Puttin’ on the Fritz

This one has been a long time coming.  When I was a senior at Notre Dame I bought a Yamaha P-120 digital piano which was great at the time, but the advancements in digital piano technology have moved ahead significantly in the past 10 years.  It served us well but was time to upgrade….

Introduction
So with the help of Jeff Tasch and his dad, Fritz, at Grand Piano Haus in Skokie, I would like to introduce our new hybrid piano, the Yamaha N1!!!

Hybrid pianos feature the true inner workings of a traditional acoustic instrument.  The keys, the weighting, the action, the hammers, are all taken (not simply replicated through fancy technology and marketing), from a grand piano design.

“It’s not going in our yard Russ, it’s going in our living room”
Yes, as a result, the instrument is a bit larger than what it replaced.  But we have a giant house, so why worry!  Okay obviously not but it’s worth it.  The piano looks beautiful and has a wonderfully reproduced sound and it’s an absolutely joy to play.  I’m going to borrow some content from the Yamaha web site below to further describe the piano:

 
“The nuanced touch and response of the grand piano are an essential standard yardstick for piano quality. The AvantGrand offers the player a specially-developed grand piano action that features the same configuration as the action of a real grand. The hammers strike the “strings” from underneath, allowing minute adjustments to the weight distribution of the hammers, and to the movement of the hammers themselves, for a smoother feel when playing. In addition to a hammer sensor, the AvantGrand employs a non-contact key sensor that has no effect on the movement of the keys, affording excellent recognition of the player's pressure on the keyboard, timing, and the other delicate nuances that affect musical expression. This combination provides an impressive sensitivity for the entire range from pianissimo through to fortissimo, and the ability to translate even the swiftest trills of the pianist with transparency…
Treating the sound-board not simply as a point source of sound but as a plane, we took samples at four positions, adding optimum center and rear locations to the traditional left and right. As a sound source, we carefully selected the best single instrument from among our CFIIIS full concert grand pianos for sampling. The end result of these efforts is that AvantGrand series instruments recreate the original sound of a superb grand piano almost to perfection…. Meanwhile, the AvantGrand’s speaker system has been designed to ensure that this sound is heard best at the playing position. A three-way system featuring woofer, mid-range and tweeter speakers reproduce the rich natural resonance of the soundboard accurately. What’s more, each of the low-, mid-, and high-frequency bands has been given its own amplifier to prevent interference between bands. This innovative configuration allows the instrument’s outstanding sound system to reproduce the nuances of each individual note.

source:  usa.yamaha.com