Unfortunately there are no new voices in AWM2. I expected new voices to come in AWM2 and from FM generator (I suggested this in Ideascale). However, the new rotary speaker 'Studio' (aka Leslie) is superb, very good, much better than the new Fantom and Nord Stage. At the end of the day I am very happy and grateful for this new OS Update. Maybe in the future they will include more AWM/FM voices. 🙂

Yeah I think the claim of "New Voices" on the OS list near the bottom is an error.

Or there were going to be new voices but then they decide to wait and just get this one released now.

Likely forgot to change it or are double dipping meaning the FM organ but them already listed that at the top.

Because it's a stage board people didn't really push for new or more AWM2 "A"/"B" voices but I think a lot are missing or it has gaps.

Does the fact OS is only designated as a "1.2" mean anything? CP is on 1.5 or 3 more versions ahead.

At least adding voices shouldn't take over a year to accomplish.

But yes the primary rotary issue and the new FM capability is a big positive. This alone should up the YC ante on stock value.

The future FM capability could be extensive which would be nice.

I don't have a YC to hear first hand - but listening to the demos (Tech Talk live w/backing tracks & another Produced Video) - man does the new rotary speaker sound great. Listening to Blake switch between the "Classic" and "Studio" was like he was pressing the "Soul" button. Now there are envious Montage/MODX owners for sure. We'll see how that goes - if the flagship gets a soul patch.

The new firmware has 2 more pages of Live Set sounds (page 12 and 13 numbers 1-8). F4, F5, and F6 are the documented new voices (FM organ/synths). Yes, somewhat redundant vs expressing new FM organs - slipped passed the editors I guess. No harm.

At 23:45 in the tech talk, he talks about a "trick" or putting the reverb "in front of" the speaker. "In front of" is a kind of ambiguous phrase, but is he saying that it is possible to choose whether the reverb is added before or after the rotary speaker simulation? How would that be done?

Scott, you may remember there are three general effects panels on the YC with, now, 35 possible effects in each including a few reverbs. The first two panels are for Keys A & B only. The third is a single panel for Organ, Keys A or Keys B. This is before the speaker/amp panel so you could select a reverb in that panel to have the reverb before the rotary. After the speaker/amp panel there is a reverb only panel if you want the reverb to be after the rotary. You could actually have it both before and after if you want.

Ah! Thanks, Jim. The only reverb in the CP73/88 is the one at the end. I knew the YC had a whole lot more effects options in the earlier stages than the CPs did, but I hadn't really taken note that additional reverbs were among them, which would allow you to get closer to emulating a Hammond with a built-in reverb unit, that's cool. Some other organ boards have the reverb before the rotary for that emulation, some have it after for simulated room ambience, some are switchable, but I don't think I've ever before seen one that could do both simultaneously!

32 Insertion Effects ("EFFECTS" section)

(Chorus)
G Chorus, SPX Chorus, Symphonic, 816 Chorus,
(Flanger)
VCM Flanger, Cross FB Flanger,
(Phaser)
VCM Stereo Phaser, Small Phaser, Max90, Dual Phaser,
(Tremelo/Rotary)
Tremolo, Auto Pan, Simple Rotary,
(Distortion)
British Combo, British Lead, Small Stereo,
(Compression)
Compressor,
(Wah)
Auto Wah, Touch Wah, Pedal Wah,
(Delay)
Cross Delay, Digital Delay, Analog Delay,
(Reverb)
Room Reverb, Hall Reverb, Reverse Reverb,
(Lo-Fi)
Lo-Fi,
(Tech)
Ring Modulator, Slicer, LP Filter,
(Misc)
Damper Resonance, Harmonic Enhancer

Not all above effects are available to the organ section - but reverbs (and most) are.

The effects chain is:

(ORGAN) --> [PRE-DRIVE] --> [(INSERTION) EFFECTS] --> [(INS) SPEAKER/AMP - Rotary Speaker is here] --> [(SEND) REVERB] --> [MASTER EQ]

So one can select Room, Hall, or Reverse Reverb before Rotary Speaker.

one can select Room, Hall, or Reverse Reverb before Rotary Speaker.

For authenticity, they should add a spring reverb emulation option there!

Add that to the ideascale.

They are calling these "FM" voices organs because it's the organ section however this might be very short sighted.

It also doubles as an electronic piano and FM synth section. Who knows how much further it can take it but probably to infinity and beyond!

I experimented with some basic sound design with less harmonics and various articulations and it's a good source of new material if you don't require an organ as one of your voices. Then add the Amp simulation to the voice and it's a whole new world of digital EPs.

Perhaps this section wasn't fully realized what all it can be or do. Use the midi loop trick and you can layer two together.

If they can progress it further toward more DX sounding stuff that will be even better.

We all like boards that aren't dead ends or disposable as I call them. This might be open ended at least on the "organ" section after all.

Let's pray any future updates happen in a more rapid progression. Perhaps now more players will want one too.

I suspect many likely waited for the rotary repair and to see what else was added. You can all go buy one now.

I just finished some additional experimentation and added to this post.

Really fun FM expansion not only for organs but for EPs and voice layering and/or supplementing.

This was Yamaha's answer to the SKpro monosynth, well not as dramatic but it's something exciting to explore and polyphonic. Probably much more to come as well.

Okay, I did it. Having bought and returned a YC61 in 2020 (mostly because of the Leslie), and having bought and returned a CP73 in 2021 (mostly because of the action), I just bought a YC73, and updated it to the new OS.

I remembered from the livestream that the board now defaulted to the new Studio rotary effect as RTR A, and the original one, Classic, was now RTR B. So first thing when I turned on my updated YC, I activated the Organ section with RTR A and started playing with it, eager to hear the organ improvement. I couldn't believe it, the fast Leslie was awful.

Well, silly me, I forgot that, when you first turn it on, you're not in any kind of plain "vanilla" starting state, you're in Live Set #1. And none of the original Live Sets have been changed, so Live Set #1 is still programmed to employ the old Leslie if you activate the organ and Leslie panels. To hear the new organ, you need to navigate to one of the newly provided Live Sets that came with the update (the ones in banks 12 and 13), or an INIT location (where indeed the default RTR A is now Studio), or manually go into the Settings menu of the old Live Set you're on and change its rotary setting.

I've hardly had a chance to play with it yet, but the new velocity curves make the pianos/EPs MUCH better. So now the BHS action is fine, the new velocity adjustments did what I'd hoped. And yes, the rotary improvement is major. This looks like a keeper. There are still some operational enhancements I'd like to see, but even as is, I think this will work well for my intended usage.

Does the fact OS is only designated as a "1.2" mean anything? CP is on 1.5 or 3 more versions ahead.

The designation 1.2 does mean something... it means it's the second major upgrade since the board's release. That latter digit increases with each significant update. CP has had 5 updates, 1.1, 1.2, 1.3, 1.4, 1.5. YC has has 2 updates, 1.1 and 1.2. But YC also came out a year later, and already had some of the things that had been added to the CP in its early updates; and in fact, some later CP updates added things that were already in the YC. So the number of updates each has had really doesn't tell you anything about their relative functionality upgrades. One one hand you could say the CP had more updates; OTOH you can say it needed more updates to better catch up to what the YC already did (though there are still things each has that the other does not). In the end, it doesn't matter. If you're choosing between the two, simply compare what each can do today. Whatever else either may do in the future will be a bonus.

"If you're choosing between the two, simply compare what each can do today. Whatever else either may do in the future will be a bonus."

Except now we've discovered the organ section can be expanded via FM and possibly into the synth and EP realm much further. I also have the YC73 and returned the YC61 but I'm not an organ guy so the keys were a little too toy-ish but so are my SKpro keys.

Therefore it might not be a disposable board like the CP. They can only add so many AWM2 if anyone even wants more like I do.

If YC morphs into a synthesizer of sorts it will have a very high up side that the CP can never have. Depends on how far they expand the YC of course.

I'd leave the CP as a piano focused board and morph the YC into a hybrid-synth-organ-EP-FM machine.

No matter how basic stage players are everyone loves a real controllable synth option available especially for the YC73/YC88 with EP keys.

I wouldn't mind if they charged for a major synth engine upgrade expanding the organ section into a fuller blown FM-DX section.

"If you're choosing between the two, simply compare what each can do today. Whatever else either may do in the future will be a bonus."

Except now we've discovered the organ section can be expanded via FM

Except that's not an "except," that's what it can do today! 🙂 And yes, that makes a YC purchase more appealing today than it was a couple of weeks ago. But whether or not there will be other enhancements, and what they will be, is unknown. So again, I'd suggest buying (or not) based on what it does today, not what you hope it may do in the future. We simply don't know if the other things you said there ("and possibly into the synth and EP realm much further" ) will happen, and I wouldn't suggest buying based on hoping they will, and possibly being disappointed when they do not.

They can only add so many AWM2 if anyone even wants more like I do.

As I mentioned, I do hope for (but am not counting on) further operational enhancements, e.g. there are things that bug me about the way it works that I think are likely to be addressable. Personally, I don't really care much about more sounds, though. Unlike basic operational things, sounds are easy to add just by connecting to an iPad or whatever, and Yamaha has already built in a MIDI zoning function which is exactly there just for that purpose, letting you expand on the sounds you can play. So I see that as reasonably addressed. Sure, I might like a better this sound or that, but each of us will have our own lists. As it is, I think the YC covers all the basic bread-and-butter sounds adequately, and then some. Would I like all 4 clav pickup positions represented? Sure. But can I get close to any clav sound I'm likely to actually need at a gig? Yeah. And I can still connect to something if I want more. I'm not saying I'd turn my nose up at new AWM sounds, I'm just saying that lack of sounds is not inhibiting anything I really want to do, whereas there are operational enhancements that would really make a difference. So if it were up to me, the latter is where they would focus their efforts.

But to your other point, I agree... expanding the use of the 9 organ sliders into the synth realm (i.e. for some real-time synth-like envelope/filter/etc. controls, even just over the existing sounds) would be a really nice "operational enhancement." 😉 In fact, it is one of the things I put up on ideascale a while back. It's at https://yamahasynth.ideascale.com/c/idea/264107 if you want to upvote it.