Piano and Synth Blog

Introduction

Yamaha are well known for making quality keyboard instruments at all levels and for all needs. Here we look at their entry-level keyboards, which are ideal as first keyboards, portable performance tools, or basic MIDI controllers.

Overview of Yamaha’s entry-levels

Their entry-level portables all feature 61 full-sized keys (5 octaves), MIDI, and various quantities of instrument samples, including acoustic piano, and rhythm/accompaniment sections.

Lowest-end models do not have touch-sensitive keys. In other words, no matter how hard you press the key, the volume of the note played will be the same.

Higher-end models do have touch-sensitivity built in - the harder you press a key, the louder the note.

Are they right for you?

There’s little to doubt the workmanship of Yamaha keyboards, and even the entry-level models pack a lot in for a good price.

What’s important is that you know what you are going to want the instrument for. Don’t go for the cheapest option or you may regret the lack of extra features if you really get into it.

These are really aimed at the beginning musician, rather than synth musicians or pianists. As that, they do a good job.

If you know you’re going to want to tweak and create sounds, you need a proper synthesizer: these keyboards are not for you.

If you know you’re going to want a highly realistic feel as well as sound of an acoustic piano, these keyboards will disappoint. They sound very good, but they feel nothing like a piano, as they don’t have weighted keys.

Getting the right model

I’d suggest the most important things to bear in mind are touch-sensitivity and polyphony.

Touch sensitivity

Apart from playing the organ, I can’t see any benefit in getting a non-touch-sensitive keyboard. All sounds, not just the piano, will respond to how hard a note is played (the velocity of the note). Only very low-end keyboards now don’t offer this feature - it’s not worth the minor monetary saving to do without.

Polyphony

Don’t skimp on polyphony. This is how many notes a keyboard can play at once. Yes, you only have 10 fingers, but bear in mind those drum and instrument accompaniments, sustained notes, split parts, etc.

Yamaha’s lower-range keyboards only offer 16 notes of polyphony, which is only barely adequate. If you can afford a model with 32 notes of polyphony, go for that - you won’t regret it.

The tell-tall signs of a keyboard running out of polyphony are dropped notes - often accompanied by clicks as the sample cuts out. Not good to hear.

Bells and Whistles

The selling point of these keyboards is their fun element - let’s not knock that. “Serious” keyboard players might shun their rhythms, accompaniments, auto-features, and so on, but these keyboards are fun.

They let you produce some great ready-made sounds in a variety of styles, without you having to be a fantastic musician or have your own recording studio.

You may tire of the built-in features after a while, though.

Conclusion

Pros

• Entry-level keyboards: good sounds, features, low price, fun

Cons

• Lower polyphony and lack of touch-sensitivity can limit use

Most Important

Try before you buy!

Specification Table

Below is a fairly detailed comparison table, based on Yamaha’s own specifications for each instrument, so that you can see the features present on each model.

icCoventry caught up with teenage pianist Karho Wong, 17, after he was awarded the Licenciate of the Royal School of Music, an award usually given to postgraduate music students.

He said: “I’d like to be a concert pianist but the chances of doing that are quite small. I’m going to keep up the maths and then if I’m still playing the piano I’d like to do postgraduate study at the Royal College of Music.”

Read the full article: Gifted teenage pianist shines

After the announcement of the new Access Virus TI, Sonic State have enthusiastically heralded the new models.

Press Release

Steinberg Media Technologies unveiled the latest version of its Cubase SE entry-level music production software. Cubase SE3 offers music technologies tailored to musicians, producers, students and educators. Offered for Mac and PC, Cubase SE3 will be available in October 2005.

For beginners and newcomers to computer-based music production as well as students and educators, Cubase SE3 offers powerful yet easy-to-use features designed to support those taking their first steps in recording, editing and mixing music on a PC or Mac. The VST Connections window allows simple, quick connection to music hardware such as mixers, audio interfaces and monitors.

Cubase SE3 provides ample creative space for professional musicians and producers looking to expand their music-making environment. With its 48 audio and unlimited MIDI tracks and the included range of VST instruments, virtual effects and MIDI effects, Cubase SE3 offers a huge palette of creative potential. A 32-bit audio engine offers 24-bit/96kHz recording and playback, including full delay compensation.

Existing Cubase SE owners will find a range of new features and capabilities. These include a new user interface and audio engine, drag and drop for MIDI files, superior Hitpoint detection, a redesigned Track Inspector and much more. Cubase SE3 also introduces new capabilities that support an even faster, more efficient workflow, including new key commands and editing functions.

Not only is Cubase SE3 fully upgradeable to Steinberg’s Cubase SX3 and Cubase SL3 applications, but all projects created in Cubase SE3 can be easily opened in either of those two professional music applications, regardless of computer platform. Cubase SE3 also hosts VST instruments and effects, allowing Cubase SE3 owners to add to the virtual recording studio through the addition of professional virtual instruments and effects, including Steinberg’s VSTi range.

Price and Availability

Cubase SE3 will be available for $159.99 from October 2005.

For more information, visit their web site at www.steinberg.net.

Betty Webb in Get Out Arizona reviews Van Cliburn’s recent performance at the Symphony Hall in Phoenix.

his impassioned rendering of Tchaikovsky’s Piano Concerto No. 1 brought him four — count ’em, four — standing ovations, along with an audience-wide chorus of screams, whistles, yodels and hollers.

That’s because the audience wouldn’t let him go until he’d performed three encores — snippets from Rachmaninoff, Chopin and Schumann.

Read the full review: Van Cliburn brings Symphony Hall crowd to its feet� 4 times

Access Music has announced that the VIRUS Total Integration (TI) will be available worldwide from October 3rd.

Some of the mouthwatering specifications:

• Complete new hardware design; dual-core DSP system; high-speed local bus; improved system response time; reduced latency
• Delay and reverb per part
• New oscillators: Wavetable, HyperSaw
• Programmable Arpeggiator: per patch
• PureSemitones: “tunes the oscillator’s semitone knob to pure intervals”
• Knob Quantise: “Knob movements can be quantised to create gritty, jagged controller movements”
• Memory: 512 RAM patches and 2048 ROM sounds + 16 Multi Mode slots which embed all patches used
• TapTempo: based on SyncXtreme

Coming in three flavours:

VIRUS TI DESKTOP

• Table Top Synthesizer
• White graphic display
• Mahogany-style wooden side panels

VIRUS TI KEYBOARD

• 61 Keys, Velocity and Aftertouch
• Two Pedal Input
• White graphic display
• Illuminated logo at the back
• Mahogany-style wooden side panels

VIRUS TI PØLAR

• 37 Keys, Velocity and Aftertouch
• Two Pedal Input
• White LEDs
• Illuminated logo at the back
• Aluminium side panels

Links and Resources

• Access Music (access-music.de)
• Virus info (virus.info)

Frank Herron in The Post-Standard writes about pianist Vladimir Feltsman’s desire to see classical music being less elitist and more fun.

He talks about taking advantage of the Internet age:

Some orchestras he mentions the New Jersey, Cincinnati and Dallas symphonies are doing a good job at enlarging their audiences, he says.

The outreach goes beyond pre-concert talks and after-concert parties, he says.

“A lot of stuff has to be done on the Internet downloading free videos and so on and so forth,” he says. “You have to be up with the times. It’s an Internet environment now.”

Read the full article: Pianist aims to make classics more fun

Martin Ball in The Australian reviews “Team of Pianists: Works for Piano Duo” in Melbourne last week.

PIANO duets are the ugly duckling of pianistic performance, loved by their composers and performers, but generally spurned by audiences in favour of the more brilliant solo repertoire. Piano duets are rarely heard on our concert stages, and duos such as the Labeque Sisters are the exception that proves the rule.

In the right hands, of course, piano duets can blossom into beautiful works of art. The venue is important too, as these pieces are much more at home in the intimacy of a drawing-room soiree. Just imagine the premiere of Brahms’s Variations on a theme by Haydn for two pianos, played by Brahms himself and Clara Schumann, to friends in the salon at home.

Read the full review: Piano duet just delivers

For the pianist, the decision on whether to buy a digital or acoustic piano will come down to a few key factors:

• Space availabilty
• Finances
• Environmental restrictions
• Maintenance
• Travel / performance requirements
• X factor

Space available

If you’re living in even modest surroundings, even a baby grand piano will be out of the question, unless you’re prepared or able to lose a whole room. Even many upright acoustics take more room than their digital counterparts.

Finances

Acoustic grand pianos are expensive and unless you are totally committed, the expense may prove too great.

Environmental restrictions

Digital pianos have an advantage over acoustic: you can play them through headphones. When the urge to play Rachmaninov at 2 in the morning strikes, you won’t have angry neighbours (unless they’re so close that they can hear fingers on keys).

Maintenance

Looking after an acoustic piano is generally more expensive that its digital cousin. They need to be tuned, cleaned, and maintained.

Of course, digital pianos can go wrong. They still contain mechanical moving parts as well as intricate electronics that can both fail, but generally repair or replacement is cheaper.

Travel / performance requirements

Do you need to travel frequently with your piano? It’s not hard to guess which is the easiest to transport.

X factor

When all is said and done, there’s the X factor - the ‘WOW’ factor.

I was surfing the Yamaha website, and drooled at the Clavinovas. Beautifully constructed, sound great, all the advantages of a digital instrument…

Then I looked at the concert grand section. Oh my… that’s the X factor.

If I had the money, the space, no neighbours… I’d get an acoustic grand. I love everything about them.

(If money was no object, I’d probably get both!)

Owning a grand piano is probably just a dream, though…

Yamaha introduce their stunning CLP-F01 Clavinova electric piano, a gorgeous-looking instrument following in a long line of Clavinova quality.

The all-important specifications:

• 88 real-wood keys
• Hard, medium, soft, and fixed touch sensitivity
• Three-level AWM Stereo Sampling technology
• 30 banks of sampled sounds
• Sustain Sampling
• Key-Off Sampling
• 64 notes polyphony
• 14 voices with 2 variations on each:
  • Grand Piano 1, 2, 3
  • Electric Piano 1, 2
  • Harpsichord, Vibraphone, Church Organ, Jazz Organ, Strings, Choir, Guitar/Clav, Wood Bass, Electric Bass
• Effects: Reverb, Effect, Brilliance
• Recording: Two tracks, three songs (max. 9400 notes)
• Memory storage: Internal flash memory
• Pedals: Damper (with half-pedal effect), Soft, Sostenuto
• In/Out Jacks: AUX IN, AUX OUT (L/L+R, R), AUX OUT (L, R; LEVEL FIXED), MIDI (IN, OUT, THRU), TO HOST, PHONES (2)
• Amplification: 40 W x 2
• Speaker system: 16 cm x 2, 5 cm x 2 (6-3/8″ x 2, 2″ x 2)
• Available finishes: Polished orange, polished ebony, polished blue, polished red
• Dimensions (WxDxH): 1427 mm x 400 mm x 995 mm
• Weight: 71kg

Whilst it’s not always easy to tell how much doctoring of demonstration songs has taken place, the previews on the official website sound promising.

• Piano 1 is a bright and clear acoustic piano with a good dynamic range.
• Piano 2 has an extra brightness/sparkle (some might say metallic) quality that provides enough variance from Piano 1 to stand out on its own
• Electric Pianos 1 & 2 are fairly standard affairs (one clean, the other slightly distorted) that does the job. The demo appears to force a few notes which sound quite harsh, but this may be by design and will vary with playing style.
• The Harpsichord is good, though the demo has a little too much reverb for my liking. On this and the organs, fixed keyboard velocity with be most useful.
• Knowing that the full range of a pipe organ will never be achieved on a standard keyboard, the Yamaha does a convincing job of the ‘basics’.
• The jazz organ is lively, but don’t go looking for the Wurlitzer.
• The last five voices sound fairly good on the demo, but I suspect in reality will suffer the way most voices like these do on digital pianos. Playing a realistic guitar or bass on keys is not easy, and the choir sound will likely be of limited appeal.

Don’t expect to use the Clavinova as a sophisticated MIDI controller. It’s a digital piano of the highest quality in both sound and workmanship, and is just as important as a piece of furniture.

A worthy addition to the Clavinova range.