Clavinova 400 series Brochure!

[bob909]

Hi folks!

For all those interested, you can access the Clavinova 400 series brochure by following the link below. It is a large download, so best to use a high speed connection if possible.
http://www.box.net/shared/jz8es2txdx

I am new to this forum, and hope to learn some things about the Clavinova as well as make some new friends.

Thanks,
Bob L.

[Jane]

Built-in USB audio recorder!
Wow! Way cool!

[ClavinovaGuy]

Hmmmmmm, never too soon to start thinking about a Christmas present to myself.......

[JohnDiV]

It looks like the CVP 400 series added USB to devise for recording but it is missing an optical out which I use for recording to my CD Tascam 900 CD Recorder. The USB is nice, but no optical out? Am I missing something in the info?


John

[bob909]

John,

From what I can tell, the USB audio recorder replaces the optical out. From what I've read in other forums, the audio recorder saves as a .wav file which can then be transferred to a computer and through a program like itunes you can burn an audio CD. I've also been told by my local dealer that Yamaha will be showing the new 400 series at the summer NAMM show (July 27 - 29), with an official announcement from Yamaha then. Until then, they say specs are subject to change, so your optical out still may show up.

Bob L.

[tomz17]

As far as I can tell, there are no real major additions to this series of CVP's... Am I missing something obvious?

[dbjorck]

Hi!

The only really new thing seems to be the Super Articulation voices, which seem really interesting, and there are more of them than the Mega voices which is promising. Being able to record the audio is of course long awaited.

But that's not enough for me to spend more money on. And there's no GP model. All in all, I'm disappointed.

I was hoping for touch screen, surround sound, totally revamped user interface - especially for song recording making it much more user friendly, ending this innane way of categorising sounds (Sweet, Live, Mega, etc) and go for a more useful and understandable setup such as Solo/Quartet/Orchestra, Soft/Medium/Hard, Pizzicato/Tremolo/Vibrato etc. Instead they've perpetuated it by Super Articulation. How is that user friendly to have both Mega and Super? How's a beginner going to understand what that is all about, of course they'll all start asking, isn't Super Articulation Sweet? Since my Mega voice isn't Live, is it dead? ;)

BTW, since they've started to create documentation, there will most likely not be any changes. In fact, the motherboards should be in production - or at least the robot line to produce them should be being set up already which means there can be no major changes to the specs.

Brgds

Danny

[nickb]

Hi!

Super Articulation voices are great! I was looking for it to buy my new digital piano. USB audio recorder is great too. But I am disappointed too!!

No memory for samples, no pitch or modulation wheels, no multipads and no GP version!!

My hope is the CGP-1000...

[lasershow2000]

There was a music show in Dubai on May 20-22. I briefly played with the CVP-407, plus I picked up the new CVP-400 series brochure. During demos, a band played various Yamaha instruments, including the CVP-407. It was bizarre to see this home model onstage -- you would expect a Tyros.

One feature touted in the brochure was "one-function/one-button convenience, so that you can easily call up the feature or operation you want without having to wade through multiple menus!" Well, this interested me because I hate having to press so many buttons just to switch instruments on the Main, Layer and Left voices. On the 400 series, Yamaha did change the names to Right1, Right2 and Left, but other than that, the button sequence seems the same. So this was a disappointment.

I did not like the new look of the instrument. The buttons are placed low and wide. Buttons for the instruments are in the top octive, way to the right. This is simply too far away. The distance from Middle C to the Organ/Flutes key, for example, is now about 26 inches vs. 21 on my CVP-207.

The two upper speakers are basically cutouts with grilles -- no style, subtlety or sophistication. The LCD is still 640 x 480 (on the 409/407) and appears to be the same physical size.

The internal features do seem nice, though kind of in a "version 3.5" way. Like a previous poster, there are many more additions that I wish had been done to the CVP-400 series.

If anyone has questions, I'll try to answer them based on the brochure and my brief experience.

[lasershow2000]

Danny replied that some of the features I mentioned on the 400-series were also on the 300-series.

Strange, I don't see Danny's reply. There was a problem accessing the forum yesterday so maybe his reply was somehow lost. Anyway, I just wanted to say that I have the CVP-207 so I was not aware of all the 200-300-400 differences.

While I love my Clavinova, there are also some maddening features. The most annoying is changing instruments for the different layers (Main, Layer, Left on the 200; Right1, Right2, Left on the 300/400). It takes so many keypresses. I would like to see three banks of instrument buttons so I could simply go bam-bam-bam to change all three layers.

Also, if when an instrument button (such as Piano or Organ) is pressed, if the first screen could have all the choices in a Music Finder style presentation. This way you don't have to wade through all the pages -- just scroll down to the desired voice and press one button. The additional pages would still be available for those who like icon pictures and big type describing the voice name.

I wonder how Yamaha creates new models. Do the engineers just sit around and come up with these, or is there any feedback gotten from a wide variety of users? Sigh...

[dbjorck]

Hi!

There is a separate post saying that the database was corrupted yesterday after I posted the reply, and that a previous backup had to be restored. That's why my reply is gone.

I like your idea of three instrument banks - in fact that's how it was on much earlier Yamahas if I remember correctly (although only two banks - Left and Right).

I agree there is a problem with finding exactly the sound you want due to all the pages you have to go through. However, with a scrolling page
you have to scroll and watch pretty closely to find the voice you're after. With the current ability to go directly to a page, I find that I've learned by heart which buttons to press to get exactly the voice I want, without looking. But your idea of having the scrolling list just on the first page and still the separate pages after would allow that.

But I think my idea for this simplifies it even more (posted prevously on this Wish List forum); don't have any sub-selections at all! When you press the Piano button, you get piano. Period. When you press Strings, you get strings. No more selections. All the variations that are there now, can be put into three new buttons that modify that basic sound; Size (solo, quartet, chamber, orchestra), Strength (soft, medium, hard), and Mode (instrument dependent, for strings could for instance be vibrato, tremolo, bowed, marcato, pizzicato. For choir A, E, I, O, U and perhaps even some consonant sounds or "words" like dum). I think everyone has their own favourite variant in each instrument category, so if it just remembered the last setting, all you would need to do is press for instance Strings and you would with one button press get Strings, Orchestra, Soft, Bowed - the current equivalent of which would be Live! Strings. Even better would be if there was a registration memory per each instrument, say four buttons below the instrument for storing variations. Then you could for instance immediately switch between bowed and pizzicato with only one button press. The key here is to recognise that each instrument has a number of unique attributes and capabilities - not a lot of different ways of sounding. Whether an engineer over there thought that a particular sound was Live!, Sweet!, Mega!, Super!, Wow!, Great!, Wonderful!, or Must Hear! is totally uninteresting to a normal musician. ;)

Which leads to your final question about how they design these things. I do think it's engineers who do it, and they have little imagination, very poor software design skills, and limited instrument understanding. I don't think they get input from actual users. They're not interested in user friendliness because they only want to sell, and "Super Articulated Wow!" is much easier to sell than having a simple Solo button. 138675 voices also looks better in brochures than 20 instruments :) However, yesterday I actually for the first time got a survey from Yamaha - I guess you all did as well? I took the opportunity to give them my ideas.

Brgds

Danny

[Eric Brinkerink]

However, yesterday I actually for the first time got a survey from Yamaha - I guess you all did as well?

Yes, I did. However, the questions gave me the impression that they are more interested in selling stuff on the internet than inquiring what features users would like to see in new instruments. All those questions about Internet Direct Connection, Digital Music Notebook, "have you heard of downloadshop.yamahe.de", how many midi files/registrations/voices do you buy (on the internet), etc. No questions like: do you want a touch screen, is the menu structure both easy and functional, is the button layout ok.

[Carlo]

However, yesterday I actually for the first time got a survey from Yamaha - I guess you all did as well?


Yes, I did too.

I agree with Eric that it was more a marketing campaign than a real customer satisfaction survey.
However, I strongly recommended them to regularly consult and take into account the CVP User Group opinions and suggestions! ;)

Best regards,

[dbjorck]

Hi!

They've been pushing their "Internet presence" since the launch of IDC, and it was clear that it was the main focus of the survey. I hope that is a sign that they've caught on about the current low viability of IDC, and are considering whether to try again with lessons learned or call it quits. But I took the opportunity to vent everything. I for instance also said that they should not force out-of-date equipment on the customer, if they do they should make that equipment available from themselves at a very low price; and the IDC site in order to be popular needs to be an open collaboration portal with all things concerning MIDI music, not just a Yamaha shop (as in being able to go to this site while at the piano, or visiting other MIDI sites).

Brgds

Danny

[Philip926]

Hi, I'm new here. I've been using a CVP105 for the past 8 years or so and have been very happy with it. The only part that conked out was the floppy drive, but that was very easily replaced with a trip to the computer shop and some DIY.

FYI, Yamaha have issued the brochures for the 400 series here in Malaysia. However, actual stocks will only be available in August. I am thinking about replacing my CVP105. Originally, I had the CVP307 in mind, but after a trip to a dealer here, it turns out that I'd have a better deal with the CVP405, so I'm going to keep my options open for now.

Nice forum you have here :)

[dbjorck]

Hi!

Welcome to the group.

I would say you have no real options. If you are going to upgrade anyway, the 4xx series obviously has newer parts and should in theory work better and last longer than an older 3xx. Functionality wise the difference is very slim, but especially since you're getting a better deal you should absolutely go for the 4xx. If and when you get it, keep the forum updated on what you think about it! We would also like to hear what it actually sounds like in the creations forum.

Brgds

Danny

[Philip926]

Thanks for the welcome, Danny. Yes, it looks like I will probably upgrade to a CVP405 when stocks are available. But I'll have to sell my CVP105 first. My music room isn't big enough for two clavinovas :) And I will keep you guys updated about how it sounds.