Yamaha shows off its “AvantGrand” hybrid digital/acoustic grand piano
March 10, 2009
The gap between acoustic and digital pianos just closed up a little with Yamaha’s latest innovation, the AvantGrand hybrid instrument that combines the best of both worlds.
Physically, it replicates a much larger acoustic grand piano in a much smaller (but not insignificant) space. It features highly realistic key and pedal action, and comes with 12 inbuilt speakers placed where the samples were originally recorded. It also boasts a whopping 256 note polyphony, so there should be no note cutoffs even during the most complex, sustain-rich passages.
The cabinet is polished ebony and the keyboard is made from Ivorite. It’s dimensions are 1.48m (W) x 1.2m (D) x 1.0m (H) and it weighs 199kg.
More than the pure specifications, though, this instrument is supposed to have more of a feel to it, including the subtle vibrational feedback that real acoustic pianos give to the player.
Pricing is expected to be just shy of US$20,000 with the first instruments available from the summer. A pretty big investment, but still much cheaper than investing in a real acoustic piano.
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Yamaha debuts new acoustic grand pianos: GC2, GB1K, GC1 [NAMM09]
January 14, 2009
Despite the advances in digital pianos, not least from Yamaha, there’s still nothing like a real acoustic grand piano.
Yamaha will be showing off three of them at Winter NAMM this year, including the new GC2 and updated GB1K and GC1 grand pianos.
The new 5′8″ GC2 grand piano has the same size, tone and touch of Yamaha’s C2 but is more affordable. It comes in polished ebony and features a simply-styled cabinet, straight leg design, and traditional synthetic key tops.
The 4′11″ GB1K replaces the GB1 and is well-suited to smaller homes. It features a soft-close fallboard and will be available this month.
Finally, the GC1 5′3″ grand piano is of simple style, featuring a new sostenuto pedal and soft-close fallboard.
More information on these pianos will be available once the show opens.
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