I think the sterility is due to the very short, over processed loop samples. When I listened to the first videos from NAMM where someone whacked a low note and held it I though it sounded pretty nice, but up close and personal in the DPBSD looping test not so much.

I do wish someone would take a screwdriver to their CP1/5 and post some nekid pix of the key mechanism. Does anyone know what the down-weight is (nickles it takes to float middle C)?

The CP-5 is a wonderful piano mainly because of its keybed and instant connection which makes it seem so much more musical then many other instruments. I have a CP-1 and its easily the best sounding board I've ever played (even though I'm not a S6 fan) The EP's are the best out there and the AP's sound so good live that indeed they transcend any technical shortcomings. This is a board for a true gigging musician...... and its going to get better soon.

When Dave Horne posted his discovery about the notes sticking out, I went to the GC with 240 headphones in tow, and definitely did hear it. I made a mental note of it the next half dozen times I played the CP5 in various stores before I finally pulled the trigger on one.

The more I played the CP5, actually playing music on it- Jazz heads, tunes, improvising over the changes, excerpts of Chopin & Debussy Etudes and Bach preludes, etc.--the less those particular notes stood out to me. Everything just blended in as a whole. I was so caught up in the overall expressiveness and playability of the CP5 over the CP300 (which I owned at the time) that those notes didn't bother me. It was simply the best portable DP I'd ever played- Avant Grand aside of course. Again YMMV there.




Another way I'd put things.

Again my only complaint about the CP5 is that in certain smaller type rooms and gigging situations, the portability factor makes the CP5 less then an ideal first choice--thus why I have the Nord Piano.

And my only regret is that I didn't take advantage of Hidecki's (another PW contributor here) generous offer and purchase his barely used CP1 early last summer.

Hi CyberGene, reading this thread, I wonder if you do not suffer from NSBDP syndrome (never satisfied by digital piano). I'm curious why you put so much energy into DP when you do have AP? For example here, I do have wife's old August Fo"rster upright made in Czechoslovakia. I've invested $250 into two tunings and renovation of hammers and dumpers and overall action adjustment/fix and viola the piano plays much better now. Perhaps if you do the same with your Scholze your DPs might find harder competitor?
Anyway, as I've seen you already put your CA63 on sale and thinking about CP5 or successor, I'm still curious have your tried some member of AvantGrand's line? I've thought it's nearly consensus on this forum that this is the best DP money can buy in these times (minus V-Piano fans) and would like to know your opinion on this piano (N1 preferably). :-)
BTW: the trip I'm going to do for DP/AP testing is to Hradec Kralove, the town where Petrof and Bohemia pianos are made. I'm glad you enjoy drinking Staropramen. :-)

I'm certainly suffering from NSBDP syndrome The only problem is I live in a flat where it could be a problem with my neighbors and the upright is in my parents' house not in Sofia I am thinking of doing a sound insulation to a room in the flat or maybe someday move to my own house but until then I have to stick to digital pianos. Besides, I use to play with bands say once a month so I need a stage piano.

Regarding the AvantGrand, I am afraid it's way out of my budget and my wife would certainly divorce me if I spend so much money on a piano I would be interested to test it though, however there's no AG in the Yamaha showroom here and it's a huge showroom with so many pianos that I am wondering if they would ever bring one here.

Mine doesn't :-) I feel pretty much the same about my CP5. With decent speakers the thing simply sounds good and blends extremely well with other instruments. I also have found out that, although there's no dedicated mono patch, the CFIII is very easy to handle in that respect. In fact, even simply summing the two XLR outputs worked surprisingly well.

Concerning other Yamaha actions … I used to be a big fan of the CP33. Back then it was the best portable DP I knew and I liked it even more than the Kawai MP8. I almost bought one in 2009 and opted for it when my university jazz orchestra bought a stage piano, but now I'm so happy I went for the CP5 two years later. When I played a gig on "our" 33 recently, I didn't feel very much "at home" on the keyboard. It has some sort of initial stiffness or resistance that even most acoustic pianos don't have, which somehow connects with what's been posted before about exaggerated stiffness in some keybeds.
While the CP5 is pretty light for a Yamaha, the keys do have some weight and they do feel solid, so together with the sound engine they literally invite me to play through all the nuances from ppp to fff. No other keyboard – especially none from Yamaha – has come close to that for me. YMMV, of course.


You made me curious. What is going to get better? :-)

I agree, the connection between player, keybed and sound engine is unmatched so far. As for the S6, I think it's a lot less versatile and easy to handle than the CFIII. It's extremely sensitive to good playback equipment and sounds horrible in mono. Still, I've come to like it for its rather "woody" texture and its more personal sound – but only in the studio. For live use I generally prefer the CFIII.

The EPs were the biggest surprise for me. I absolutely hated the EPs on the P80, P90 and CP33, but the CP5 surpasses even some of the Nord stuff. I still have my Electro 2 and love it for its user interface, but I primarily use it as a one-manual organ substitute now.

But anyway, those are my personal observations – and of course they may be biased by myself being a CP5 owner :-)

Yamaha will develop the CP line further to keep it competitive in the market

I agree very much with this statement. There's too much effort required to get it moving. After playing something (anything) else I found on returning to my CP33 that sometimes I wasn't pushing the key to the bottom of its travel and this, coupled with the fact I felt the key has to pretty much completely bottom out for a note to sound, was causing notes to drop. May well be a problem with my technique but in any event I am fine with other key actions. I had a short try on a CP5 recently and really enjoyed it.

Cheers,

Steve

Right. A pretty obvious point that I somehow missed entirely. I'm curious how a future CP6 or CP5II etc. might sound & play …

how do you check the os version again?

The possibility to check the OS version of CP5 was added only with the latest firmware. It is done by pressing some button while turning the instrument on. If this combination is not working, then obviously the latest firmware has not been installed Apart from the initial version of the firmware, there was only one more version if I remember correctly.

No problem. I wish the usb compatability list was newer than 2 years old....
I bought one and now I am trying another right now...

From the 1.20 Readme text...


9. Hold down the [USER] and [EXT] buttons, then power on the CP5 to check the firmware version to confirm that the CP5 has been successfully updated.
If "Version 1.20" is shown in the display, that the unit has been successfully updated.
Power off the CP5 to exit the version information display, then power on the CP5.

By the way I found a Verbatim USB drive from the Yamaha list at Best Buy that worked for the update. None of the Kingston matched the model # and I wasted one of those already trying to use it for the update...

exactly! I was not impressed with CP5 at all!
So I know now why companies don't have to hurry with improvements of their instruments - ther will be always somebody who will like whatever they do...
I have to say we have awful stagnation in DP development except
maybe V-Piano and hybrid models.

It's understandably not everyone's cup of tea, but sound-wise SN has been the only thing keeping me even vaguely interested (though I would very much like to examine the Physis piano). Kawai will likely add an initial to their UPHI acronym at some point, Yamaha seems more interested in EPs, Korg in poorly made workstations, Casio in the low end, and newcomers all pick lame Fatar actions to go with their fancy new guts - it's all fairly tedious. (Roland's new SN drum brain looks awesomely amazing but unfortunately too expensive for casual purchase.)

With all the raving about the CP1/5 keys I'm hoping this new lighter weight action concept will catch on with other makers (particularly those capable of designing less cryptic UIs). DP keys need to have sufficient mass in order to significantly reduce the chances of accidental play while brushing up against them, but that's about it IMO. I'm not convinced fake ivory, ersatz escapement, weight grading, or even hammer actions are positive contributions. It's kind of like electric guitars, once you have amplification you can put the lightest, slinkiest strings on there and park them very close to the frets - the reduction in required left hand strength is like night and day. Too bad I vastly prefer the rich sound of acoustic guitars.

I spent my first night with my new CP5.

I tried in the store to use headphones and get a good take on this board, but you know how that goes...

After tweeking the sound to somewhere between the bright rock piano and the CF grand, I like the sound I am getting for the most part.

But, there are definately inconsistant volume/velocity on certain keys. The S6 has more of them than the CF. Also, the EP's have some inconsistant velocities as well.

I like the Organs the best of all the sounds.
EP's next and then the piano sounds.

I would rather have the piano be my favorite sound since I play 99% if my songs on piano.

The piano sounds could use longer samples (I did not know this kind of technology was limited by sample length, but it is).
The piano sounds could also use sympathatic resonance as well as some corrected samples volumes/velocities as mentioned above.

What really bums me out is that if I play a chord and then hit the sustain pedal, I do not get the damper resonance...only if I hit the sustain pedal first... :-(

Roland RD700NX - Good piano, terrible EP's, almost as terrible Organs

Korg Kronos - Excellent EP's, Great piano sound but rough sample switching, Horrible Organs! Loud internal fan!!!

Yamaha CP5 - Great Organs, Pretty Great EP's, OK piano.

So, this is the one I choose from now out of those 3.

It will work well for live. Studio, I will still depend on my soft synths for piano, but the for EP's, Organs and few other sounds, I think I will use the CP5 for studio...

The Audio player for backing tracks and the Mic input will help me for live as well.

Quality Control?
I think this unit has traveled alot...All of the end cap screws were very loose and most of the screws on the bottom were loose.

Yikes! Needless to say, I tightened them before playing it.

here you are, they never give you what they have the best of 3 basic patches which everybody always wanted in stage piano in one unit. They say: "what? piano, EP and organs in one DP??? you got to be kidding...what for??? you are either pianist, organist or crazy, make up your mind!"

I know...it is amazing to me!

Probably is the only digital out there (other than the V) worth taking a look at, amongst all the other miserable offerings...