theres 9 drawbars and only 8 faders so one of them is set to the mod wheel

There was a time not very long ago that at least for those of us who used the 88 or 76 version of the nord stage only had draw-buttons
So this is a compromise one can live with, depending on how important a full fledged clonewheel is to them.

Speaking of which - that's the main question here.
If you're a heavy B3 emulation user then indeed something with a dedicated organ section in dependent of the rest of the board, such as on the NS4.
But purely as a stage piano? The Montage M gives you the edge on other grounds. It has AC pianos and EP's which are different but just as good as on the Nord. But besides that:
1) The sampled sounds are far superior in terms of the ability to load multisamples vs Nord's single layer sampled sounds, not to mention more sample memory. In the Loopop demo of the Montage he sampled "The Giant" piano from Native Instruments and imported into Montage. Took him 16mb (he could sample with a higher resolution and it would obviously take more space).

2) The synth side of things is far superior with all the envelopes, lfo's, motion sequencers, envelope followers etc etc - not to mention all the layering and splitting options, performances and scenes within performances (specially now when Nord gave up song mode).
And with the $1200 difference you could get a 2nd hand dedicated clonewheel if you wish.

[dmamfmgm]

Even though it's not a YC88, I have a CK61 that I've been neglecting lately, as I only use it as an auxiliary MIDI keyboard to trigger B3 organ sounds from the NS4 HA. The Yamaha keyboard is much softer and more responsive for doing slides. Yesterday, I had an issue with my Focusrite and had to use the sounds from the CK61. To my surprise, I haven't found a significant difference when layering Piano + EP + Pads, and the quality has pleasantly surprised me. I'm not talking about the endless capabilities of the Stage compared to the Yamaha, but certainly, when we calculate quality/cost and set aside the 'red brand' factor, there are very worthy alternatives in the market, and I consider the YC88 to be one. In my case, I preferred the NS4 because of the keyboard touch over the YC.

[anotherscott]

If the NS4 and YC were the same price and travel weight, I can't imagine too many people really preferring the YC, unless they just like its action better (always subjective). OTOH, a YC vs. Electro comparison may easily favor the YC for many people. (And of course, there's no 88 key Electro.)