Yamaha Clavinova

[Nick Baty]

Removed

[The original poster has removed most of his posts to this topic - Musicus, moderator]

[docmattc]

We have one, but I only really use it as a piano. It gets used either when piano would be a better accompaniment than organ, or if I have to conduct with nods and winks whilst playing (it can go in front of and facing the choir)

[nazard]

I have a Yamaha Clavinova at home. It is a good substitute for a piano. It makes a good noise as a harpsichord, but it does still feel exactly like a piano. Its organ voice is of very limited use. It is a full diapason chorus + mixtures, and, of course, the keyboard stll feels exactly like a piano. If you forget to turn touch sensetivity off, it is a touch sensetive organ, which is very peculiar to play. The damper pedal does strange things in organ voice as well.

In church we have a Yamaha DGX 500 connected to the organ sound system. This I think is now discontinued. It is an 88 key keyboard with what Yamaha called semi weighted action. That gives it more the feel of a piano that a keyboard usually has, but not as good as a clavinova. It has several hundred voices, and so is good for ensemble work, and can be used as a trumpet for playing descants while the organ is playing, and we also use it for the Last Post on Remembrance Sunday. It has a dozen or so organ voices. The one called "organ flutes" is a very nice 8' + 4' flute combination which is excellent for accompanying voices, better than our organ in fact. The other organ voices are a bit on the brash side, but useable when the organ is playing up.

I had a go on the current top of the range DGX series keyboard in a music shop. I think it is a DGX 620. It has the clavinova action, I suspect from the low end of the range, and all the voices and facilities of a keyboard. I suggest you have a go on one, it might be just what you need.

The downside of a keyboard is that it has autorhythms and chords which encourage monotonous music making. Does anyone make a keyboard with all the desirable features and non of the bad ones?

PS The DGX 500 has a great laugh, which confuses the congregation no end...

[RobH]

Five years ago we had to sell our grand piano as we were moving into a small flat. Having looked at dozens of keyboards we chose a Yamaha "Grantouch" which looks like a small piano and has an actual piano action. Some people may find it very limiting as it only has piano on it - not even a harpsichord, but it is the best sounding and most satisfying synthetic piano I have ever played and many people could be fooled by it. I will not embarrass myself here by telling you the cost, which may account for the fact that one never sees them around, but it was well worth it.

[johnmac]

We bought one one in my previous Parish about eight years ago and I've just bought the latest model for home.
I came to rely on it more and more , especially at our solemn mass where I could record everything the day before and then animate the choir and congregation. The effects are great, especially for churches with not the best acoustics you can add a "real" reverb.
Clavinovas are pretty portable and we put wheels on ours so could move it between the parish centre, on the sanctuary, the back of the church, in the middle for rehearsals etc - even taking it down to the school for the end of year productions (complete will all the styles).
The recording facility is by far the most useful use for a church - if I was on my own in a parish without a "competent" accompanist i'd find it hard to work without one!

In short - highly recommended!

[HallamPhil]

I have a clavinova upstairs linked into a recording studio. I used to use it all the time but now have a Bluthner grand and 3-man Wyvern downstairs so it only gets used occasionally now.

[alan29]

I have a Roland piano with all the bells and whisles.
It has a brilliant helicopter sound which surely has a place on Aug 15th.

Alan

[musicus]

Does anyone use Cubase? I'm just about to experiment with it and was wondering if you can export into midi. You can't so do with Garage Band which is a shame as I've just created I totally gooey version of Walker's Teach Me, O God.

True, and MIDI export is not in the new GarageBand 09 either. Cubase will do it, but only from MIDI tracks, of course, not audio ones.
(I took an Apple Logic course recently and learnt that GarageBand's MIDI loops are apparently a special kind of audio file that happen to behave like MIDI files. This might explain why they won't export. Then again, it might just be that Apple wants you to buy Logic!)

[musicus]

Or you could perform it straight into Cubase.

[Nick Baty]

Far too tricky – shows up all the floors in my playing.