bro, what keyboard do u recomend to make The Killers songs? i just wanna make covers, meanly Hot Fuss album. Do I need CK or a Nord?

Thanks for the support, Georg! 💙

Yes! And those overdriven Rhodes 🤩

With you on that one

The S90ES from the mid 2000s was a killer stage piano but it also had killer weight for lugging it around for gigs and it was too long to fit easily into smaller cars. Saying that, it's still a fantastic instrument with those beautiful MOTIFES sounds and fantastic action. B

S90 all the way brother… 🙇‍♂️ …. Keyboard that I’ll never sell ✊🏽s90✌️

I hope you mean S90es not the s90 cause the S90 is ok but the S90es blows it out the water

I was thinking the same, have the RD88 and love it

Hello, great question! It looks like the rotary emulations are either a “standard” rotary (Rotary A) and one with a transistor preamplifier with strong distortion (Rotary B). Let us know if you have any other questions. Thanks! Jason Filloramo, Sweetwater Sales Engineer, (800) 222-4700 ext. 1281, Jason_Filloramo@sweetwater.com

This exactly! Even when you compare the stage 4 to the more comparable YC88 the savings is still massive and hard to justify the price tag of the Stage 4

bro I need an advice, I wanna make covers of The Killers, meanly Hot Fuss and Battleborn Album, do you recomend CK? or any Nord? what about Roland?

@@arturomma8560 I'm not that familiar with The Killers but I would assume that anyone of these boards would get the job done.

Went through the data list in the manual: it actually has a lot more of the bread ‘n butter sounds than the CP and YC series. It’s also nice to have all the same organ emulations from the reface YC + pipe organ. For a gigging musician, this is a very attractive board so to say. I hope there will be a lot of this stuff/voices added to my CP with the next firmware update…

You could consider the YC61 as well, if you think you will miss the larger drawbar section. The YC61 is also pretty light at only 15lb.

Hi, Dillon - thanks for your interest! Yes, the drawbars can send MIDI CC messages when using the CK as a MIDI controller. Feel free to contact me directly with any further questions, and thanks again! Caleb Lowrey, Sweetwater Sales Engineer, (800) 222-4700 ext. 1620, caleb_lowrey@sweetwater.com

Hi, John! Thanks for your interest. The CK pianos actually have more sounds than either the CP or YC models: 363 different voices on the CK compared to 57 on the CP and 160 on the YC. The piano sounds are inherited from the CP pianos, while the organ drawbar interface is taken from the Reface YC mini-organ. To my knowledge, there’s no reduction in sample quality with the CK, although the keybed is a step down from the natural wood keys on the CP. I hope this helps - feel free to contact me directly with any further questions, and thanks again! Caleb Lowrey, Sweetwater Sales Engineer, (800) 222-4700 ext. 1620, caleb_lowrey@sweetwater.com

Hello, great question. The synth patches in this keyboard look to be sample based and there does not appear to be a patch that specifically features pulse waves or pulse wave modulation. Let us know if you have any other questions or need help finding a keyboard with a built in synth oscillator. Thanks! Jason Filloramo, Sweetwater Sales Engineer, (800) 222-4700 ext. 1281, Jason_Filloramo@sweetwater.com

I'll suggest don't do that, MODX8 is a fantastic keyboard and you'll be losing quite a bit of functions and capabilities.

Hi, thanks for your interest and I’m sorry for the trouble! Keep in mind that the maximum polyphony for the CK instruments is 128 voices - so if you’re using two layered sounds, that means 64 notes would be the maximum, and so on. Playing complex passages with the sustain pedal can easily lead to notes adding up to more than 64 - but if you’re not getting close to that, it’s hard to say what might be causing the issue. I didn’t see a recent firmware update on Yamaha’s site, but one thing you might try would be a factory reset (make sure you back up any of your custom presets or settings on a USB drive first). Did you purchase your CK61 from Sweetwater? If so, I’d suggest giving our support team a call - otherwise, if you got it elsewhere, you might want to reach out to Yamaha. Feel free to contact me directly if I can do anything to assist further, and thanks again! Caleb Lowrey, Sweetwater Sales Engineer, (800) 222-4700 ext. 1620, caleb_lowrey@sweetwater.com

The organ is actually an updated Reface YC model - the same sample based organs, but with 2 of the 3 Leslie effects from the big YC, and an updated vibe/chorus. Then it has 4 decent pianos, and sample based synth sounds. So, no modeled or fm sounds, unlike on the YC61 and up. And I think the YC61/73/88 also have a better Leslie option. And the CK61 is definitely a different set of keys than the YC61. Plenty of reasons to pay more for a YC, depending on what you need.

I’m not sure the organs are the same. He said something about the organs being lifted from the reface series.

In fact there are more organs, there were no transistor ones in the YC61 as far as i know. Here you have full reface yc

I would choose CK61 over YC61

Hi Chip, great question! You can indeed adjust the panning of different zones on a multi such that they use separate outputs. Let us know if you have any other questions. Thanks! Jason Filloramo, Sweetwater Sales Engineer, (800) 222-4700 ext. 1281, Jason_Filloramo@sweetwater.com

Samples vs modeled organ sounds and other differences

I saw elsewhere that the CK organ is more like the Reface one, so it uses samples, compared with the YC61, which uses modelling. I guess that means it's probably going to be less "organic" (pun intended) than the YC61

I've been trying to snoop around for these answers too. I have a YC73 and I absolutely love the organ sound (only after the firmware update). The organ on the CK series is based off the same engine as the Reface YC organ (this is mentioned in the video at around 21:15 ). To me it sounds completely different; and in my opinion the YC73 is a much better organ sound. Shame, because I love everything ELSE about the CK.

@@ianperesmusic I’m wondering about how the acoustic and electric piano sounds on the YC73 compares to the CK series. Also, I’m curious if anyone has actually played the CK88 and the YC 73 and their thoughts on the action. There seems to be a lot of people who don’t care for the GHS action on the CK88.

@@jhn1987 I have played the CK88 alongside the MODX88 , they have the same GHS keyed but it has been tweaked for the CK88., much tighter IMHO ,really good and I dont know what the problem people have with it ,it was never gonna have the keybed of the YC88 cos it would've put the price of the keyboard up ...its quite common for companies the tweak an existing Keybed for new products Nord do it all the time

Hello, great question! There are a lot of good options here and what’s best will be subjective, but I would recommend a column array type system like the Electro Voice Evolve 30M for the best horizontal coverage. Regular powered speakers such as a QSC K12 or keyboard amps like a Roland KC400 would also work well. Thanks! Jason Filloramo, Sweetwater Sales Engineer, (800) 222-4700 ext. 1281, Jason_Filloramo@sweetwater.com

Hi, thanks for your interest! Yes, on the CK pianos, there is a physical switch on the back of the instrument that will allow you to toggle the built-in speakers. You can also change the settings for the switch from the System menu - for example, you could set it to only mute the speakers if headphones are connected. I hope this helps, and feel free to contact me directly with any further questions! Caleb Lowrey, Sweetwater Sales Engineer, (800) 222-4700 ext. 1620, caleb_lowrey@sweetwater.com

but not the cp4

Hello, great question! These do not have aftertouch, and the polyphony is 128 notes on both keyboards. Thanks! Jason Filloramo, Sweetwater Sales Engineer, (800) 222-4700 ext. 1281, Jason_Filloramo@sweetwater.com

@@sweetwater That's sad. I think in this day and age every pro keyboard should have aftertouch as standard and the polyphony should be 256! I also wish they would bring back polyphonic aftertouch as in the old KX88! However, it's a decent board for gigs and practice.

well I have the modx and I can say that the yc and this ck series are both meant to have controllers on the board and instant access. The modx is definitely one for menu diving so with the modx probably more preparation is needed.. The modx on the plus side can have more layers and all of them more customizable, the yc and ck are more like each other than they are the modx/montage.. This CK series seems to be more of a swiss army knife of sounds for live play, a lighter keyboard, and less expensive than the yc.. I note the 61 key here even though it also has internal speakers, unlike the yc or modx, is only 12.3 pounds, makes it lighter than the modx61 at 14 pounds and the yc at 15.6.. Theres a lot of other features, just depends on what purpose you are looking to use it for.

CK: lightweight gig machine YC: organ/synth centric professional stage piano CP: (e)piano centric professional stage piano MODX: workstation/synthesizer MONTAGE: beast mode MODX MODX+: no one knows, somewhere between Montage and Modx.

CK only uses samples, while the others use both samples and fm, to create the sounds. There are many differences among those, including which type of keys, fx, build quality, interface, but that's the basic difference for the synth stuff. The Montage/MODX can import your own samples using separate software, but the others can't.

Thanks for all explanations, more understanding now.

@@akira8522 question is: what are you looking for? What would you want to use it for, what’s your budget, what do you find important in an instrument? Does it have to be Yamaha? Etc.

Hi, thanks for your interest! Yes, you can assign a connected foot pedal to toggle the speed of the rotary effect between slow and fast. You would have to go into the foot pedal settings and change the default assignment to do this. For more details, check out Yamaha’s user manual at the following link: usa.yamaha.com/files/download/other_assets/2/1547682/ck88_en_om_b0.pdf I hope this helps a bit - feel free to contact me directly with any further questions, and thanks again! Caleb Lowrey, Sweetwater Sales Engineer, (800) 222-4700 ext. 1620, caleb_lowrey@sweetwater.com

I guess no just like As the modx yc88 cp88 and the montage no piano engine no string resonance.

It does have string resonance! It is the default Effect 1 for the main CFX Grand Piano setting. The amount and depth can be tweaked 👍