One of the common comments on this board it seems is that people would love to see a hybrid digital piano similar to the AvantGrand line, with a real acoustic action and optical sensors, but without the rest of the Yamaha stuff (onboard sounds, speakers, etc). To me it's always seemed like my dream piano would be to get a new grand action and put it in some box with a PNOscan optical sensor strip. I'd hook it to the software piano and speakers of my choice. Perfectly upgradeable, long lasting, and truly authentic.

I want this so much that I've been thinking about either getting an AvantGrand and just ignoring the built-in stuff or maybe obtaining a new action from a piano technician and getting a PNOscan sensor to do it myself. But it looks like that product actually does exist already!

Petrof makes one.

From what I can tell, it's the perfect MIDI controller. Finally.

Presumably this means one could get it with the Petrof magnetically accelerated action (is that a gimmick?). Petrof doesn't exactly have the presence in America that Yamaha does, but I'm kind of tempted to look into this further. The ghettoness of the page indicates to me that they may not sell many of them. Has anyone seen, heard of, played, or bought one of these? I wonder if it would actually be cheaper than an AvantGrand N1, though...

I couldn't find anything about this on the boards through the search. Is this the first anyone's heard of it?

That's wild. They leave the hammers on: http://www.petrof.com/galerie-1651.html

As compared to: http://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubbthrea...20N2%20apa.html

I asked them a long time ago about local availability (Australia) but never received a reply. (I didn't bother trying to call them or anything, though). Btw, I can't see how to access that page from their Homepage - looks like an orphan page now.

I agree though - it looks like just the thing we have wanted.

Greg.

I don't really understand why they designed the case like that, reminds me of a coffin on a table at Stan's coffin shop

The N1 and the Bosendorfer MIDI controller have also been described as coffins. It's the prevailing design aesthetic.

http://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/102164.html

http://usa.yamaha.com/products/musical-instruments/keyboards/hybridpianos/avantgrand/n1/?mode=model

They have several options, but the others look like they were rendered using CAD. The "classic cabinet" is definitely one I would buy if I got the chance and the price was reasonable.

I can see why the big DP (and acoustic) manufacturers don't make something like this: they want to push us toward buying their other products and paying for their "proprietary, innovative" sound technology. Basically what it is going to take is some company like Petrof with little market share and whose pianos basically do not compete with digital pianos to put something like this out.

Either that or an enterprising piano technician. If the Petrof people really are unresponsive, maybe I'll find someone at a good piano store who can build me one. As much as I like DIY I have to be honest about my (in)ability to make a nice looking piano that my wife will let me keep out in the living room.

I wonder if Kawai or other DP manufacturers would sell me an action if I asked. Probably not...I'd have to persuade a retailer to act on my behalf and pretend they were going to rebuild a piano. It's surprisingly hard to find out what an action would cost or where I could get one. On the other hand, the big piano shops I've been to seemed to have just the kind of people who might be willing to build me something like this.

Can't you just hand the Petrof picture to somebody with a 3D printer? ;-)

Lol. Actually I am amazed what my wife puts up with. As long as my stuff is in a portion of the house designated as "my mess" I can do all sorts of ugly but cool things. I seriously do want to talk to someone who's a technician and see how feasible this would be.

BTW what ever happened to the Bosendorfer MIDI controller you linked to? Vaporware? I never heard of it.

They couldn't convince Tori Amos that it would work for her act.

Probably because they hooked it up to and early version of PianoTeq or something.

Actually since Bosendorfer is a wholly owned subsidiary of Yamaha, it would be strange if they let it compete with AvantGrand and GranTouch before it.

This post from a couple of years ago may be relevant.

Great concept sure, but has anyone actually seen - let alone played - one in the flesh?

If you're after a MIDI controller with a grand piano action, just buy an AvantGrand N1 and mute the audio.

Cheers,
James
x

That's certainly a possibility. Good chance I'll do that eventually.

However, there are a couple of things that give me pause about the AvantGrand:

1. I've heard a number of reports that the AvantGrand velocity curve is hard to use with software pianos. In order to make it more piano-like, they've increased the force you have to put on it to get velocity 127 to a degree that far surpasses what digital pianos and software pianos. I could probably get it satisfactorily calibrated, but I'm more confident the my ability to do so with a PNOscan.

2. Getting an AvantGrand you are paying for stuff besides the action and sensors. A lot of stuff. How much would an action cost if I were to get one? And a PNOscan strip? And that's without the economies of scale that Yamaha can leverage. I suspect it could be done for less than an N1 goes for. Basically they seem overpriced, especially the N2 and N3. I mean, are the speakers really that nice? Do they dominate what I could get for, say, $2000, in studio monitors and a woofer?

3. I guess I would feel more comfortable having a plain grand action that I know any technician can service, regulate, and order parts for. The optical scanner is just a strip below the keys presumably (it is with a DIY job). With Yamaha's modified acoustic action I'm less sure. And their marketing indicates that there is some kind of sensor on the actual hammer. That being the case I really wonder how easily I could get things repaired/replaced.

4. Why have I heard reports that the AvantGrand action feels like a real grand action, but not a quality, well-regulated one? Is the cabinet set up so it could easily be regulated?

Also, let's just face it. I like DIY. I'd be willing to pay more for a DIY project (upgradeable!) than the AvantGrand. The Petrof is basically a grand that's cut in half and has no strings, from what I can see. The web page talks enough about our ability to get custom cases and their scale is small enough that I can't imagine anything but that it's basically the piano I would build if I could. That scores points in my book. The Petrof classic cabinet was much nicer looking to my eyes than the AvantGrands.

Also, is that accelerated action awesome? I'd be interested if it is. If I did my own, could I get a Renner? Or a Kawai Millenium 3? So many possibilities the AvantGrand doesn't provide.

And who wants to feel like they paid a bunch for stuff they don't use (onboard sounds)? I already feel bad about my MP8 for that reason. Illogical since it's a sunk cost, but a palpable sentiment nonetheless.

If I was mostly interested in just a piano I could turn on and never think about again, I would still be playing my original MP8 sounds (or maybe I would have gotten an acoustic) and wouldn't be on a forum discussing digital piano technology. The coolness of the gear matters.

BTW, James, did you mean to include a link to an old thread? I don't see it.

Ah, sorry about that. It's an older thread from a couple of years ago:

Link

You know, I too would love to see a hybrid instrument based on the Kawai Millennium III grand piano action, with the optical sensors from AnyTimeX instruments.

Cheers,
James
x

$10,000 is a pretty penny (for the Petrof). More expensive than a Yamaha N1. I guess the N1 with muted sounds really is the cheapest option at the moment.

Yeah I have a bias toward Kawai because I've played a number of very nice, new Kawai grands--including a brand new Shigeru that I liked pretty well. On the other hand, the Yamaha's I've played have been a number of years old and in locations where they get played to pieces. So in my (biased) experience Kawai acoustics are way more responsive and easy to play.

What I really need to do it go to a Yamaha dealership and try out an AvantGrand, so I can speak from personal experience about the action, rather than redistributing hearsay.

Well, stop talking about it, do it. Take some decent headphones as well as listening to the onboard sound system; spend an hour or two at one of the AGs. I reckon the N1 is a very good thing - not too big, quite classy looking. If you should tire of the onboard pianos then hook it up to a sample library or maybe Pianoteq 4 when it's out.

The AG is far from perfect but if you spend some time with one and then to return to the average DP you will find the DP action boring and really rather unsatisfying.

Quite right. There's a lot of talk about AvantGrands here, some pro and some con, but one begins to wonder whether a lot of axes aren't being ground, for professional reasons or personal ones.

I'm going to name my yacht (after I win the Lotto) "Cum Grano Salis."

If piano stores were more common and had more things in stock there would be less speculation and more trying out of pianos. I'm unlikely to drive a very long way to look at a piano if I don't feel an IMMINENT need to upgrade. I'm not sure I'm there at the moment.

The N1 is gorgeous in person. Much better than in photos. When I have friends over, it's always interesting to see their reactions when I begin to play. "where is the sound coming from?" "What is it?" It's pretty cool. As far as being a controller, it's great. I use it to control both my NE3 and NP88. I think the Petrof stuff linked above is nice but really any good software set combined with the superb AvantGrand action is a stellar combo.

JOOC, what kind of music do you play on your AG, Zachary?

A couple of years ago I had a professional piano restorer interested in building my "perfect" digital piano, similar to the one "gvfarns" described. He would prepare the cabinet of my choice, my keyboard of choice and he was an official PNOscan installer. We lost our nerve when we started to think about the design of the speakers and how to insert them in the cabinet. At that time the AG arrived and I figured Yamaha had saved me the trouble. But someone on this Forum soon pointed out that the AUX IN was stereo only, so there was no way to fully exploit the fine speaker set the Yamaha had built in. My latest thinking was to try the V-grand, but it isn't available in my area, and when I last posted about them it was totally "dumped on". It is so frustrating.

I guess I don't see why it's necessary to put the speakers inside the piano. Just as good is to put them on a shelf or something (or on top of the piano, if they are nearfields).

OldFingers, how much were you looking at for just the action, strip, and box to put it in? It's amazingly difficult to determine how expensive these things are.

Not if you want to feel the vibrations and if you want to feel the sound all around you rather than coming from pinpoint locations. Maybe not important for everyone, but important for some.

Not by me, though my experience is with the RD-700NX.

It is my understanding that Yamaha designed the AG speaker-set so that ranges of notes are assigned to spatially-placed speakers that localizes the sound simulating the effect of an acoustic grand. If I use a conventional speaker-set, all the notes would be coming from the same place, left and right speakers. Not having bothered to play the AG, I don't know if it's just marketing, but the logic of it appealed to me and I would have wanted to put that design into my "perfect" DP. The piano-tech and I realized that this was beyond our level of expertize.


Actually we didn't think much about price because I have a 4-year RX-3 which I would have sold to finance the project and I would have been happy to break even. The strip, which at one time I considered putting in the RX-3, was going to cost about $1600.

Why don't you contact someone who re-builds pianos and talk about your proposal? It could open up a new line of business. Based on my experience, at the very least you will have an enjoyable conversation as it's so much fun speculating about this sort of thing.

That is exactly as I understand it, so I think we are in full agreement. It is not an easy thing to mock up in your own garage. I think you could get a good result by using stereo samples and using a good crossover network which directs low frequencies to subs pointing at the floor and certain frequency bands to areas on the sound-board. However it's not in the same league as what the AG has - they don't select location by frequency, but rather by microphone position. So every spatially placed speaker is mirroring what the mic in the same location would have heard. That's always going to be far in advance of anything you could do with a crossover network. Still, as on of our fellow PW members has shown by building a DP within a grand piano case, you can get quite good results by building something yourself - you just have to manage your own expectations.

While there are many things about the AG that I admire, I am puzzled as to why Yamaha did not open up the device to software pianos letting designers have complete access to the multichannel speaker set. It seems like a missed marketing opportunity. How many more units might they sell if buyers had the opportunity to select a piano of their choice?

I think that's because there is little chance that any of the software pianos would be developing sample sets that match up to the configuration of the AGs multichannel amps or speaker locations. Let's face it, if they don't sample pianos with mics placed exactly where Yamaha placed their mics, the result would not be good. It has to match up spatially to be worth doing.

Probably very few more.

I'm getting out of my element here, but would your concern not be an issue with modeled pianos, such as Pianotech which, I think, allows for the placement of multiple virtual microphones. It occurred to me that one could place the virtual microphones in the locations of the AGs speakers.

Well there would have been at least one more as I would have bought it in a heartbeat. Having had the experience of buying an acoustic grand whose sound I wish could be made more mellow (voicing has not helped), I hesitate to buy another as there is no guarantee that the same thing won't happen again. I have read many similar complaints on the Piano Forum. The ability to select a piano that suits one's taste in one's music room is an absolute winner in my mind.

I don't know if Pianoteq allows 4 microphones simultaneously, each with their own discreet outputs, and also allows them to be placed wherever they are needed. I suppose if that is possible, then yes, it could be useful with a multi-channel input on the AG. I just don't think Yamaha has any thoughts of that kind when they are developing their own top-of-the-range DP. They naturally want to cover every aspect of it themselves.

This is a common complaint with DPs though - the lack modularity. Most players prefer a certain sound (or changeable sounds), a certain action, a certain weight, and a certain set of features. To this point there has never been a satisfactory way to get the best of all aspects in one unit. It's frustrating.

[Sorry, wrong thread]