From ccmacdon@rogers.com Wed Jul 08 03:54:18 2015
Subject:Re: Yamaha Reface YC organ

Personally, I think that we are being a little hard on Yamaha, and others, for the mini keyboard thing.. It's not as if they have completely replaced their entire product line with micro keyboards and we no longer have access to new high quality standard keyboards. This is just one of a number of options in their product line that is targeted at a broad set of users (not just the DJ/looper crowed).

You're not being forced to use these mini keys.. These things have midi, so pick your favourite controller and hook it up.. At this point I think that they are priced a bit too high.. However, if/when these things drop to a more reasonable price $3-400 range, I can see people purchasing them to use as "playable sound modules".. Seriously having access to 5 different organ engines in this tiny package seems pretty awesome to me..

Obviously, for most of us on this list, it's not going to be our main keyboard. However, if I own one keyboard, and it was a workstation that doesn't have an organ engine in it, like the Motif, picking up one of these allows me to access real hammond and combo organ sounds and I can adjust Drawbars and other controls such as percussion and C/V in real time, this would make a fantastic addition to my workstation (depending on the price of course). AND I wouldn't have to carry around a full size second keyboard to get this functionality!

The other thing that is very interesting about this new Reface YC organ, is that it's the first time Yamaha has put out a clonewheel in a keyboard, other than its Tyros line (at least as far as I can recall).. We knew they had a tonewheel organ engine because of the Tyros and the VST software organ that they included with one of their low end workstations (motif XF maybe?). So who knows what is coming next..? Maybe next we will see ALL of these Reface products rolled into one keyboard with regular keyboard sizes?

I certainly understand everyone's frustration with the size of the keys, and the number of octaves, but it's still a very interesting product that could be quite useful to a broad range of keyboard players.

Craig

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