Over the past ten years or so, electric organ sales have slumped to all time low. Yet the arranger keyboard market continues to flourish, especially with keyboards such as the Yamaha Tyros, Korg PA-1X and the Roland G70. In my opinion, the organ is much more playable as a live instrument, and using bass pedals, you can play the organ without any drum machine or automatic chords and get a fantastic sound.
The keyboard on the other hand would sound thin, definitely lacking without auto chord/bass. Of course, arranger keyboards are considerably cheaper than new organs and take up less room. This has created a new generation of keyboard players, some of which could never afford the hefty cost of an organ.
So is this the end for the electric organ. So how do organ manufacturers address this problem? Well they were and still are designed to be a piece of furniture. Great big lumps of wood, which appeal to the older generation, which is why they have the reputation of being an older person's musical instrument. This need to be changed so they appeal to all generations. The next major change has to be the hefty cost. A top of the range electric arranger keyboard such as the Roland G70 would cost between two to three thousands pounds. The top of the range Roland Atelier organ will cost you in the region of twenty thousand pounds new.
This change may have already started with new models from Yamaha with the Yamaha D-Deck organ and the top of the range Yamaha Electone Stagea. Both are portable and very modern looking. Unfortunately, there is not a lot of information on these models unless you read Japanese. Yamaha have decided there is no organ market in the UK, Europe or the USA. So if you want one of these models you will have to import it yourself.
At the time of writing this, even these new modern looking organs are now out of date. As far as I am aware the Yamaha Stagea electone organ and Yamaha D-Deck organ do not have the "Super Articulation" that is available on the Yamaha Tyros 2 arranger keyboard. There are also a lot of brand new features on the latest crop of arranger keyboards, which include Roland G70, Korg PA 800 and the Ketron Audya, the latter, still a prototype.
So if you want an electric organ set up. You might be better of buying two arranger keyboards and a pedal board. It would be considerably cheaper than importing the Yamaha Stagea and you would be assured of the latest sounds and technological advancements.
The Yamaha guitar has been around for over 60 years and the company itself for over 100 years. In 1887, Torakusu Yamaha made his first reed organ and began taking orders to make more. In 1897, the Nippon Gakki Co. Ltd. was founded with Torakusu as president of the company.
For the next 40+ years, Yamaha's company made organs, pianos, harmonicas, furniture, phonographs and finally their first acoustic guitar in 1942. In 1965, a year after The Beatles made their legendary Ed Sullivan Show appearance, Yamaha began production of solid body guitars. In 1966, they started to make the electric bass as well.
By the 1970's, Yamaha started to grab the attention of major artists such as Carlos Santana and Bob Marley because of the instruments great quality and design. The Yamaha guitars were being built to produce a powerful warm tone with amazing sustain. Also, the "Broad Bass" was introduced in 1977 and quickly caught the attention of famous bass players throughout the world including Paul McCartney.
By the end of the 80's, Yamaha opened up a factory in North Hollywood, California. Here they started making guitars where they called on some professional guitar players to help them out and advise them on what they would like to see in their guitars.
One of the reasons behind the success of the Yamaha guitar is the targets that they shoot for in their design. Every guitar must have a balanced tone and response and the bass and treble must complement each other.
A very important move for Yamaha was the introduction of the dovetail neck joint to their design in the 1970's, which provides the best neck to body contact. The neck joint is made with timber, which helps to resonate vibrations easily from the neck to the body producing the balanced tone and response.
Yamaha also strongly believe that the blending of different kinds of quality wood is extremely important to produce a great sound. The outcome of blending these quality woods, are the highs last longer and the guitar player is able to control the note texture at all times.
Another important part of construction of the Yamaha guitars is the types of lacquer that they use. They work closely with the lacquer producers to make sure that they get the best type of lacquer that is right for their guitars. Yamaha want to make sure that their guitars both look great and have every chance to breathe.
Because of all these great design features, many artists have used and still prefer to strap on a Yamaha guitar on tour and in the recording studio. Some of the great artists that have played Yamaha guitars over the years are Michael Anthony, John Denver, John Lennon, Bob Marley, Brian May, Paul McCartney, Jimmy Page, Carlos Santana, Bob Seger, Billy Sheehan, Paul Simon, Bruce Springsteen and James Taylor.
