New to the YC Series in OS v1.1 are the Nashville C3 and Live CF3 acoustic grand piano Voices. The Nashville C3 is sampled from a grand piano that is small in size but huge in character and used on countless recordings in the city that bears its name. The piano was recorded at the Yamaha Entertainment Group studios in Nashville and processed with analog tape to provide distinctive warmth and "vibe." With Live CF3, Yamaha answers a request from pop and Gospel musicians to bring back a powerful grand piano Voice from previous instruments. Live CF3 provides another variation of this powerful and celebratory concert grand piano sound.
The first of two new electric piano Voices is 73 Rd Studio, a rendition of the famous "suitcase" electric tine piano. Its tone is smooth, mellow and well suited for playing accompaniment in jazz, ballads, R&B and more. The brighter 74 Rd Stage is ideal for attention-grabbing solos and syncopated rhythm parts.
Eight new Live Sets — multi-part setups that can be stored and recalled with the touch of a button — showcase the new acoustic and electric piano Voices. YC OS v1.1 also makes improvements to pitch modulation characteristics across the board, including the ability to store the initial modulation amount as part of a Live Set and the relocation of modulation depth and speed to a more intuitive home in the "Sound" settings menu. Last but not least, pressing the Enter button while in the Settings menus "backs up" to the previous page instead of returning all the way to the display's home screen, making adjusting settings easier.
Of course, the core YC experience of ultra-realistic tone wheel organs and rotary speaker effects based on our exclusive Virtual Circuit Modeling (VCM) technology is still as striking and soulful as ever.
"Yamaha strives to build a relationship every time a musician buys one of our products," says Nate Tschetter, manager, Synthesizer Marketing, Yamaha Corporation of America. "YC OS v1.1 is a direct response to feedback we've received from our users. By listening to our customers, we make great keyboard instruments even better."
Pricing and Availability
The Yamaha YC73 and YC88 Stage Keyboards will ship to retailers beginning January 21, 2021, at manufacturer's suggested retail prices (MSRP) of $2,999 and $3,499, respectively.
Yamaha YC OS v1.1 is a free download and will be available beginning January 14, 2021. For more information, visit
Yamaha.io/YC