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Behind the Synth: YC-45D Retrospective
Nate and Blake explore the YC-45D combo organ.
The YC-45D appeared in 1972 as the flagship of the YC line introduced in 1969 with the YC10. YC is short for "Yamaha Combo" with the The "D" in the name referencing dual manuals. The top manual has 61 keys, the lower has 42 treble keys and 19 bass keys. At 132 lbs/60 kg you might need some help getting it to the gig but once there you had quite the instrument to play. Below is the YC-45D, complete with the tiltable stand and single octave bass pedal unit:
Nate and Blake explored the YC-45D in the Synth Space and connected it to a Line 6 HX Stomp for some cool effect processing. Check it out:
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About the author
Yamaha Synthesizer Product Specialist Blake Angelos has over thirty years of experience with music hardware and software. An expert in music technology, Blake has conducted numerous clinics, master classes and presentations throughout the United States, Europe and Canada. In his role as Product Specialist for the Synthesizer Department Blake appears in many product videos and artist interviews, writes many articles for YamahaSynth.com and co-hosts a regular Podcast called “Behind the Synth”.
Before his work with Yamaha, he taught music theory and jazz studies courses at Arizona State University; managed a technology-focused music store in Seattle and was a production supervisor at Microsoft, where he led a team that developed groundbreaking interactive music content for the Microsoft Network. Blake holds a Bachelor of Music degree from the University of Northern Colorado and a Master of Music degree from Arizona State University. Blake currently resides in Bellingham, Washington with his family, and between his travels around the world for Yamaha, he performs as much as possible with several jazz and creative music groups in Bellingham, Seattle and other places in the Pacific Northwest.
