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Yamaha Electric Grand's best songs.


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But please - I lived through the CP70 era, I owned one, and I pine for it like I pine for my old cassette deck or polyester jackets. The songs featured in this thread are good songs performed by talented musicians and the fact that a CP70/80 was the piano of choice had nothing to do with them being good songs worthy of listening to again. In my admittedly not-very-humble opinion of course! :)

 

I completely understand. The way you feel about CP70 is the way I feel about the Rhodes. :duck:

Moe

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I never owned a CP80 but played one regularly during the early 80"s at a club that owned one. At the time is was great. Today, I"d much rather play my CP4 or a software piano triggered by a good weighted controller.

 

When performing live guys like Chuck Leavell and Billy Joel can play any piano they want but they play neither a CP80 or an acoustic piano. Fortunately, these are different and much better times for the performing pianist.

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I"m not quite following why this point about using an acoustic vs an electro acoustic piano is being so scrutinized? It"s a real piano. It has a real grand action, hammers, strings.

 

It's an inferior piano in many respects but back in the 1980s was a viable option for live performances since digital pianos like we see today did not exist.

 

To me, it"s no different than a producer talking with the band about 'do you want a use the studio grand, or the old upright?' Or a classical session weighing the pros and cons of going with a vintage D, vs a new Fazioli.

 

IMO the difference between a Fazioli and Steinway D is much subtler than the difference between a CP70/80 and any acoustic grand piano. I would bet that near 100% of the participants in this forum could identify a CP70/80 after hearing three seconds of a track with one. It has a very specific sound. As I've stated many times here - if you as an artist or producer think that the CP sound adds a "vibe" or in some other way is a desirable element of the song or production, great - go for it! I'm only talking about using a CP as a substitute for a real acoustic grand solely due to logistical reasons â which, back in the 1980s, was the reason these pianos were used!

 

p.s. the only reason younger bands are not using them as much as they were used in the 70s/80s is because, they"re not being made anymore! Plus, they weigh a ton, and they need to be to tuned, so add that to your touring budget.

 

That's the only reason? How about the fact that younger, older (and middle-aged!) bands now have access to keyboards and software VIs that recreate the sound of a real acoustic grand many times better than what was available back in the 1980s? Oh yea, as you point out there's also those slight details about weighing a ton and needing to be tuned!

 

That said, if going with a real piano is a non-negotiable, than a vintage CP80 is still the only option, i.e. if you are a younger, indy band on a limited budget.

 

I'm not sure I get this. As far as I've heard, no band other than stadium-filling mega-stars tour with a real piano. There's the option to rent one at each gig â but I would guess that most younger bands don't have that in their budget. So use a DP! Put it in a shell if you want the "look." Or use a nice 88-key weighted controller connected to a laptop or nice DP module. Hide the laptop if you don't like that "modern" look (I did this at a few gigs). There are many options available for any band today. Am I misunderstanding what you meant?

 

I'll admit this thread is triggering because I owned and moved one of these beasts for years and can't understand the love for it â except to reinforce my theory that us older folks just like that nostalgic hit. It brings us back to when we were young, and that feels good. I see it in every gig I do with the band I work with (or used to work with before all this mess!). I look out at the audience and see people mostly my age, and they're there to hear "the hits" and to be brought back to their childhoods for that 90 or 110 minutes. I get it. I see that same sentiment in threads like this. Nothing wrong with it â I very much enjoy being able to provide that 90to 110 minutes of "escape." But please - I lived through the CP70 era, I owned one, and I pine for it like I pine for my old cassette deck or polyester jackets. The songs featured in this thread are good songs performed by talented musicians and the fact that a CP70/80 was the piano of choice had nothing to do with them being good songs worthy of listening to again. In my admittedly not-very-humble opinion of course! :)

 

Haha, I respect your passion. All triggers are points of artistic departure! I think you should write a piece, (using both instruments), that conveys your love of the one (acoustic) and utter distaste for the other (CP80). In writing this epic piano opus, you will be laying to rest the demons of your past that torture you so...ðâï¸

 

Great thread. Have a good one!

 

MB

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When performing live guys like Chuck Leavell and Billy Joel can play any piano they want but they play neither a CP80 or an acoustic piano. Fortunately, these are different and much better times for the performing pianist.

 

The cynic in me wonders if some of that choice has to do with the need to tune down a bit on certain songs to accommodate aging vocal cords.

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As I said previously, I prefer my CP70 to any digital piano on the planet. I own a Steinway B as well as a cp4 and have played most of the top VSTs (Ivory, pianoteq, Hammersmith, vsl steinway 274). The highest and lowest registers of the CP70 are definitely unique and not authentic but midrange of the instrument is very satisfying, particularly for jazz. I would play it over my cp4 in a heartbeat. If only it was more portable.
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As I said previously, I prefer my CP70 to any digital piano on the planet. I own a Steinway B as well as a cp4 and have played most of the top VSTs (Ivory, pianoteq, Hammersmith, vsl steinway 274). The highest and lowest registers of the CP70 are definitely unique and not authentic but midrange of the instrument is very satisfying, particularly for jazz. I would play it over my cp4 in a heartbeat. If only it was more portable.

 

Fair enough, I can definitely respect that. The instrument does sound unique, that's for sure. If portability is the only reason you don't use it more, have you looked at or considered using a plugin? There seem to be several out there, including this one from 8Dio which sounds pretty good and has some extra features that expand on the original's capabilities. I was pretty impressed by this:

 

[video:youtube]

 

There's also CP70 plugins from UVI and Waves.

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I had a feeling someone was gonna find a CP being used now. Ya got me! Well, fans of this band are gonna hate what I have to say, I think. In that concert there is nothing I heard being played on it that IMO wouldn't have sounded a lot better on a real grand. Of course getting a real grand piano to sound good on a stage with a loud funk band playing in Madison Square Garden would be quite a challenge. So why not go with something like a slab DP in a grand piano shell? IMO again, it wouldn't serve the obvious theatrical nature of their show. A CP80 gives it that retro look. Yea I said it - I think it's there for the looks!

 

They use it on some studio recordings as well (acoustic and Wurlitzer on most, though).

 

That Santana track (Zulu) is a Studio recording, too. It wouldn"t work nearly as well with an acoustic piano - the amped CP has a very different response and sound.

 

Why can"t people accept that while, yes, the CP was developed as a compact portable substitute for a 'real' piano, it is used often enough for its actual sound?

 

It"s a bit like arguing that there is no situation where a Hammond part wouldn"t be better if replaced by an actual pipe organ.

 

No, the Hammond isn"t just there for practical or aesthetic reasons â people actually like the way it sounds, BECAUSE it"s an unsuccessful imitation of the real thing and an instrument in its own right.

"The Angels of Libra are in the European vanguard of the [retro soul] movement" (Bill Buckley, Soul and Jazz and Funk)

The Drawbars | off jazz organ trio

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I completely understand. The way you feel about CP70 is the way I feel about the Rhodes.

Oh man do I empathize with that feeling! Rhodes was always a piano substitute for me and I grew to just hate it, especially having to move it. On topic, many songs I loved in the late 70"s and early 80"s had that CP-70 sound and I just loved it- very happy to emulate it in Pianoteq!
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I completely understand. The way you feel about CP70 is the way I feel about the Rhodes.

Oh man do I empathize with that feeling! Rhodes was always a piano substitute for me and I grew to just hate it, especially having to move it.

Me too. The Rhodes was always a means to an end as the only useable piano substitute at the time. I didn't hate it, but I never warmed to it. And I certainly never thought of it as a piano. More like playing vibes or something. Looking back, the Rhodes seemed to want to make everything sound like mellow jazz - coercing my hands to play major 7ths and hoping that Mel Torme would pop up out of the floor and start crooning. Not my bag.

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

-Mark Twain

 

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I love the incredible variety of legacy keyboard sounds available to me these days. In the old days, no one would likely have a Rhodes, Wurly, and a Pianet during a single non-studio gig, but we can do that, and pick the Yamaha, Steinway, and Fazioli we want too. Yay!

 

It's also interesting to note that 20/21st century keyboards often start out as stopgaps before achieving their own legitimacy. Pipe-to-Hammond, Hammond-to-Vox, pipe-to-Farfisa, Mellotron-to-Rompler, Grand-to-upright, grand-to-Wurly, Grand-to-CP, Harpsichord-to-Clavinet, and I'm sure others I missed.

-Tom Williams

{First Name} {at} AirNetworking {dot} com

PC4-7, PX-5S, AX-Edge, PC361

 

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Looking back, the Rhodes seemed to want to make everything sound like mellow jazz - coercing my hands to play major 7ths and hoping that Mel Torme would pop up out of the floor and start crooning. Not my bag.

 

I guess this wasn't your bag either - here's a little "mellow" Rhodes jazz...

 

[video:youtube]

 

Like it or not, the Rhodes sound is a major part of the musical landscape of r&b, funk and jazz for the last 50 years. It may have started as a "acoustic piano substitute", the reasons being obvious. IMO it sure didn't stay there though. Is this actually an arguable point?

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I always thought the Rhodes sound had its place but the actions sucked ... bad.

 

Then a few years ago I played a Mark I that my tech had rebuilt at his shop. That thing played like butter. It was awesome. The Rhodes pianos I played in HS and college jazz bands were apparently dogs.

"It doesn't have to be difficult to be cool" - Mitch Towne

 

"A great musician can bring tears to your eyes!!!

So can a auto Mechanic." - Stokes Hunt

 

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Yeah, Rhodes actions vary a lot. I think maybe it's that the 60s ones were good and the 70s ones sucked...? Mine was the latter. It's one of the boards I sold that I never missed.

Maybe this is the best place for a shameless plug! Our now not-so-new new video at https://youtu.be/3ZRC3b4p4EI is a 40 minute adaptation of T. S. Eliot's "Prufrock" - check it out! And hopefully I'll have something new here this year. ;-)

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Looking back, the Rhodes seemed to want to make everything sound like mellow jazz - coercing my hands to play major 7ths and hoping that Mel Torme would pop up out of the floor and start crooning. Not my bag.

 

 

Like it or not, the Rhodes sound is a major part of the musical landscape of r&b, funk and jazz for the last 50 years. It may have started as a "acoustic piano substitute", the reasons being obvious. IMO it sure didn't stay there though. Is this actually an arguable point?

It certainly wasn't a point that I was making, if that's what you're implying.

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

-Mark Twain

 

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Yea sorry, if you're referring to that last bit ("It may have started as a "acoustic piano substitute..."), it was a more general statement in response to some other posts in this thread. But you did write that the Rhodes "make everything sound like mellow jazz - coercing my hands to play major 7ths and hoping that Mel Torme would pop up out of the floor and start crooning." That's what prompted the rest of my response. My mention of the Rhode's usage in r&b, funk & jazz for the last 50 years was to give an obvious - to me, anyway â example of Rhodes being used in many contexts that were very far away from "mellow jazz suited for crooning by Mel Torme." Did Mel ever make a record with a Rhodes backing him? That would be interesting to hear â I thought he used acoustic piano exclusively. :)

 

One thing I learned in this thread - there seem to be a few Rhodes haters out there! That's pretty interesting to me, given the sheer volume of music that's been conceived and performed on the instrument in the past fifty years. Who knew?

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I've always felt the CP70 can sound great, and uniquely great, in some very limited context. On some songs, like Everyday I Write the Book, its percussive nature really shines. But it has a narrow contextual sweetspot.

 

Rhodes is capable of a much more diverse range of expression, especially when you use effects. Unlike the CP70, there isn't just one "rhodes" sound.

 

When we moved to our current house I had to give up my beautiful Petrof upright. Replaced it with a Vintage Vibe and honestly, if I have to choose, I'd stick with the VV. That's just me. The rhodes sound is in my musical DNA.

Gigging: Crumar Mojo 61, Hammond SKPro

Home: Vintage Vibe 64

 

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I've always felt the CP70 can sound great, and uniquely great, in some very limited context. On some songs, like Everyday I Write the Book, its percussive nature really shines. But it has a narrow contextual sweetspot.

 

Rhodes is capable of a much more diverse range of expression, especially when you use effects. Unlike the CP70, there isn't just one "rhodes" sound.

 

When we moved to our current house I had to give up my beautiful Petrof upright. Replaced it with a Vintage Vibe and honestly, if I have to choose, I'd stick with the VV. That's just me. The rhodes sound is in my musical DNA.

 

I'm with you, Adan. Especially after Johan's (analogaddict) post on the Orange Tree model E a while back, with his beautiful rendition of the Jeremy Lubbock tune he did. I wish I had the disposable income to grab that Rhodes â soon, I hope. What a great sounding instrument. While Rhodeses may have started as a way for a gigging musician to have any kind of a piano to bring to a gig, they're definitely instruments unto themselves now, and have been for a long while â more so than a CP, imo. But I do acknowledge that any "electric" keyboard instrument can have its sound processed to achieve some unique character and I'm sure it's been done - or is capable of being done - with a CP70. You just don't hear it as much as Rhodeses. Since I can't justify the Model E VI right now, I think a VV is definitely out of the question for me. I'm sure you're enjoying it though!

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@Reezekeys,

Yes, the Mel Torme reference was off the wall. Just for fun I was trying to animate the Rhodes as having a personality that really wanted to play jazz and would rather accompany the mellifluous tones of the "Velvet Fog" rather than what ever I was asking it to do. Not knocking the Rhodes for Jazz, R&B, Funk etc. which it excels at.

Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

-Mark Twain

 

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I figure people either used CPs back in the day because:

1. They wanted THAT sound...the hip 80s piano sound that was different than the typical acoustic piano sound.

2. They wanted to tour with "real" piano that could be more easily moved and amplified than a real piano and sounded more piano-like than the alternatives at the time.

 

The first is subjective, but every era needs it's own sound. I really dig the chorused 80s sound listed in so many of the examples above. I was encouraged when Keane hit the scene - I'd love to see more bands feature the CP in their sound.

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@Reezekeys,

Yes, the Mel Torme reference was off the wall.

 

I know, that's why I put that smiley in there. I got what you were saying. Of course the Rhodes fits the "smooth jazz" sound and sure has been used a lot in that genre. I'm not surprised it might have a somewhat negative connotation when seen in that light - if you don't care for that "smooth" sound, lol! I don't like some of that stuff myself. That's why I posted that Miles Davis video - it was about the farthest thing from a Rhodes being played in a "smooth jazz" setting that I could think of.

 

Anyway, it was fun listening to some of these old CP70 tunes even though they induced a backache!

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I think from a certain type of pro sound fabrication design it is reasonable to mix a grand with a cp to get control over compressed mid frequencies.

 

I think this sounds like the sound I liked on my quality DX7 sound bank (commercial) in the 80s:

[video:youtube]https://youtu.be/SL-dbuiqcLA

I never played a real one myself.

 

[video:youtube]

 

T

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I love to compress the crap out of the CP-80. I"d set the threshold fairly high and compression ratio at near maximum so that soft to medium notes were only lightly affected. But when you laid into it that thing cracked, almost like hitting a wood block. I"m able to get a similar affect with Acoustic Samples VTines.
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The 1980s were peak CP...

 

Jimmy Jam of Jam & Lewis/The Time/Flyte Tyme fame played the CP on this one:

 

[video:youtube]

 

Jimmy Jam also provided the CP on this Janet Jackson hit, which also featured DX7 and Ensoniq Mirage:

 

[video:youtube]

 

The Go-Go's only hit song to feature a piano used a CP of course, courtesy of lead guitarist Charlotte Caffey:

 

[video:youtube]

 

I know Genesis has already been mentioned, but can't overlook this one:

 

[video:youtube]

 

And speaking of Phil Collins, he plays drums on this, while HoJo mans the CP:

 

[video:youtube]

 

Mick MacNeil of Simple Minds featured the CP and Oberheim synths prominently in his rig during the band's mid-80s peak:

 

[video:youtube]

 

And lastly, who knew one of the most iconic CP piano lines in history was played by a guitarist? Props to The Edge for playing both electric grand and electric guitar at the same time!

 

[video:youtube]

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Sure, let's bring back padded shoulder jackets while we're at it. If everyone was doing it, it must have been good, right?

 

I like some of the CP70 sounds on Neo Soul Keys Studio 2. As they promotion material says: "you've heard the CP70, but you haven't heard it sound like this."

Gigging: Crumar Mojo 61, Hammond SKPro

Home: Vintage Vibe 64

 

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