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I do criticise Yamaha for design concerns or questions I have and although YC is far from perfect it might be the best or uniquely best.
Considering all of the improvements and upgrades and the styling and fun factor (I have the 73).
I often ask if you (we) were stranded on an island with a pedal powered generator and could only have one Yamaha board excluding arrangers, assuming none of them could be used as an escape raft, which one would you or I choose?
It's a great Swiss Army knife, durable and if you get bored you can play with the FM functionality without getting to "underwater" no pun intended.
I haven't tried the CK however the FM capabilities probably beats the CK in the long run although YC should have as many "A/B" voices without the FM/DX samples obviously. They are both stage boards so you can't claim one deserves more than the other. Likely comes down to memory available and sample sizes. We'll never know how much is remaining until they stop expanding it. Some have said they can't go past 99 however there's over 80 available under the piano group alone. They complain that scrolling though 99 is too difficult. Obviously you're not going to do that during a performance so who cares? However while in preparation for a live set more options will always be better. I'll admit thousands of options are too many but that's more for a synthesizer to deal with. Hey remember when "synthesizer" actually meant to mimic another real world instrument however now we don't need to mimic anything because we've sampled most everything we could want. We have taken most FM and AN usable/playable sounds and consolidated those. With vinyl coming back I guess anything can come back like 80s music loaded with synths and saxes. Those guys were masters of synths and applications of them.
You can EG/Filter those 32 new YC FM generated voice especially tine, pluck, bass, EDM, string, guitar etc. and completely transform that into a different voice that sounds nothing like the original. The CK has more controls? and guess it does similarly with sampled voices but I need to investigate/compare that. The more organic FM stuff just feels a bit more exciting and worth the investment. I'm assuming ~$500 was eliminated from CK but removing the FM engine. If I'm choosing I'm still going with YC or both if I needed to toss one around and go anywhere. For that matter the YC61 was still fantastic. My idea was to add speakers and so they did on the CK. Different from external attachments but same theory. So who will buy the CK over the YC if you can only buy one? Likely if you must have battery power, speakers or cost otherwise I'd still buy the YC with headphone combination. I have a small lunchbox sized power station AC/DC USB etc. I can take anywhere so portable power these days is nothing. It could run speakers and YC for days if I had to go away from convenience. Thus battery and internal speakers wouldn't matter but outside under a tree or in a field for inspiration the CK is fine and for a lot less money.
Posted : 08/04/2023 8:22 pm
[quotePost id=121063]They complain that scrolling though 99 is too difficult.[/quotePost]An old comment of mine elsewhere about the number 99 in particular wasn't based on scrolling, it was based on there being only 2-digit LEDs, so numbers beyond 99 are impossible to display. (Okay, as suggested--maybe by you?--they could use hexadecimal, or maybe a dot to indicate a different bank, but those are not "user friendly" solutions consistent with the general direct/obvious approach they are focussed on for the board.)
As for CK vs. YC, for me, I think it would depend on the application. So for example, If I was looking for a "bottom" board to put under some other board for gigging with a rock band, I'd probably choose the YC73. If I was a buying for small solo/duo things (including things like wedding ceremonies, cocktail hours, a holiday party in someone's house, etc,), I think I'd look more at the CK, if I felt its speakers would be sufficient for some of those gigs. But I'm not ready to be too definitive about this kind of thing until I actually get to play a CK.
Posted : 09/04/2023 4:42 am
The reasons to buy any given model are varied and personal.
For me I have a "consumer grade" DGX 88 key digital grand. It has hundreds of sounds but mostly all I use on it is piano, organ, and electric piano. Sometimes strings. Sometimes the jazz guitar. I use this keyboard because it's always setup as a "public" keyboard. Anyone can play it at any time. Often instead of using the Montage (which is in the case from a gig), I'll use the DGX to play for enjoyment or practice sight reading or as a crutch to get the pitches when transcribing. The DGX has built in speakers and even a stand that came with it (wood).
The CK 88 would make a great replacement. It's missing the integrated stand but that's a solvable problem. It's closer sonically to my Montage and is likely a step up in what the tone generator outputs (samples used).
That'd perhaps a snowflake of a reason - but I expect the feature set and price appeals to different folks for different reasons.
There could have been a role to pair with the Montage as a MIDI controller. However, there aren't enough zones to replace my current MIDI controller. It wasn't (apparently) designed to fit like a glove paired with the more premium synths.
Current Yamaha Synthesizers: Montage Classic 7, Motif XF6, S90XS, MO6, EX5R
Posted : 09/04/2023 4:50 pm
Topic starter
I went ahead and ordered the CK61 on my SW account to do a side by side comparison. For $999 it's almost free. Obviously they offered no discounting but shipping is always free and financing is free. I guess the box is so light it doesn't cost anything to ship either. I don't need an 88 I still have my CP1. I'll input the CK into the YC73 and see what she can do. I already know the real FM will be no competition. The interfacing is very similar so not much to learn there. I have to hear the quality of these speakers, I realize it's more for monitoring self, practice and convenience. I think the 6K Genos was made of lightweight plastic too, don't recall it being heavy at all. If they had made a way to bluetooth out or line-out the display you could arrange that however you wanted for viewing either a pad or phone. I know pure players don't need a screen but I'm more of a designer. I'm not a fan of the micro screens however on the ultra affordable board level that makes sense. DIdn't make as much sense on the YC level but I understand it essentially tricked down for "free" from the CP line. Not sure if ever they will reinvent that wheel.
Posted : 09/04/2023 5:18 pm
