My Personal Wish List

[Philip926]

A built-in hard disk, say 80GB minimum.
A built-in CD player and writer would be nice.
An option to disable all the lights.
A clock and alarm :rolleyes:
A lock (sometimes I don't want people opening my instrument and touching it)
More USB ports!
I'm still thinking...will add more when and if I come up with anything new.

[blueNotes]

1) Improve the follow lights feature by having multi-coloured LED lights above every key. Then, you could have the piano use one colour for the left hand, and one for the right hand, or the ability to select which colours you want for black notes and white notes, or have a duet with different colours for different parts. Or use colour as an indication of the strength with which you should play a particular note.

2) Play along with not just midi, but real audio tracks, so you could accompany singers and live performances, with the ability to mute tracks and have them follow your tempo.

[wally]

1) Improve the follow lights feature by having multi-coloured LED lights above every key.

The older model CVPs, up thru the 100-series, used red lights over the white keys and green lights over the black keys. I preferred that over having red lights over every key.

I would like for Yamaha to make it possible to adjust the lead time before the lights come on over the keys. Some simple to use adjustment that doesn't require accessing a page on the screen. Just a simple knob on the panel would do nicely. I have found that the lights come on sooner on some midi files than on others.

I wonder just how much real usability testing Yamaha does in their development department.

[Philip926]

The older model CVPs, up thru the 100-series, used red lights over the white keys and green lights over the black keys. I preferred that over having red lights over every key...

...I wonder just how much real usability testing Yamaha does in their development department.

Yes Wally, I can vouch for that. My CVP105 has red and green lights for the white and black keys respectively. This is a big help for my students who use the guide lights as an aid while practicing. Making all the guide lights red is really taking two steps backward.

I suppose it's really difficult for us normal musicians to have any influence over their R & D department. But if somebody like Stevie Wonder were to give his point of view, they would probably sit up and listen.

[dbjorck]

Hi!

To be absolutely correct, only the 2xx series had all red lights. The 3xx also has red lights over the white and green over the black. I'm assuming it's the same with the 4xx.

So apparently R&D are doing at least something since they changed it. And apparently they are listening to someone somewhere as they changed it back.

Personally I'd prefer red over black and green over white though. That to me seems a better colour match, easier to remember. So the suggested multicoloured LED's enabling you to configure what you want is good.

But if somebody like Stevie Wonder were to give his point of view, they would probably sit up and listen.
LOL - he'd hardly care about the colours would he! But considering the miniscule innovation going on lately, that's probably how they do it! :D

Brgds

Danny

[Carlo]

Hi!

On analyzing and elaborating the user scenarios (involving CVP keyboard-leds) described in the previous posts, an interesting feature that could be considered and added to the wish list is having leds of different colours (in principle, ten colours, or two sets of five colours, one set for each hand) in order to denote the full fingering to be used while playing a song.

In other words, the led colours tell you by which finger to hit a certain key on the keyboard at a certain moment of the song being executed.

This could be of great help, as an alternative to the standard numbered notation used in paper scores, whenever a player (in particular, at beginner level) wants to practise a piano piece with the appropriate position of hands and fingers on the keyboard.

This feature would imply, I suppose, a sort of extension of midi commands or "buddy file" to the song file, in order to suitably drive the colours to be switched on and off at the right time.

Do you think it would be easily feasible or are there difficulties I'm overlooking ?

Best regards,

[dbjorck]

Hi!

In utopian theory that could be interesting, but certainly not very feasible now. As far as I know multicoloured LED's can only switch between red, green, and some of them can also handle orange (not knowing if there is some recent technical development in this area though). But 10 colours when there are only 7 in the rainbow?! :eek: I'm having problems if it's the red or the green above the white or the black. Can a beginning student really remember which colour would be which finger? I think that would rather take away the attention from where it should be, on the music itself.

Brgds

Danny

[Carlo]

Hi!

I ignored that there were such severe limitations on led colouring and, sure, having two sets of five colours each (as I proposed) is simpler than ten all different.

What is also certain is that the fingering problem crawls around in some members of the User Group and might also have solutions not involving leds.

See for example

http://cvpug.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2101

and its post #3.

Best regards,

[dbjorck]

Hi!

The problem with 2x5 is that sometimes the hands cross... Not often though. Above all, the CVP would need some pretty sophisticated software to figure out the fingerings. We can't expect the MIDI standard to be changed just because Yamaha says so, and what would you do with all the millions of existing files? I don't really think most people would realistically spend time creating a "buddy" file with all the fingerings either. Besides even printed sheet music rarely show fingerings for all notes, just some. So it would have to be automatic. There is a PC software that can identify which hand should be playing, a similar technique could be used to do the fingering. But it's not easy (and this PC software doesn't always get it right yet either). It needs a lot of intelligence built in for that.

Brgds

Danny

[wally]

Hi!

On analyzing and elaborating the user scenarios (involving CVP keyboard-leds) described in the previous posts, an interesting feature that could be considered and added to the wish list is having leds of different colours (in principle, ten colours, or two sets of five colours, one set for each hand) in order to denote the full fingering to be used while playing a song.

In other words, the led colours tell you by which finger to hit a certain key on the keyboard at a certain moment of the song being executed.


But different people might use different fingering on a song, based on their hand size, muscle tone, personal preference, etc. I remember my coach didn't teach one way to finger a passage, but would encourage me to experiment with various techniques until I found the one that worked best.

[Carlo]

But different people might use different fingering on a song, based on their hand size, muscle tone, personal preference, etc. I remember my coach didn't teach one way to finger a passage, but would encourage me to experiment with various techniques until I found the one that worked best.

You are right.
But I had actually in mind this feature to be useful at a very basic level, for piano beginners (e.g. kids), having to play didactic pieces wherein a recommended fingering makes sense.
Another user scenario is playing technical pieces wherein the application of a correct fingering is just one of the objectives of the execution.

Best regards,

[maitrebart]

7. I'm still thinking...will add more when and if I come up with anything new.

I have a suggestion for 7: Network!

Personally, I wish they can support the Dlink DWL-G122 (USB wireless network dongle) for the Dlink DI-524 router.