Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum Yamaha N1, N2 and N3 updates?

Not just in digital .

I was brought up on classical music, and always thought 'voicing' meant the weighting of individual notes within chords or rapid passages where the melodies and counterpoints ('polyphony') etc are within their midst.

Then I came upon some posts by jazz pianists and realized they meant something completely different......

You can also think of voicing in terms of choice in choral composition or orchestration. But, it remains separate from polyphony.

Yes, and in jazz voicing refers to how you distribute the notes of your chords. ie, inversions, closely spaced/widely spaced, omitted notes etc. There are a lot of terms in music that require us to have very good understanding of the context and application.

That's because it does have an upright action. If you compared it to an acoustic upright like the U3, it's actually pretty similar. So if you went into the NU1 thinking it is an upright piano, your impression would be much better. Also, the positive sentiment has a lot to do with its price. The N1, N2, N3 are so much more expensive, my expectation would be also much higher. Value is always part of any evaluation whether or not people mention it. In other words since the P85 is only $500, it's absolutely awesome - at that price it just has to work to be great. For an $80K Steinway, it had better move heaven and earth for me, or else it's not a good deal.

Look I was predicting the N3X in 2013!

I happen to be lucky enough to own awesome acoustic pianos. I love them. That being said, the the N3 is no slouch. I get 95% of the acoustic piano experience with 0% of the hassle. Sit down, play one, and see what you think. Or bring out your checkbook for a truly amazing acoustic piano that can do better.

I hadn't heard about the N3x till I read this. It doesn't appear to have changed much—apart from sampling the CFX instead of the CFIII, the only thing that really stood out in the specs was that it can record 10 songs instead of one, with 550 kb per song instead of 300kb. And the number of speakers went down by one, but the power of some of the speakers increased (although the largest are still 80W).

Have you tried one out yet to compare with yours?

My opinion FWIW - there is no digital piano YET on the market that is an exact analog to a good acoustic piano, well tuned, regulated and voiced.

Why buy a hybrid?

It's the cost of that "well tuned, regulated and voiced" qualifier.

I can think of several reasons related to teaching in a university.

1) The recurring maintenance cost of tuning is reduced to zero. I'm unaware that these instruments will ever need voicing; I would think that regulation would be somewhat less costly than for an acoustic piano. This is a big deal for today's cash starved music departments at all but our best and well financed schools. I argue that an N2, or an N3, is a better practice piano than a poorly maintained acoustic grand, and many schools simply do not have the budget for proper maintenance.

2) The footprint of the piano, e.g., the N2, is smaller than a concert grand, and there are times, e.g., as an orchestral piano - NOT as a concerto solo piano with orchestra - when the sound will be (more than) good enough to suffice in performance. At UMW, our orchestra performs on a stage which is a bit on the small side. If we can keep our concert grand in its locker off stage, we have more room for the rest of the orchestra on the stage. We can also plug an N2 directly into our house sound system.

I think the N2 is the "sweet spot" in the Avant Grand lineup from a price/performance point of view.

As for the NU series, they have an action that emulates an upright vs. a grand in them. I can see a use for them in the classroom as well as in practice rooms used by music students other than piano majors. I'd rather have them working on a grand action