Yamaha Reface

[AdamStage2]

I'm not a fan of these Minikey instruments(I owned a Microkorg for a short time but never liked the keybed) but watching some of the online vids of these Yamaha units,they sound surprisingly very good,far better then I had took on face value of the looks,simple and easy to get around(DX model perhaps requires a little more menu diving)but they look quite fun and quirky,I suspect these are going to be a good seller for Yamaha.

[AinTziLLo]

I was momentarily interested by the organ version. Sadly, it is is PWM or AWM as Yamaha have it - that is samples. Still, I suppose it will support pitchbend so the "Do it again" solo might finally be possible to re-create. BTW, the "Japanese Transistor" organ is an Ace-Tone. The other 3 keyboards have appropriate generation methods, although many won't ever consider Virtual Analogue appropriate for the CS80. But sampled organs? They're handy to have when they're part of a Rompler, for occasional use, but shouldn't be used in a dedicated instrument IMHO. Then again, if it had been properly done, those silly mini-keys would still have sunk it.
I'm guessing that the Hammond drawbars are volume controls for layers of samples with appropriate pitch shifts for the harmonic, so you can divide the 128 note polyphony by 9 in that case?

The YC Reface seems to me a really pretty toy.
The price tells you the target, very far from the quality that Nord has accustomed us ... but it is so funny!

[Marlowes]

Hej!

thomann.de now set the price at 406:-EUR.
A bit less than 799:-USD ...

/Vänligen
Michael in Scania

[maxpiano]

Hej!

thomann.de now set the price at 406:-EUR.
A bit less than 799:-USD ...

/Vänligen
Michael in Scania

399€ on most Italian online stores

[AinTziLLo]

http://www.gear4music.it/it/Tastiere-e- ... d=61520d13

€289 for CS model... (399€ for others)

[JiminWales]

£289 in the UK, but I've only seen prices for DX and YC.
Managed to find the midi spec for the YC. Pitchbend recognised but no bender present - some YC organs had a ribbon controller for pitch bend. So what happened to that Yamaha? All organ models have the Hammond drawbar footages, so it's only the wave that differs like some Vst-i Hammond sims have transistor organ waves as alternative tones sources. Just one nice touch I can see is some rocker switches. I really wish they would make a big comeback on control panels.

[Lyonart]

I was invited last week to a launch of the 'Reface' models at my local music store and was able to have a go on all four of the new models after we had been given a demo.

I mainly focussed on the 'DX' and 'CS' models as I wanted to get to understand whether they had much to offer to complement the synth section of my NS2.

Firstly the mini keys of all the boards were not really to my liking (as I have large fingers) but this could be resolved if you just used the boards as sound modules (I did suggest Yamaha look at module versions).

The good news is that there is a reasonable amount of editing possibilities on the 'DX' model, albeit with some menu diving. Sound quality was pretty good through the Yamaha pa provided but more difficult to gauge the overall sound quality for recording purposes at lower and upper ends. Some interesting sounds can be created relatively quickly which will perhaps appeal to users who want the immediacy of sound design rather than the complexity of the original FM keyboards. Its a 4-Operator FM synth but sadly the keyboard is not compatible with the large library of existing 4 Op FM patches as there are further editing options on the new model which were not available on the original synths.

The 'CS' model has a more traditional synth design with lots of single sliders, a pretty decent filter with no obvious signs of 'stepping', and a range of LFO routing options (but only one option at a time). Was able to generate some interesting and useful pad and lead sounds with the OSC 'Mod' and 'Texture' sliders but nothing that cannot already be created with the single oscillator on the Stage 2. Overall I was left disappointed by the CS (not sure whether I have been spoiled by Nord).

The sound quality of the CP and YC models seemed good and had all the basic stuff you need for electric piano and organ sounds plus the added bonus of effects, some of which on the CP were quite good for 'wacky' sound design. I have to say that I did not spend so much time on these as I have a NS2 which covers these elements already.

Overall conclusion, I think it is fair to say that Yamaha are aiming these at the 'budget' market but for the price (currently £289 and likely to drop further to £249) they are pretty good entry points into the market if you want an FM or subtractive synth or want an organ or piano. I doubt you will ever see one of these on stage at a big gig (simply because they keyboard is too limiting due to lack of octaves) but for bedroom artists who want a decent sound to play with then you can't go too wrong. However, if you bought all four models to cover the bases, you'd be spending over £1,000 and for that money you could get a second hand stage or electro or a new Yamaha MOXF8 (or MOXF6 or Roland FA06 with a decent amount of change) and I think I would be hard pushed to say it would be a good investment to buy them all. Of the four, I would probably consider the DX model to experiment with some FM synthesis. I am sure Yamaha have done their homework but I can't help thinking they might have missed a trick by not releasing modules or by combining the boards into one more affordable and useable package (with a full sized keyboard!!!). Who knows, more related products may come....