The strings and synths on the YC61 are freaking amazing.alot more warmer and full than the nord. Both standout with certain features and certain sounds
To my ears, the Yamaha sounds much better. Understand that it is a matter of personal preference, but I like the sound, and control layout, much better, on the YC61.
With these kinds of sounds it is no longer about who is „better“. They are both really good with these patches - it’s more about EQ, Effects, etc. In a live Situation anything goes - it‘s a matter of settings and - honestly - taste. In the mix you can do wonders. Jack - you da man.
As you said, neither one is really outstanding as a synth, but the Yamaha sounds better and is much more expressive. Not having pitch bend and mod on the Nord makes it useless for synth solos.
Torben Anschau There is not a difference between the Nord Piano,Electro,Stage and Grand in terms of sounds. They can have any sound from the Nord piano library/Sample Library. The cool thing with the Stage line up is that it has sample playback so you can put your own samples in. And ProjectSam strings for the Nord should have been a better match up it’s just the fact that the Nord doesn’t have multiple layers which sucks but I got use to it. You won’t really notice.
Yamaha for the win here. The other vid on the organs sounds were close but the Nord edged it out. I almost feel like there was a setting on the Nord that made the the Nord have more stereo widening for the organ demo. The Yamaha sounded much more mono in that respect. Yamaha sounded more vintage slight lo fi compared to the Nord as well. I feel like there is more to be explored in the organ sound of the Yamaha still, before I could make a real decision on which one is better. The Nord has an upper mid forward sound to it which sounds louder to the ear wile the Yamaha is a bit scoop in this range. A better demo would be can one be tweaked to sound like the other? Can the lack of high end in the Yamaha be remedied with a bit of EQ, that sort of thing.
I agree with first using the Yamaha controls on the far right to match the timber to the Nord. The Yamaha default tone sounds mid scooped to me, and reminiscent of a Strat in switch position 2 or 4.
Another important consideration with both instruments is that the Yamaha will make a much better midi controller with its pitch and mod sticks as well as its inputs and audio interface capability. Both cover the piano, EP, and organ stuff well but if you wanted to augment them with a module or a computer, the YC crushes the Nord.
Yamaha for me this time!(experienced user of) You may find that you can send the Filter Cut off to the mod wheel,much better way IMO.Good video, I think both are superb machines,but sometimes it comes to affordability too! Nord is slightly cheaper
Very helpful video thanks as I'm in the process if trying to decide between the NE6 and the YC73 as we speak. Cheers👍 The scales are tipped slightly to the Yamaha at the moment but I haven't tried it in the flesh yet.
Yep, for me this is the only one the three comparisons where the Yamaha wins - and it wins easily. But in the organ and piano sounds the Nord is a clear winner. Agree wholeheartedly about the wiggle stick 'n' mod wheel. I mean, what on earth do you do with your left hand?
The Nord clearly sounds like my E-Mu EIV at the time, after loading the “raw” sound from CD-ROM. Don’t know if I like that nowadays in a Stage Keyboard that I want to play instantly without lots of tweaking & tuning…
You said (when talking about the filter options) that there were 'bigger brothers' and hence they had cut down on options. Now for Nord I know, Nord Stage 3 is the 'bigger brother' with more options. But what stage piano is the bigger brother of the YC series? I mean, the Montage has more options, but that is a workstation / synth and not a stage piano. The YP is even more limited, so I wonder what that would be.
Ok so after comparing both keyboards in depth for 2 weeks, one big difference that all your videos fail to point out is the range of synth/"other"/general midi sounds. the nord electro absolutely shines here. just one fact nord has 15 ish AUTHENTIC mellotron/chamberlin sounds, where the yamaha has 2 really bad FAKE ones. 3-4 electronic yamaha basses vs. maybe 10 on the nord. mallets, flutes etc etc you name it, nord leaves yamaha in the dust. and not that its about sheer numbers, the quality, tastefulness and usability of the nord sounds is far ahead. plus as others mentioned, nord lets you even load your own samples. adding to this the bigger variety in piano and epiano sounds (6 nord uprights vs. one on the yamaha), nord clearly wins in the choice and number of source sounds, while the yamaha really shines on a much more modern and flexible architechture/signal flow, much better effetcs and better UI controls. so. after two weeks i am still not sure which one to keep ugh.
I never really understood wether the Nord Library contains real multisamples other than the piano stuff cause I read otherwise. If not - would it be possible to send well made multisamples into the Piano-Section?
User sample sets can use multiple sounds across the keyboard, but not velocity multi-samples. Additionally, there is no way to create a user Piano-category sample set - only Nord can create those.
Typically the Nords come out the box with a few high quality piano samples and the synth ones are usually low(er) quality. I'd recommend diving into their sample library and listen to the high-quality samples before judging too much.
The Yamaha wins this round - no question. It "loses" in the fact that you can't load your own samples, but then you might want to get a different keyboard for that anyway. These things are great for the gal or guy who plays in a band and just has to play mainly Pianos, EPs, Organs. The "synth" sounds are a great add-on for when you need them, but are not the main thing they were intended to do.
@@simonbeck7446 I got frustrated with the NE6, it just couldn't get that zany, and the sample manipulation is way too limited - but then I guess these stage keys are aimed at 'bread and butter' players, not sound designers.
@@museonfilm8919 - I was never under any illusions regarding the capabilities of the Electro 6-D - I had already owned an Electro 3 73 for eight years, using it primarily for Wurlitzer, organ and Mellotron sounds. I also have an assortment of synths including semi-modular and polyphonic ones, so I wouldn't generally use the Nord for synth sounds anyway. Over the years, Nord themselves have gradually blurred the lines regarding the Electro's role; it started as an unambiguous "virtual electromechanical" electric piano and organ, but has evolved into a general-purpose piano/organ/ROMpler, albeit one of the finest available. It was never intended to replace a synth, and perhaps Nord hasn't made that fact clear enough.
Hmm, I hadn't thought about the capability on the Nord to load your OWN samples....i figured it was just the library. This means I could make samples with my monosynth, and then play those sounds as a polysynth by the Electro, right? Is own-sample loading limited to single-sample sounds?
Late answer but: you can have samples over different zones of the keyboard, but you cannot have velocity layers. At least on the Nord Stage 2. I don't know if they changed that on the Nord Stage 3, but I'd doubt it.
Nord sounds dryer... Yamaha comes with a "produced" overall sound... Anyway, it's pretty diffficult to judge a synth by its strings and brass sounds... To achieve good results, I typically stack very different sounds, and something tells me that stacking the brass of both the Yam and Nord could produce quite a good result... By layering Montage, Kronos and FA, I come up with pretty decent brass or strings sounds... Prophet X gives good results too, but its memory is too limited for an efficient multisampling with several articulations... I think that in terms of realism, the future is audiomodeling's SWAM architecture in hardware synths or a sort of hardware kontakt... Pair it with a Roli seaboard for a perfect combo... This is the problem when you're the synth guy... You're supposed to play a perfect realistic violin with keys... :D
I mean... romplers? You press one key repeatedly, you don't hear repeating of a note, but rather repeating of a recording. Chromatically tuned ethnic instruments?! And you do a pitchbend that sounds unnatural as hell! That kind of a vibrato on a solo trumpet... how do you like it? Okay, it's layered, and each key has it's own samples, so there are no unnatural formants and transpozed resonances, (you are going to sample HH's Chameleon synth and create own patch on-the-fly?) but still definitely not my piece of cake.
