Product: Yamaha CE-20 Combo Ensemble
Price Paid: UNKNOWN
Submitted
08/18/2007
at
09:50pm
by
Nicola Matteo Gallo
Email: galnick at libero<dot>it
Ease of Use
:
10
It's very easy and straightforward, you press the preset button you want and you go. Brass presets sound very good, the others are responsive but not so realistic. Patch editing is simple, but you can't do much other than tweaking vibrato and touch response. The manual is easy to understand.
Features
:
5
I think polyphony is 6 or 8 but I'm not sure. Keyboard action is a bit strange, you'll have to get familiar with it, it's a pressure sensitive keyboard that goes all together. The more keys you press, the more the keyboard gets lighter! It's hard however to hit one single key with medium pressure. The keyboard is a little hard and it's not fast. It has 49 standard synth keys. The only effects are "Symphonic" - a sort of slow chorus effect that pretends to be a Leslie sim - and the vibrato, that is very simple but good. It can't be expanded and it hasn't got any MIDI capability nor sequencer.
Expressiveness/Sounds
:
8
The keys go all together, if you press a new key harder the old ones become louder, but without affecting the envelopes. However the keyboard is very responsive, it's useful for volume swells and brass solos and goes very well with the FM sounds. Brass are realistic and expressive if you add a little reverb, but the other sounds aren't realistic at all - even if they are much expressive! It works well for 80s and 60s pop, but it can be useful as a "brass machine" for blues, jazz or soul groups. I often put it on top of my organ when I play with my blues band, and it delivers brass sounds - obviously! - but also a string section and some crazy solo sounds I make out from presets with a lot of tweaking.
Reliability
:
10
Haven't had no problems in two years of use. It came with a broken key and it's still broken, and the aux out doesn't work well, but no other issues. I've used it on a gig and it didn't give any trouble.
Customer Support
:
No Opinion
I've not dealt with Yamaha yet.
Overall Rating
:
8
If it were lost or stolen I'd probably not buy another one. It's not a backbone instrument for me so I could try with another instrument I like more. I've been playing for fourteen years now and I own a lot of gear, including vintage ones. The reason why I love it are its brass sounds, obviously, and its keyboard action and responsivity; I wish it was all polyphonic and had octave transposer, like its big brother CE-25 (in fact I'd trade it for a CE-25 if I could). It doesn't help much as it isn't very versatile nor inspirating, but I love to use it sometimes. It's little and this makes me take it with me when I go to jam sessions.
