GrandTouch keyboard, finely tuned 3-way speaker system and transducer ensure a real concert grand piano playing feeling
- New Yamaha CFX and Bösendorfer Imperial samples including new binaural samples
- 38 tones, including 2 fortepiano tones (Mozart Piano/Chopin Piano)
- Improved VRM (Virtual Resonance Modeling)
- Grand Expression Modeling
- GrandTouch™ Keyboard, linearly weighted
- GP Response Damper Pedal
- (42W + 50W + 50W) x 2 amplifiers
- Grand Acoustic Imaging
- (16 cm + 8 cm + 5 cm + transducer) x 2 speaker system
- USB Audio Recorder (Playback/Recording: WAV)
- 20 rhythms
- Internal Bluetooth® audio
- Wireless connection to the Smart Pianist app via Bluetooth® MIDI
- Control panel with touch input
- Color matt black
GrandTouch™ keyboard
Yamaha's latest keyboard offers wide dynamic range and realistic response to every nuance of key touch. This allows pianists to create a wide variety of sounds with their fingertips - from gentle to powerful. The highly durable piano hammers replicate the reaction pianists feel when the hammers hit the strings, allowing precise tone control. Highly absorbent white synthetic ivory keys and black synthetic ebony keys prevent slipping even during long performances and feel like a real grand piano.
The GrandTouch keyboard features wooden keys that showcase Yamaha's expertise in using wood to make pianos. Just like real grand piano keyboards, the keys are made from the best parts of optimally dried solid wood, making them more resistant to curvature than keyboards made from laminated wood. The wood texture and structure of the keys create a more realistic grand piano feel.
Use your artistic expression!
The rear area of the keyboard is the real challenge with a digital piano keyboard. The distance to the pivot point is crucial here. The closer this point is to where you hit the key, the less leverage you have and the more force you have to apply. The significantly longer GrandTouch keyboard offers the player more leverage and therefore many more opportunities to express themselves in a playful way, even in the back area of the keys. The length is exactly the same as Yamaha's S3X Premium concert grand piano and therefore longer than any other digital piano (as of April 2020).
88 linearly weighted keys - The first digital piano to ever offer such detailed weighting for each key.
Each individual key on a grand piano is weighted differently. This is because the strings slowly become thinner and shorter for each note in the upper register and become longer and thicker in the bass register. The Clavinova's 88 linearly weighted keys are the first keyboard of its kind to take into account in such detail the different weighting of each individual key. This results in a playing feel similar to that of a concert grand piano, which gives the player a much more authentic playing feel.
The pressure point simulation of the Clavinova keyboards
The pressure point mechanism in a grand piano quickly moves the hammer away from the strings after striking them to prevent any interference with the strings. This mechanism creates a slight locking sensation when the button is pressed very gently. After Real Grand Expression gave the pianist an outstanding playing feel in terms of tone, touch and pedal behavior, we decided to develop a pressure point simulation that delivers excellent playability, repetition and response without compromising performance
The Clavinova keyboard now has a pressure point mechanism that replicates the feeling just before the end of the key press. It was designed so that it is only noticeable with the lightest pressure, similar to the keyboard of a grand piano. These keyboards have been adjusted to provide additional friction that balances key repetition and response without affecting performance.
GP Response Damper Pedal
The subtle use of the damper pedal and the associated change in sound is important in providing the pianist with all the necessary forms of expression to convey their musical vision.
Clavinova digital pianos have a pedal that continuously detects how deep it is pressed and even enables half-pedal detection with which the player can influence the sound of the piano by the depth of the pedal position.
The GP Response Damper Pedal offers a resistance curve like a real grand piano: it starts out light and then gets progressively heavier the harder you press the pedal. This allows pianists to get used to the subtle nuances of the pedals of real grand pianos.
Design philosophy
Clavinova pianos offer outstanding playability, versatile features and an elegant, authentic design that combines a compact form with modern aesthetics, setting new standards for modern piano design. At the core of the Clavinova design concept is the feeling players have when they sit down in front of their Clavinova. Unnecessary elements are removed from the player's view to create a playing feel as natural as an acoustic piano. This reflects Yamaha's focus on players practicing on the Clavinova but performing with real grand pianos. You can sit on the stage with peace of mind because everything feels just like at home. A Clavinova piano is part of a musician's everyday life - and thanks to modern accents and color variations, it fits any design and lifestyle.
Control panel with touch input
The touch panel only displays text when turned on — and when disabled, it looks just as elegant as the painted keys.
Grand Expression Modeling
The interaction and interaction of the hammers, dampers and strings in a real grand piano react to the subtlest deviations in the keystroke and thus create almost endless tonal expression possibilities. With their touch, pianists not only control the intensity (soft or loud) of playing and releasing the keys, but can also control the speed and depth with which the keys are struck. Grand Expression Modeling, introduced in the CLP-700 series, translates the different inputs pianists use their fingers into the same endless tonal variation of real grand pianos.
How to change the sound by playing keys at different depths or speeds - even with techniques such as trills or legato or when emphasizing the melody alongside accompanying notes. Grand Expression Modeling can faithfully reproduce the expected sound found in many well-known titles. In Debussy's “Clair de Lune” Gentle keystrokes create an airy sound that makes the melody more prominent. In Liszt's “Un Sospiro” The accompanying arpeggios accentuate the melody without overloading it, and the varied expression of the melody offers a quality like singing. Chopin's final Nocturnes feature trills, legato and other fine techniques in which the fingers appear to float over the keyboard and which provide the necessary breathy and gentle tonal expression. By playing pieces with an expressive piano, pianists can learn the different techniques and express themselves through sounds like a painter through his colors.
New samples from the Yamaha CFX and the Bösendorfer Imperial
The Clavinova's grand piano sounds have been recorded from several world-renowned concert grand pianos. One of them is the CFX, Yamaha's premier concert grand piano. Many pianists around the world have fallen for the impressive, overwhelming and expressive sound that the CFX achieves in concert halls. Another concert grand piano sampled is the Imperial, the flagship model from Bösendorfer, a famous Viennese grand piano manufacturer with passionate fans. The Imperial is known for its wide variety of colors and natural, warm feeling. Yamaha reproduces the characteristics of these concert grand pianos by carefully recording the entire tonal range for all 88 keys and by making lightning-fast adjustments to capture the most harmonious tones the two grands have to offer.
Virtual Resonance Modeling
One of the advantages of a grand piano is the mid-tones that are created by the vibration of the entire instrument. Clavinova pianos mimic these rich midrange tones through a revolutionary technology called Virtual Resonance Modeling (VRM). VRM creates a differentiated sound by simulating the complex mid-tones that arise when the vibration of the strings spreads to the soundboard or other strings, and which respond to the timing and intensity of keystrokes and pedals. CLP-700 Series pianos even replicate the sounds of the dampers being lifted off the strings, as well as the resonance of the duplex scale, strings, soundboard and frame. With Clavinova pianos, you can enjoy the same fast dynamics and deep mid-tones produced by the entire body of a real grand piano.
A perfect concert experience - even with headphones.
Binaural sampling describes a method in which special microphones are attached to the head of a doll - just like the pianist's ears - to capture the piano sounds as they really sound.
We use this method to achieve the atmosphere and full, natural sound of acoustic pianos with our Clavinova pianos. This makes pianists feel like they are sitting at a real grand piano, even if they are playing through headphones. The experience is so convincing that they quickly forget about the headphones - no matter how long you play.
The CLP-700 series pianos used binaural sampling for the Bösendorfer Imperial and the Yamaha CFX. Yamaha achieves high-quality binaural sound by using a specially developed doll head and specially modeled ears for recording.
In addition, Yamaha has introduced the “Stereophonic Optimizer” designed to achieve the same effect as real wings. Stereophonic Optimizer technology replicates the natural propagation of different piano voices through headphones - almost as good as the binaural sampling of the CFX and the Imperial.
Classic fortepiano voices
The CLP-775/745/735/765GP* models are the first instruments to be equipped with fortepiano voices. The fortepiano is a predecessor of the modern piano. The sounds of fortepianos decay much faster than modern pianos and the composer's intention in terms of timing and length becomes much clearer with the pedals of a fortepiano. Using these historical instruments, pianists can more intuitively follow the intentions of past composers by realistically replaying the notes of centuries-old songs.
*These models are equipped with 2 fortepiano voices,
The fortepianos in the picture are from a collection of the Hamamatsu Museum of Musical Instruments.
Grand Acoustic Imaging
When a pianist plays a grand piano, he causes the entire instrument to vibrate and is enclosed in colorful sounds created by the combination of various acoustic elements around him. The pianist immerses himself in a mixture of expanding sound and reverb. The high-end models* of the CLP-700 series achieve this pleasant feeling via Grand Acoustic Imaging. The latest technology in acoustic design and measurement creates the same sound image and field as a real grand piano - despite the compact format of digital pianos. Bass, midrange and treble speakers are optimally coordinated and positioned to achieve the sound radiation and focus of real grand pianos, so that every single note appears to come from exactly the same position in the instrument as the original. The speaker positioning and tuning replicates the feeling that occurs when the hammers hit the strings in front of the pianist and their reverb spreads out. We've also added a transducer to fully recreate the reverberation of the sounds emanating from the entire soundboard of a real grand piano. This means that pianists feel the same depth when playing as with acoustic grand pianos. The frame of the Grand Piano models is specially shaped to simulate the radiation of grand piano sounds via the speakers. This also creates a full sound experience for the audience.
