(Friday, April 16, 2010)

Review of the Yamaha CVP509 Polished Ebony by Umbrella Music:

When sitting down to play the Yamaha CVP509 Clavinova Digital Piano you immediately know it is something special. Yamaha's top of the range CVP Clavinova (barring the CGP1000 and CVP409 GP) the CVP509 offers the player  everything they could possibly ask for in terms of playability, features and aesthetics.

Yamaha's reputation is rock solid but in recent years some people have felt that you occasionally pay a little bit too much for the name. Over the last year I feel Yamaha out an excellent range together with perfect price points. For the money (the Yamaha CVP509 Polished Ebony version sells online for around £5158.40) you get an array of sounds, complex recording features and possibly the nicest piano sound and touch I have ever seen on a digital piano.

The actual keyboard uses synthetic ivory keytops and real wood white keys. The key surface is soft and slightly porous, giving the keys added grip and a natural friction that lets you play easily. This makes the piano experience very realistic and similar to playing an acoustic piano. 

When you play an expensive acoustic piano, you can vary not only the volume of sound, but also the expressiveness: lively, gentle, and so on. Thanks to AWM Dynamic Stereo Sampling, you get the same response from the Yamaha CVP509. This is achieved by sampling sounds at more than 10 different levels of keystroke strength. From these, three to five levels are carefully selected, depending on the model chosen, to offer more detailed tonal variations. As you play, the Clavinova reproduces subtle differences in nuance according to your touch, ranging from pianissimo to fortissimo. To create the piano sample Yamaha used their CFIIIS full concert grand piano which was tuned to the highest possible condition. They then used Yamaha's unique Pure CF Sampling technique to sample all of its sounds, in order to create the CVP509 sound. As a result, you enjoy the same natural tonal response as a top-quality piano. 

This model uses Yamaha's super articulation technology. This is mainly used on the Clavinova's woodwind sounds. Basically Super Articulation allows the player to accurately play instruments the way they would sound acoustically. For example when playing one of the piano's saxophone sounds you can bend or slide notes, to "join" different notes together, or to add expressive nuances at the end of a note. This technology means that if you were to go from a certain note to another you can actually hear the holes of the instrument closing as you would on the real instrument. This is seriously impressive and makes for an exceptional playing experience. In my opinion this makes the CVP509 the perfect balance between the Tyros and a pure piano product taking features from both kinds of instrument and combining them. 

Megavoices are used on the piano to create stunningly realistic sounds. For me this is best shown on the Clavinova's classical guitar sample. Players will hear open and mute string sounds, dead notes, hammering effects, slide effects, harmonics and a wide range of strum and body noises. Put simply Megavoices actually mirror the instruments behavior and react accordingly. 

The piano uses instruments active field control (IAFC) which is sophisticated technology outputs sound picked up by built-in microphones together with the Clavinova's internal sound through rear speakers, making automatic adjustments to create a richer sound that best matches the acoustic characteristics of the room you're playing in. It also uses signal processing to reproduce an authentic damper effect. When the damper pedal is pressed, it delivers discretely sampled overtones, harmonics and resonance to recreate the warm and spacious sound. 

Recording your music is a breeze with USB Audio input and MP3 Playback. Simply plug in a mic and enjoy recording your voice over the piano sound. All the usual elements of a Yamaha Clavinova are on the CVP509 including a LAN port for easy access to the web where you will find a host of helpful features, new sounds etc on the Yamaha site. The piano comes with the matching Yamaha stool, my only gripe here is that this stool is not adjustable, however this would probably add a lot of money to the cost which personally I would rather spend on the piano itself. The display uses a nice big bright 7.5" screen which clearly shows scores, instrument choices and all the other features. I found that even under bright lighting condition the screen did not glare which is always a bonus.

To sum up, the Yamaha CVP509 is an excellent choice and well worth the obvious investment. I cannot really fault the product at all as it ticks all the boxes for me not only in terms of it's piano sounds and playability but also the host of other options that are built in. Simple to use you can be making superb and realistic sounding pieces in no time at all. 

Umbrella Music are pleased to announce that we have just received the Yamaha CVP509 Polished Ebony Digital Clavinova. Although these came out a few months ago they have been in very high demand and stocks have been very low.

We have a very limited number available and are one of the few stores in the UK who have them in stock.

Remember when you buy a Clavinova from Umbrella you can be sure that the level of service you receive will be excellent and the price you pay will be incredible.

Check out the Yamaha CVP509 PE at Umbrella and buy today, before it's too late!

Here's a little bit of info about the wonderful Yamaha CVP509 Polished Ebony Clavinova:

Maximize the pleasure of performing with advanced features

The CVP-509 has superb tonal response and faithfulness to the original sound created from Pure CF Sampling. The NW keyboard with wooden white keys effectively reproduces the authentic touch, weight and feel of a real grand piano - and even provides Synthetic Ivory keytops, for natural friction and improved playing ease. The newly introduced Tri-Amp System enables the clear expression of even delicate sound nuances. The CVP-509 is packed with hundreds of dynamic voices, including the ultra-realistic, expressive Super Articulation 2! Voices and Mega Voices, as well as accompaniment styles. It also has a USB Audio Recorder for recording your own performances, complete with singing into a microphone connected to the Clavinova or even an ensemble with a guitar plugged in. Enjoy in a variety of ways!

Features

• Pure CF Sampling for superb tonality - Yamaha technicians selected a CFIIIS full concert grand with the highest sound quality, and tuned it to the finest possible condition. They then used our unique Pure CF Sampling technique to sample all of its sounds, in order to create the CLP/CVP sound. As a result, you enjoy the same natural tonal response as a top-quality piano.
• TFT LCD 7.5 inch Display - High-resolution, 640 x 480 dots, color TFT (Thin Film Transistor) LCD screen. Big and bright, the 7.5 inch display shows scores, lyrics, all important settings and parameters with crystal clear clarity, even under extreme lighting conditions.
• Natural Wood (NW) Keyboard with Synthetic Ivory Keytops - This type of keyboard features the feel of real ivory. The special Natural Wood keyboard also uses real-wood white keys. The key surface is soft and slightly porous, giving the keys added grip and a natural friction that lets you play easily. The authentic touch and feel of the keys goes far beyond existing electronic keyboards, it makes you feel as if you're playing a real grand piano. This specially crafted keyboard lets you use techniques only possible on grand pianos, such as playing the same note successively and having the sounds blend smoothly even without use of the damper pedal, or playing the same key quickly and having perfect articulation without the sound cutting off unnaturally.
• Advanced Wave Memory (AWM) Dynamic Stereo Sampling - The AWM (Advanced Wave Memory) is a sampling system which creates sound close to that of an acoustic instrument by using digital technology to record the instrument sound and applying high-quality digital filter technology to the recorded audio samples. The waveform of the sound created by playing the key of an acoustic piano differs depending on the playing strength from pianissimo to fortissimo. The AWM Dynamic Stereo Sampling can produce such dynamic nuances by recording samples of various playing strengths. The greater the number of samples used, the higher the expressive quality and potential becomes.
• Super Articulation 2 - Mainly for wind instrument Voices, a special Yamaha technology called AEM has been used, which features detailed samples of special expressive techniques used on those specific instruments - to bend or slide into notes, to "join" different notes together, or to add expressive nuances at the end of a note, etc.
• Articulation Element Modeling (AEM) - Articulation Element Modeling (AEM) is the technology for simulating this characteristic of instruments. During performance, the most appropriate sound samples are selected in sequence in real time, from huge quantities of sampled data. They are smoothly joined and sounded - as would naturally occur on an actual acoustic instrument.
• Instrumental Active Field Control (iAFC) - This sophisticated technology outputs sound picked up by built-in microphones together with the Clavinova's internal sound through rear speakers, making automatic adjustments to create a richer sound that best matches the acoustic characteristics of the room you're playing in. It also uses signal processing to reproduce an authentic damper effect. When the damper pedal is pressed, it delivers discretely sampled overtones, harmonics and resonance to recreate the warm and spacious sound.
• MegaVoice Technology - It features multiple samples across the keyboard with sophisticated velocity switching - for incredibly authentic instrument sounds. It contains not only the basic samples of the instrument but also the performance techniques used with it. On a guitar for instance, players will hear open and mute string sounds, dead notes, hammering effects, slide effects, harmonics and a wide range of strum and body noises. In technical terms, MegaVoice duplicates an instrument's behavior. In sonic terms, this gives the keyboard stunningly realistic sounds.
• USB Audio Recorder & MP3 Playback - You can record your performance as audio data to a USB storage device. Connect a microphone or guitar to the instrument and enjoy recording a guitar and keyboard performance together, or record your singing along with song playback. Also it features playback of audio files in the "MP3 (.mp)" format commonly used by personal computers and portable music players.
• Guide Lamps - The key guide lamps indicate the notes you should play, when you should play them, and how long you should hold them down. You can also practice at your own pace - since the accompaniment waits for you to play the notes correctly. Here, mute the right- or heft-hand part and try practicing the part using the guide lamps.
• Auto Accompaniment - The auto accompaniment features let you produce automatic accompaniment playback simply by playing "chords" with your left hand. This lets you automatically recreate the sound of a full band or orchestra - even if you're playing by yourself. The auto accompaniment sound is made up of the rhythm patterns of the styles. The styles of the instrument cover a wide range of different musical genres including pop, jazz, and many others. Using these accompaniment styles lets everybody, even beginners, give accomplished solo performances.
• Music Finder - When you want to play in a certain genre of music but don't know which settings to choose, what can you do? Music Finder has the answer. It offers an extensive range of music styles with pre-programmed voices and effects setups. Search for suitable styles. It instantly call up the best-suited voices, tempo and accompaniment style to match the song name or music style you wish to play. Simply call up a song title and start playing.
• USB TO DEVICE Terminal - Insert a USB flash memory in the USB TO DEVICE terminal on the instrument. It would let you save or load the registered settings and user songs created on the instrument, as well as read data from the connected device.
• USB TO HOST Terminal - Dive in and take advantage of the wide world of computer music software. Connections and setup are exceptionally easy, and you can play back your computer recorded parts with different instrument sounds - all from a single instrument.
• LAN Port - LAN Port is for a wired internet connection the same as a LAN terminal you see on a computer. Stay connected and directly access to the Yamaha's special service "Internet Direct Connection (IDC)" without a computer. Once you're online with IDC, you can download your favorite contents straight to your instrument. And that's just the beginning - the fun and excitements start from there!
• Online, On-demand Music (IDC) - Bring your instrument online and tap into the worldwide music network! Yamaha has created a new, essential online service for musicians everywhere: Internet Direct Connection (IDC). IDC lets you connect the instrument directly to the Internet, without a computer, letting you delve into thousands of MIDI songs on our custom website, and download your favorite music for playback on the instrument.

(Monday, March 15, 2010)

The new Yamaha CVP505 Clavinova

The Clavinova CVP 500 series is here! This is the much anticipated and replacement upgrade to the 400 Series. After the success of the 400 range Yamaha realised it was time to take a great digital piano and make it even better! The CVP 500 lineup is Yamaha's most advanced Clavinova CVP to date.

The CVP-505 is the next model up from the Clavinova CVP-503. Just like the CVP-503, the CVP-505 features a new  4-level CFIIIS grand piano multi-sample with 291 new voices and 4 more drum/sfx over the already  fantastic CVP-503 voices.

Trying to decide if its worth paying the little bit extra for the CVP505? Below we have a chart for you to compare the enhancement of the 505 over other models.

Here are the comparisons:

Aside from these tables the Clavinova CVP-505 also comes with the following additional enhancements:

USB Audio recorder: Capable of playing .mp3 files in addition to recording and playing .wav files
Color LCD vs. monochromatic LCD (CVP-503/501)
More accompaniment styles: 362 vs. 272 (CVP-503)
More Music Finder storage (we'll go over what these are): 2500 vs. (1200 CVP-503/501)
More USB ports: 2 vs. 1 (CVP-503/501)
Video output port

The Clavinova CVP-505, overall, is a great digital piano—it builds upon the CVP-503 and is an extremely capable instrument with lots of great features. The piano sounds are the same as the CVP-503's so there was nothing for us to add here other than they are excellent, expressive and very realistic .

If you like a lot of sound variety such as saxophones, guitars, strings, horns and many other sounds as well as nice touches like a color LCD, mp3 player, and more styles over what the CVP-503 offers then we would recommend the Clavinova CVP-505 to you.
 

If you need any help choosing your Clavinova please call and speak to one of our sales team who will be happy to help.

You can view the CVP505 by clicking HERE. Umbrella now have them in stock, and available on a next day UK service. We can also ship to Europe so please contact us for insured shipping quotes.

(Thursday, May 06, 2010)

 The Yamaha P95 Digital Piano is the replacement for the P85. There are many people who will have had a lot of fun with the P85 and are mostly happy with the sounds and the quality of the keyboard action. For the price it is certainly worth it.

The P95 was launched at NAMM in the USA and isn’t yet available in the UK, but retailers should be receiving stock imminently. As always with any new replacement there are varying opinions on whether there is any improvement or not.

There are some people who are quite obviously disappointed that there is no improvement on the action or the piano sounds, but to make advancements on these would require a significant hike up in the price.  The P95 will be aimed at the same market i.e. beginners, or players who are not so concerned with the amount of sounds and want to keep it simple – which is why a lot a churches use them. You’ll find plenty of people happy with the P85, the action and quality of sounds and the Yamaha P95 digital piano will be upholding this tradition. 

Yamaha have replaced two of the onboard sounds with two new ones namely the Jazz Organ and Choir.  There are a few people who think Yamaha should have been additional. But hey, you can’t please everyone, and if I was playing in a church I would like a choir sound. I’m also sure that the more contemporary churches will appreciate the Jazz Organ.

I haven’t tested out the piano sounds yet, but it wouldn’t surprise me one bit if Yamaha have made some improvements there.  One feature they have definitely improved is the onboard speakers, which have increased power now. In a live environment you would probably still need to hook up to an amp, which I would recommend doing anyway.

In summary I would say that the P95 piano will be a great choice for beginners and players who aren’t concerned with having a huge choice of sounds, but want a good action, a full size keyboard at a reasonable price.

If you aren’t convinced, or you don’t like the new sounds you could always check for P85’s being sold at a discount. Or you could forget your fears and buy a brand new P95 digital piano here.