[quotePost id=120818] I'm literally sitting here with my audiofile gear listening to synth music from the 80s that we don't hear anymore. It's a lost art unfortunately. [/quotePost]

Earlier today, for the first time ever, did something similar, with Billy Ocean's album Suddenly. I'd never heard, as an album, before. Only knew two of the songs, might have heard some of others incidentally back then, but they didn't jump out at me as songs I knew.

What did... jump right out, was the production quality.... wowsers. Something magical was lost in whatever happened during the last 25 or so years.

A time during which it's also become increasingly difficult to get programmers to program well. Which is, I think, a huge part of the reasons for slow evolution of products and stifling of potential ranges and technologies that require hard work and commitment from programmers.

Part of the fault lays in the ways in which modern programmers have been taught to code "correctly" being a range of misdirections and general bureaucratic zeals covering over ease of comprehension and ruining performance.

But it's also because the kinds of people brought into programming have been enthused by things other than rigour and engineering. Instead, they're seemingly primarily focused on lifestyle perks.

Yamaha has probably struggled more than any other equivalently sized company in terms of securing and motivating internal programming teams because they went above it oddly, seemingly thinking that they could curate and craft outsourcing for their endeavours, and slowly let atrophy age out their in-house teams.

The problem with that approach is that eventually every line of code and every feature gets a dollar value before it gets tried, let alone delivered. So the accounting department winds up running both the research and design/specifications. In other words, a group of people only good at analysing the past are empowered to decide upon the future.

Rarely ends well.

That's true. Just look at the many hundreds of DACs. Mostly identical are the chip DACs. Same box, same remote, same menu, same features except for one or two output options. Prices range from $100 to $1000 generally and someone said $60K. For 60K the band had better be in the room playing for me. One software experienced newcomer EverSolo improved/enlarged the display, made the UI look professional and creatively added digital recreated VU meters. I know the guts are probably the same but at least it's different and enjoyable to use. Holy crap just imagine a synth that's fun and enjoyable to use BUT also has the guts that pushes it beyond the disposable usage ideology. Fantom did pretty well with that I think, seems to be unlimited somewhat. I want a stage board that is also "unlimited". YC is fantastic except you can't really customize or add voices beside what Yamaha decides you can have. "Stage" shouldn't just mean by default this is all there is because YC has that fun factor. No vision though to make it open ended on the voice side. Maybe they can still do it but I doubt it or don't really care enough. Seems like most of the improvements go into the synth boards. I literally ran through every YC voice in a week and was bored with them although they are very good. Others will tell to get a Montage but I have a Fantom. I prefer the stage concept but wish it had limitless other voicing. The Organ section is fine but needs pipes and other types. It is all finance department driven. Someone presents the YC concept and they alot $1,000 to the project for the 61 and $1,400 for the 73 etc. Add the markups and that's all you gonna get. Some designer has to price every component and decide what to toss out and what to keep in. Instead of the designer telling them this is what we're building and you can establish the price after we're done. Similar to DACs they are all black boxes with keys that essentially do the same thing but with different flavors. I like the YC concept but now they need a YC-EX model that doubles everything and the others voicing can be customized, layered and have custom expansion or voice expansion packs. Implement a large screen for more advanced organization and general design capabilities. Maybe add an AN engine to it or mono synth. The SKpro did that to an extent so it's achievable. Keep the YC interface because that's really cool. IF they change that like they did with the CK that's back to boring again. Whatever it costs I'll buy one but I'm not sure I'll be buying the Montage EX. I don't really want to spend 5 more years figuring it out.

[quotePost id=120831]Some designer has to price every component and decide what to toss out and what to keep in. Instead of the designer telling them this is what we're building and you can establish the price after we're done. [/quotePost]
A company that puts lots of resources into designing products before figuring out if they can profitably sell them at a price a customer is willing to pay is not likely to be in business very long. This is why the Tom Hanks character failed at his grown-up job in Big. 😉

[quotePost id=120831]The SKpro did that to an extent so it's achievable. [/quotePost]
It's a great board. But it's more complicated to use than it should be.

Yes that makes the point that we get mediocre products because the finance guy who know nothing about music or keyboards nor does he really care tells the dreamers that they can't dream beyond "X" dollars for product "A", "B" etc. That old saying that if you don't understand what it's about, it's about money. The dreamer, designer and egghead have to yield to "X" and thus if they aren't completely brilliant they are just stuck in the mud. Probably exactly why these fancy boards are way too complicated to use. However as simple as the YC design is someone still decided no more DSP, memory and function which is why what could have easily been larger wasn't made any larger. That didn't require brilliant designers just more space to place it and access it appropriately. The beauty of stage boards is that it doesn't require all that crazy brilliance it's pretty straight forward. So for $100 more design bucks it could have been twice as large? Yeah the name of the game is offer as little as possible and make as much as possible so essentially that's where competition takes over. We're being dictated to by the finance guy who doesn't care whether he's selling keyboards or DACs or widgets. Maybe musicians should take over the whole show just to see where it goes.

So much to unpack. Probably why I avoid social media more each day... 🙂

Finance and marketing are not the same thing. Marketing deals with the classic four: product, price, place, and promotion. Finance does not dictate product, not even price. The only price finance cares about is the share price. 🙂

The project management quad is: scope, cost, time and quality. I think, in the case of YC and Montage at least, scope (features) were limited in order to get the friggin' product out the door. That's a big shift for Yamaha strategically and probably why we see substantial post-release updates.

The YC61/YC73/YC88 are the first waffles. Always plan to throw the first waffles away. 😀 I'm sure Yamaha got all kinds of feedback about YC/CP and the Reface little brothers then incorporated it into the $1,000 CK. The $1,000 selling price was probably chiseled in marketing stone: Thou shalt not break the psychological $1,000 mark. Period. End of Story. Hardware and software engineering and sound development had to hit the target or else.

Both CK and YC are fine products -- the principles behind CK just had the benefit of YC's extended time on the market. I'm waiting for YC Mk2 myself. Feedback from the worship community probably called for pipe organ and more traditional/orchestra instruments (steal 'em from CK). Nord Electro has a pretty fine sample library, so there is competitive pressure...

Just two cents and a lot of scars. Glad I'm retired -- pj

Forgot one thought vis a vis Montage/MODX vs. CK.

Putting aside differences in front panel widgets, if you know the Montage or MODX in depth, you can recreate the CK sounds (except the pipe organs). If you want pipe organs, sample them yourself, or create new voices from library samples. 🙂

I can't say enough for the wonders of learning an instrument in depth -- and saving money in the process.

-- pj

http://sandsoftwaresound.net/modx-sampling-genos-pipe-organ/

[quotePost id=120836]So much to unpack. Probably why I avoid social media more each day... 🙂

Finance and marketing are not the same thing. Marketing deals with the classic four: product, price, place, and promotion. Finance does not dictate product, not even price. The only price finance cares about is the share price. 🙂

[/quotePost]

Been watching Man Men?

True that I was using finance loosely meaning the approved global production with profit cost of the product side of the coin. I'm sure that's a dog fight and then the poor guy in the white jacket has to make it all work whether ease of use and programming and UI make any sense whatsoever. As long as it sounds good for the marketing video. Yeah the consumer inspects the first batch of waffles and makes improvements (us paying Yamaha to do their work for them) and then use that to benefit themselves further. Sweet deal!

[quotePost id=120837]I can't say enough for the wonders of learning an instrument in depth -- and saving money in the process.[/quotePost]
?

[quotePost id=120840][quotePost id=120836]So much to unpack. Probably why I avoid social media more each day... 🙂

Finance and marketing are not the same thing. Marketing deals with the classic four: product, price, place, and promotion. Finance does not dictate product, not even price. The only price finance cares about is the share price. 🙂

[/quotePost]

Been watching Man Men?[/quotePost]

Oh, I was in a bad mood at the time having endured a medical test, which -- as decorum dictates -- I will not describe. 🙂

There is one place where Yamaha's bean counters have stuck their nose WRT pricing. Per a Yamaha annual report, Yamaha took a beating on currency exchange rates a few years ago. Wonder why prices have changed over the last year, seemingly without rhyme or reason? Yamaha decided to hedge currency exchange rates -- a move initiated by the finance guys.

No offense intended toward anyone (including doctors or finance guys) -- pj

Well either you can take 5 years of your life to learn an overly complicated board (possibly because there wasn't enough funding to study and test it properly before releasing it. The philosophy that we'll fix it later in updates after people who pay us for it proof test it for us. I guess that's called beta testing for software) or dump that board/company and buy one that is intuitive and makes common sense and then you don't have to waste 5 years of your life to prove you learned it. Thus playing a lot more music and having a lot more fun. Wasn't it freak'n almost 3 years it took Yamaha to repair the rotary effect on YC after they knew it sucked? That project was assigned to Fred working in between projects and during his down time or as profits trickled in from YC and were allocated and became available to pay him for his time. It's a new system of production philosophy paying for repairs on the back end as long as it gets out the door on time. They hide that philosophy by claiming we're getting firmware expansions and improvements that barely ever come anyway and usually very modest when they do. It's a safety net and even though a few new voices is nice they are the same voices as YC already has. Do we need a bunch more pianos and EPs or rather some trendy new red hot voices like Roland knows how to do? Again YC interface and styling is cool if only I could expand it. I know they want us to buy the next one.

If you want to know what the development team was thinking when they came up with the YC61, this video is worth watching.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCpRpxFDq5A

As for the rest...

People complained that Motifs were hard to use, so one of the ways they tried to simplify it was to take out functionality most users didn't use, which allowed them to streamline the interface. But of course, then people who used those functionalities complained. You can't please everyone.

(Aside: One youtuber complained that the Montage/MODX wasn't as easy to use as all his old Motif-based boards, because each of those worked basically the same way as their predecessors. He missed the point that people had long complained about how hard to use all those predecessors were! The only reason the subsequent models seemed "easy" to him was because nothing is ever as easy as what you already know. But he was ignoring the pain of having to learn all that stuff in the first place. Montage/MODX still has aspects which are not as easy as they could be, but it was a step in the right direction, IMO.)

"Fixing" things in an update assumes they were broken. In most cases, the updates have added more functionality, and the stuff that was already there was working fine. In fact, from what I've seen, Yamaha's track record there is better than most.

In the old days, updating in the field was difficult. If a planned feature wasn't working right, the answer was either to delay production or drop the feature. Newer abilities to update means they can ship what they have, and add more (or perhaps in some cases, yes, even fix things that were considered non-critical) later. This benefits everyone. For the company, not having to delay production or drop features they have put resources into saves money and improves cash flow. Meanwhile, users get access to perfectly usable gear sooner, and still end up getting the additional improvements.

I have high confidence that they thought the original YC61 rotary effect was good, until they started getting the complaints. (See what you think after watching that video.)

re: "even though a few new voices is nice they are the same voices as YC already has" -- I don't know what that means.

re: "Do we need a bunch more pianos and EPs or rather some trendy new red hot voices like Roland knows how to do?" -- Different boards for different players. I really like my Roland Fantom-0, but honestly, for my uses, in general, the Yamahas sound better. But each board does some things better than the other. Luckily, if you prefer a Roland, you can buy one. 🙂 Though I'm really curious, can you give some examples of some of those "new trendy red hot voices" Roland is doing?

Unfortunately, I doubt any company will ever have one board that meets all our preference in sounds, features, and interface. So until our boards are custom made for us, we choose our compromises and/or buy multiple boards for different purposes. Not that there's anything wrong with making suggestions and trying to guide a company toward making what you'd like to see, and it's great that Yamaha at least provides a way to present those ideas to them (which is more than Roland or Korg do). But I don't think there's any Great Conspiracy to not give David what he wants. And your post just seems to be a rant (based almost entirely on conjecture, besides).

re: "Again YC interface and styling is cool if only I could expand it." -- Actually, as shortcomings go, having the sounds you want can actually be one of the easier things to address at least reasonably well, because if that's what disappoints you, in a YC or in many other keyboards, it has become increasingly easy to incorporate sounds from, for example, an attached iPad. So if that's your big complaint about a YC, maybe you should look at doing something like that. Addressing what you find to be a shortcoming may be even more productive than complaining about it. 🙂

Not that my YC73 ended up being perfect for me, either. There's a lot I like about it, but it really isn't quite working out for the way I intended to use it, so I actually have it for sale. And I will certainly miss things about it. C'est la vie.

[quotePost id=120844]

Oh, I was in a bad mood at the time having endured a medical test, which -- as decorum dictates -- I will not describe. 🙂

[/quotePost]

Sorry to hear, hope you're doing well and bouncing back, and everything recovering...

The 61 is $999 at Sweetwater which means is was manufactured for $500 or less using the 50% rule. Yamaha has to make $333 if not more and the dealer has to make $300 so maybe it's only $400 to manufacture. That's pretty amazing to get anything great out of this for that little. Let's be realistic how good can this be of $400? I might order it and return it just to check it out. Our kids have had those $300 versions from Sams etc. and they sound decent for a toy. If the sound quality meets or beats the YC then here's a good question; Why ever purchase a high end board because those are disposable also? If we can have more for less then why waste our money? I know the build quality is better on the higher lines but then just spend half as much on this and buy a second one after it breaks. Probably not so smart to price yourself out of your upper lines but depend on whether they sell twice as many. They did this with Montage MO line dumbing it down to almost free. I guess this is the trend nowadays. Is it smart? Time will tell. IF even the higher lines are also disposable why buy them at double the cost and get less?

[quotePost id=120862]manufactured for $500 or less using the 50% rule.

That's pretty amazing to get anything great out of this for that little. Let's be realistic how good can this be of $400?

If the sound quality meets or beats the YC then here's a good question; Why ever purchase a high end board because those are disposable also? If we can have more for less then why waste our money?[/quotePost]

After 50 plus years in engineering -- no such "rule". This analysis completely misses non-recurring engineering costs including all of the industrial design and engineering required for the cabinets, manufacturing set-up and development of a brand new waterfall keybed design (electronics aside).

The CK and YC organ "engines" are different designs. Nor does the CK include the improved YC rotary algorithm. These projects weren't hived off to Fred -- the YC organ designs are a product of Yamaha's best lab (Dr. K). I'm not being a fanboi here. That's YC history.

At this point, I think you are simply being argumentative. Apology if this remark offends. 😉

I agree that if the CK floats one's boat and is useful to one's musical goals, then by all means buy it and play it. That said, I await YC61 mark 2. I don't believe in spending money foolishly and I already have the equivalent of CK at hand.

Peace and solitude -- pj