Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Possible Yamaha CP4 in the future?

Sorry, JFP...I didn't realize that this was the price/market segment Yamaha was targeting. My bad.

Disregard my previous "yikes" statement.

So, this new Yamaha DP will be more targeting the consumers who might also be looking at the Roland FP-80 and the Kawai ES-7 / VPC-1.

Looks like the same form factor as the CP33 for both the 4 / 40.

From a production / MFG perspective, using the same box / platform for multiple models keeps costs down.

Possibly, but it's really more for those looking at dedicated stage pianos, such as the RD-700NX, MP6, Nord Piano 2.

If you're looking for a less expensive alternative, the new CP40 is the scaled down version (around $1700, IIRC).

I really think the revelation here is that someone from Yamaha is prepared to open up a little bit and give those of us interested in the technical aspects something meaningful to digest. So thanks very much Athan - I hope you stick around and give us more of the same because you are very welcome indeed!

And Athan, if you haven't already realised there is a groundswell of opinion among those of us that come here that would really like Yamaha (and most of the others) to look at reducing or preferably eliminating the looping during the decay phase of the acoustic piano sounds. Right here and now it is the single biggest advance that Yamaha could bring to the table to improve their piano voices. I have the CP1 and the action, playability and tone is all there - in fact it is a downright beautiful thing on many levels - but the looping does the sound no favours at all. Please tell the boffins!

Best wishes,

Steve

And the stretching!

Mmm. Yes but I just don't think that has the same impact as looping. Stretching is not ideal but if done very well in normal playing I just don't see it as such a big issue. Just my thought on the matter!

+1 on the looping. At least on the CFIII it's too obvious for my ears (just my personal judgement). CFX I haven't tried yet.

88 key sampling would be welcome, but stretching doesn't have to be audible or annoying by definition. So if a choice has to be made between the two; get rid of looping once and for all !

And the use of filtered hard strikes for soft strikes!

For me the Yamaha cp4 is very interesting. I´ve been lookin at RD700NX but think it´s
to big and heavy. If the Yamaha sounds and feels good I´ll probably get one. Unless Roland comes with a new lighter RD700.

Anybody knows when it comes to europe?

Perhaps they should simply use stretching for the extreme low/high registers; basically the notes which are rarely played. As for looping, I'd prefer some form of physical modeling to handle the decay; however, I doubt that YAMAHA will be using Physical modeling anytime near the future (pertaining to acoustic pianos).

So, looking through the specs pages, it doesn't seem like the 40 has that many less voices than the 4 ( 297 vs 433 ). So I wonder if there's a true, stripped-down ( fewer / no synth / pad voices, drums, etc.), $1k-ish US CP33 / P155 successor / equivalent in the wings ( yeah, I know the 50 was supposed to be the 33's successor ), or is that the P105's niche?

For that matter, is there going to be a new flagship beyond the CP1?

Yeah, I know, patience and all ( never been one of my virtues ), given that it's just now officially official for at least the 4 / 40.

It seems like the CP4 will take over as the flagship ("best stage piano"). The CP1's status will be officially downgraded to "2nd best piano" ever built by YOMOHO; I'm sorry, I meant YAMAHA!

Edit: nothing about the CFX demo - I clicked the wrong part and thought video was only example featuring the CFX sample. My mistake...

Question:
although it's not listed in the specs, it looks as if the CP4 has an auxiliary audio input (mini-jack). Is that correct ? And is it a 'straight through' design, or is it digitized (DAC) and has some kind of volume control and/or audio routing features ?

Leaving aside JFP's very valid observations concerning the sound treatment on the video, the CP4 sounds like a VERY nice DP. I've just been listening to the demos, and so far haven't found anything to dislike or equivocate about.

You crossed me; just changed post - I mistakenly clicked the video thinking it was the audio CFX demo. Mix-up...CFX is fine indeed.

Actually, I'm going to amend my previous take slightly, too. Listen to the CFIIIS (#2) demo at around 42-47 secs in. It sounds like a classic example of stretching, where adjacent notes have the exact same metallic ring. Still, I didn't expect Yamaha to move to 88-note sampling, so I'm not unduly disappointed if what I'm noticing is due to stretching - but I do prefer each note to have its own character.

"Others are more DSP oriented and unique to SCM systems, for example there are mic models so you can change the character of the piano by changing which mic model is applied. Again this is modeling a component of the sound, but not necessarily modeling the whole sound itself. "

Hi,

The Spectral Component Modeling post was written at about 5:30 am and there is one detail that should be cleared up. The SCM does not contain mic modeling, it contains microphone preamp modeling. We modeled the mic preamps (one with 2 band EQ and one with 3 band EQ) that were used in the recording sessions. So though you can't change the microphone, you can change the mic pre settings which gives you a good deal of control. We'll edit the original post and makr it as edited so people know.

The audio demos sound great, however some of them sound familiar...from the CP1?

I'm assuming there's some stock MIDI files used to demo the sounds on a range of Yamaha instruments.

Good videos though, I was a good move to mention the re-forestation project in Indonesia too.

Cheers,
James
x

Well apart from the CFX the patches are the same.

[video:youtube]jKGjOE_7bYI[/video]

With Flash going for ~$0.50 USD / GB, ARM processors a dime a dozen, and you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a free (as in beer) RTOS, it puzzles me why this type of zero sum game discussion still occurs almost daily here in beautiful sunny PW. It's almost as if DPs were left high and dry by the last wave of technology. What passes for the latest thing is controlling creaky >10 year old electronics from your spanking new i-whatever.

Pianoteq (or Ivory, or etc.) in a box, how long must we wait?