(Source: Yamaha Europe)

Jools Holland, one of the UK’s most popular pianists, has put his tour piano, a Yamaha GT7 digital piano, on auction. It’ll be auctioned at the Bonhams’ Autumn sale of Fine Pianos without reserve, and all proceeds will go towards the Drake Music Project.

FYI, production of this particular Yamaha GT7 model has been discontinued, so you’ll be getting a potential antique as well. On a related note, Holland has announced that he will be replacing this piano with a “similar upgraded model”.

[News via Yamaha Europe]

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(Source: Yamaha)

Yep, this post was supposed to have been published around a month back, but after checking the post listings, it seems it never got out of the door. But better late than never, right?

The Yamaha DGX620 Digital Portable Keyboard – with a wooden-style design and all – was brought into the market not too long back, with all the standard keyboard features you might expect from one of the top piano and keyboard vendors in the world. To be more precise, it comes with Yamaha’s Graded Hammer action, 400 instrument voices and onboard effects, a pitch bend wheel and sustain pedal, plus stereo speakers and a 6-track onboard sequencer.

Software-wise, you’ll be looking at the Easy Song Arranger (which comes with 150 styles and 267 songs), Performance Assistant technology and the Yamaha Education Suite.

If you’re interested, you can get one now for about US$799.

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(Source: Gibson)

This is the second CP-series Yamaha stage piano / keyboard launched with the Clavinova CLP-240PE digital piano (the first was the CP300). Unlike the CP300, however, the CP33 is targeted at the budget pianist given that its going at “only” ~US$1300 – around half the price of the CP300.

It still isn’t cheap, but you should find more than enough features to justify its purchase. Like the rest of the CP-series keyboards, this 88-key Graded Hammer keyboard comes with AWM tone generation, robust MIDI functions, real-time controllers, and a USB terminal. Specific to it are 28 original voices – though none of these have the degree of customization given to those of the CP300 (which has 50 original voices in total).

All in all, it looks like a good buy for an experienced amateur looking to bring his/her music on stage. But musicians looking for advanced studio-type features may have to look elsewhere.

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(Source: Gibson)

Simultaneously released with the Clavinova CLP-240PE digital piano are two CP-series stage pianos, a.k.a. keyboards. The first one we’ll talk about is the Yamaha CP300 – one of the company’s flagship keyboards.

This 88-key Graded Hammer keyboard replaces the aging P250, and comes with a 16-track sequencer and 50 original voices – inclusive of grand piano voices customized with String Resonance (with harmonic overtones), Stereo Sustain (with open strings and pedaling) and Key-Off Samples (with dampers on piano strings).

The rest are mostly fundamental Yamaha keyboard specs., so we might as well stop here and look at it from “above”. The CP300 is clearly a full-featured keyboard – with all the jing-bangs and what-nots you will need. Of course, this also means that you’ll have to be prepared to pay the US$2000+ price retailers will demand for one of these.

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(Source: Gibson)

Yamaha recently launched the Clavinova CLP-240PE – a mid-level digital piano which few will find particularly striking bar one aspect. It will come with what Yamaha calls “…a high end, polished ebony finish…” – something it claims doesn’t come too often with mid-range models.

While not untrue, I find it rather ludicrous to make it a key selling point of a digital piano (at least, that’s what Yamaha seems to be doing). But let’s forget about that and return to more solid stuff.

The CLP-240PE, like the rest of its CLP-200-series brethren, comes with two key “technologies” (you know, the ones with all the fancy names and acronyms). One: Advanced Wave Memory (AWM) tone generation for instrument realism. Two: Dynamic Stereo Sampling (DSS) piano samples which allow for subtly different sounds when you hit the keys differently.

Overall, Yamaha’s latest Clavinova-series piano looks good, and sounds good specs-wise. But it really isn’t very different from other digital pianos in its class – except for that “high-end ebony-finish”, of course.

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(Source: Yamaha)

Replacing Yamaha’s older DGX line of portable keyboards is its new YPG line. In particular, three new keyboards from this new line have been announced – the YPG-225, YPG-525, and YPG-625.

Those who are familiar with Yamaha digital keyboards will know most of the features these new offerings have, but one particular feature Yamaha has been keen to highlight is its push-button “ultra-realistic” Portable Grand function. Presumably, this function will allow you to switch into a particular grand piano sound set with just a push of a button (yes, even I want to know what’s so special about this).

Anyway, let’s get to some of the specifics. The YPG-225 is the lowest-end of the three models, with only 76 keys, and is the updated version of the Yamaha DGX-203. It also contains far less features compared to its older brothers, such as the 88-key YPG-525 which comes with hgh resolution Live! Grand Piano stereo samples and a (relatively) large LCD display for lyrics and scores.

On the highest end of the scale is the YPG-625 – Yamaha’s first 88-key Graded Hammer System weighted action portable keyboard. Previously, Yamaha’s Graded Hammer System could only be found on its acoustic pianos.

Overall, besides the YPG-625, I do not see much improvement being brought to the table with this new line. If you already own a solid portable keyboard, there’s really no reason to rush to your nearest vendor for a Yamaha YPG.

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(Source: Yamaha)

Yamaha has finally introduced a replacement for its aging PSR-293 digital keyboard in the form of the PSR-E403. For those who are out of the loop, the PSR-E403 is primarily a learner’s portable keyboard.

Equipped with an updated version of the Yamaha Education Suite (YES) and Yamaha’s Performance Assistant system (where notes you play are automatically corrected if played wrongly), the PSR-E403 is filled with features almost useless to the professional, though useful if you’re a beginner.

Besides its learner-type features, Yamaha’s latest addition comes with a 6-track and 5-song capacity on-board sequencer, an Easy Song Arranger which provides push-button style changing, USB connectivity, plus a set of built-in two-way speakers.

It is set for a June 2006 release date, with a retail price of $349.95.

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