Korg dropped two new products for Fall 2022: The Liano digital piano and drumlogue hybrid drum machine

The Liano is about as minimalist as it comes. The Liano is a sleek monolith with just a few simple controls. This keyboard absolutely does not require a user manual! You get the standard eight preset voices (two grands, a Rhodes, an FM EP, harpsichord, pipe organ, electric organ, strings), two effects (reverb and chorus), metronome, two built-in 8cm bass reflex speakers (8 Watts a side), USB-B, and sustain. That’s it.

This board is such a slab, Kubrick could have used it as the monolith in 2001: A Space Odyssey. 🙂 Imagine monkeys dancing around a Liano tipped on its side. You know, Korg, every search engine in the world will auto-correct “liano” to “piano”?

The Liano is super-light 6.0kg (13.2 pounds). The demos sound pretty decent. Aside from being a student piano, I could see using a Liano at choir rehearsals or any occasion requiring portability (six AA batteries). The down-side of the small sound set is that a given preset either fits the musical situation or it doesn’t. This is especially true of the pipe organ (uni-dimensional full pipes) or the electric organ. I hate to slag the Liano’s electric organ as it would be fine in a jazz setting, but forget rock or gospel.

Korg clearly are going head-to-head with Yamaha and Casio in the entry-level piano market. Liano’s minimum advertised price (MAP) is $399 USD.

I’m sure the Interwebs will be filled with drumlogue news. It’s analog! The Korg demos have punch! It accepts ‘logue synth plug-ins! It’s $599 USD MAP.

Both the Liano and drumlogue are pre-order. I hope Korg gets a move on because I an still waiting for the Korg Nu:tekt NTS-2 oscilloscope ($230 USD MAP). Come on, man!

Not from Korg, the Intech Studio Knot is another USB host to MIDI bridge box (AKA stand-alone USB MIDI host). It is tiny and has an $89 pre-order price. (That’s 25% off.) Knot takes power from either USB-C or a DC adapter. External power is critical because some controllers draw enough current to power a small town. (Well, that’s exaggerating.)

The down-side of its tiny size is 3.5mm MIDI IN and OUT ports instead of 5-pin DIN. Yes, you will need 3.5mm to DIN adapters.

Knot is an open source project and supports firmware updates.

If you need a MIDI bridge and have a Raspberry Pi, check out these articles:

• Send MIDI from USB-B to 5-pin DIN
• Raspberry Pi MIDI bridge

All it takes are a few simple Linux commands. Admittedly, a dedicated bridge like the Knot is the better option for gigging.

Copyright © 2022 Paul J. Drongowski

Got a PM from Jan, a long-time reader. Jan found a page on YamahaSynth about the Yamaha MX product line. The page features the phrase “CK — Classic Keyboards”. CK?

I suspect that CK61™ and CK88™ refer to a new line of keyboards, not a refresh of the MX series. I have to agree that the MX product line is in serious need of a refresh; It is based on the geriatric Yamaha Motif XS sound set.

Still, Jan’s comments got me thinking, especially about the early history of Yamaha synths.

The earliest Yamaha synths — SY-1 and SY-2 — Appeared in the mid-1970s. These 3-octave beasts provided a range of factory presets like trumpet, clarinet, guitar, piano, etc. and a small handful of sliders and knobs on a panel to the left of the keybed.

The SY-1 and SY-2 were quickly superceded by the more popular CS series. The CS series had monophonic and polyphonic models covering the range from the highly portable CS-01, through the Concertmate-like CS-5, to the revered altar of synthesis, the CS-80. The CS synths appeared in the late-70s and early-80s.

The Yamaha SK series appeared in roughly the same time-frame and were somewhat eclipsed by the CS synths. I remember playing both CS and SK keyboards in Salt Lake City, wearing out my welcome at local music shops around town. 🙂

Like the beefier end of the CS line, the SK keyboards sported beautiful — and heavy — wooden end-cheeks and cases. Yamaha have always found a way to spotlight their expertise in woodworking!

Sonically, the SK series are an extension of digital organ technology. The SK-30, for example, had three independent sound generators: organ, poly synth and solo synth. The organ has footage tab stops and percussion. The poly synth is split into two subsections: string and poly synth. Each section is 7-note paraphonic. The monophonic solo synth consists of a VCO feeding a wave-shaper that sends a sawtooth or pulse into the VCF and VCA stages. The organ and poly synth sections each have their own timbre shaping circuitry akin to the tone shaping one finds in organ designs of the era.

Why two concurrent product lines, both ostensibly synthesizers? Engineers were fighting analog VCO pitch stability at that time. The SK series had better pitch stability overall than the CS series and offered polyphony to boot. Who knew that analog would be more popular than digital?

So, what if the CS series and the SK series had a baby? “C” from the “CS” series plus “K” from the “SK” series equals “CK”. Yamaha have been known to dip from their historic well for naming. Perhaps the new CK series are a poly/mono hybrid? Just guessing!

TMI

Looking at the service manuals for this old tech is a blast down memory lane. The SK series use several Yamaha proprietary chips from their electronic organ and CS synthesizer product lines.

A number of on-line resources claim that the poly-synth tone generators use FM synthesis. This is incorrect. Specifically, the poly-synth uses YM70400 GOA integrated circuits (IC) based on Yamaha’s Pulse Analog Synthesis System (PASS). The YM70400 (and the other tone generators) receive a serial 4-bit key code from a key scanner/assigner IC. The key codes tell the tone generator(s) which notes to produce and trigger. The SK-30 has dual poly-synth generators which are each 7-note polyphonic, producing 8’/16′ square waves and 4′ sawtooth waves. Each side is routed through analog filters tailored for strings on one side and an EG-controlled VCF on the poly synth side.

The SK-30 organ section consists of a YM62200 top-octave tone generator (TGC) and two YM70200 organ generators, GF1 and GF2. The organ section is 7-note polyphonic. GF1 and GF2 generate sine waves which are sent through the drawbar tabs for mixing and filtering. GF1 and GF2 support all common organ footages and percussion.

All three sections can take advantage of a tremolo/ensemble effect and/or a multi-pin Leslie connector. The effect is a bucket brigade device (BBD) delay/vibrato generator. [The term “Tremolo” is abused here.]

Much is described in the excellent article “Yamaha Symphonic Ensemble SK20”, Electronics & Music Maker, March 1981. Back in the day, electronic music magazines occasionally gave a detailed glimpse inside — sadly lacking in today’s review articles. sandsoftwaresound.net tries to fill that void.

Copyright © 2022 Paul J. Drongowski