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Quick note: Version 1.31 of the CP OS fixed a worrisome problem in 1.30: If local control was turned off in the MIDI settings, the instrument might not power on.

 

Advanced Mode

 

Advanced Mode in the CP73 and CP88 lets you put any Voice (instrument sound) in any section. That includes being able to double up, or triple up, on sounds from the same section. One advantage of this is being able to put a different section"s effects on a Voice. Another example: You could octave-shift three layers worth of the CP"s best piano Voices for a monster montuno sound.

 

Even in Advanced Mode, the CP remains a three-part multi-timbral instrument, so you won"t be accessing the industry-standard 16 parts via a DAW or anything else.

 

Here"s how it works. Press the Settings button, go to a menu called 'Advanced Mode SW' and press the data dial in for Enter. Each section â Piano, E. Piano, and Sub â can be toggled into Advanced Mode independently. If a section"s switch is on, its LED display (as well as the LEDs for its category knob) will go out, indicating that the usual rules for what lives in that section no longer apply.

 

1_AdvMode.png

 

You select Voices for a section with its rocker switch, the only feedback being that the Voice name appears next to its section in the main LCD display. Do not use the data dial, as this will change the entire Live Set. Since Live Sets include virtually all the settings in the CP, this will likely take you out of Advanced Mode as well, unless it"s a Set you"ve saved where Advanced Mode is active for one or more sections.

 

I have to admit that with the large number of Voices now in the CP as of recent OS updates, it"s a bit tedious that an up/down rocker switch is the only way to get at them in Advanced Mode. How I"d like to see it work is that you highlight a section in the main display, then use the Live Set buttons as a numeric keypad for random access to all the Voices. Then again, the CP doesn"t have cursor buttons so it"s not immediately clear how Yamaha could implement this. Better still, I"d like to see a software editor (paging John Melas) in which you could set up Live Sets with or without Advanced Mode lickety-split â or lickety-layer (groan).

 

Still, the benefits of being able to use any section"s effects on any Voice are certainly worth the trouble. One occasion this proved useful was recently, when my girlfriend (a classically trained soprano and conductor who"s been wanting to get a little bit rock "n" roll) and I were playing around with a duo arrangement of 'Lowdown' by Boz Scaggs for some local cover sets we plan to perform this summer. If you listen to the keyboard alternating between Em9 and A13 chords on the original recording, it sure as heck sounds like the Rhodes is running through a Leslie speaker at fast speed. Well, the CP"s E. Piano section doesn"t have a rotary effect, but the Sub section does. With the '78Rd' Voice, the Sub section"s rotary effect got closer to what I hear on the record than did turning up the rate on the choruses or phasers in the E. Piano section.

 

As we"ve seen from previous posts in this review, the CP is plenty flexible even if you don"t know Advanced Mode is there. With it, though, you have an extra layer of customizability, and to see what it can do without even having to roll your own, plenty of Live Sets that take advantage of Advanced Mode are available at Soundmondo, Yamaha"s online patch sharing community. The CP section is here.

 

Next

We'll get into the nuts and bolts of Live Sets.

 

Stephen Fortner

Principal, Fortner Media

Former Editor in Chief, Keyboard Magazine

Digital Piano Consultant, Piano Buyer Magazine

 

Industry affiliations: Antares, Arturia, Giles Communications, MS Media, Polyverse

 

 

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LIVE SETS

 

Live Sets in the CP73 and CP88 are what any number of other stage pianos or synth workstations would label performances, combis, multis, or setups. That is, they"re multi-timbral arrangements of sounds saved in memory along with all supporting settings such as key zones, controller entry values, effects, and more. In fact, the Yamaha Motif family used the term performance, and the Montage and MODX synths because are essentially in performance mode all the time.

 

That"s the case on the CP as well, albeit in a simpler fashion given that internally, the instrument has just three instrument parts. Live Sets also save all MIDI settings that relate to the external world, but we"ll get into that in a separate post about the CP"s capabilities as a MIDI master controller.

 

In terms of the CP"s own sounds, a Live Set can consist of one, two, or three Voices, with each of them active in either the left or right keyboard zones (or both) depending on the setting of the toggle button in its section. In Advanced Mode (see my most recent previous post), each Voice can be from any section. Either or both halves of the little lozenge graphic in the display will light up to let you know where it"s Voice is split-wise.

 

https://drive.google.com/uc?export=view&id=1QZn6aR0dvoMoWkPUfW2MueKvHKpeiw8J

 

Live Sets are organized into pages of eight, with 20 pages available in total. Thirteen of these populated by factory presets; the remaining seven are empty and available for saving your own Sets without overwriting anything. You access pages with the +/- buttons and Live sets with the numeric 1-8 buttons, or you can scroll through every Live Set serially using the data dial.

 

In the Settings > Receive Switch menu, you can select which of the CP"s three instrument sections are affected by the expression, sustain, sostenuto, and soft pedals (independently for each section and each pedal). These settings are of course saved as part of the Live Set, which is important â depending on the musical application, you may want to sustain a pad while soloing a sustain-less electric piano over it. You may want to swell that pad up underneath a piano part that"s unaffected by the expression pedal. And so on.

 

There"s one thing I find a particular pain about Live Sets, which I"ve mentioned before: The CP"s procedure for naming them. However, firmware updates since I"ve had the CP have made this less of a pain, which I"ll describe in a moment.

 

https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/qw7LU6veTB2BFGv8745l1idjlh3dxIzmlRVZEdkSXQU3C9OEm4ap8Cr9oqF2WYMGv5oUYrG3C7b_MAI_RoT4AkkySuNGwt9iHelv3ehkcamIPprStD_j1EAcxZ8-5LgacXcbN28GXLGrGSRnbjc8VK-2Rsi5uIxHsTOLlBLF1kIJrkL0rn6Icl-vM-2BA7MtxVeFpR2w38JguC82GgWL4bQn1BrReI2myYZoEpUKSlh-mUdnAD0cFLRAht705-WAkGXJBZXdSdQ--vBma_TLgBkZpfYD3z44GvYA_efJCjXR2mfixbFlKz_ge8jk9pAppzE6VuqsayYsyFZfR3MW8s4IOjCVPItWMcxtvbdHo5ez567l8-IsZcEeWURH5RN6ZW6CZTg9eWrfot1obmb5z4XsKeoUwT3U-dmpWVyWEowWTLQ_fU5V3JRp2e8JIdibdmEjruYyabxtnVacgFyf1yQPosaCD5Uh8zzoScPf6DIy2qsaOsaq6OUFBlAN4h3KGzEsipoO8McvIllj9pJh9vP3ofvWFNADSPI7WpJYW4CbFkrA0S3rMI1ZRKmcler_viEkkHSuS124wEKzQvhyBZAYLoNgrS37PEsZAeFLdBrrfNLTtHz9Zu_20w7b2ThMvXDnwxga7Ml9DaNNGNqGKk76_y6M8IFxWxOadvP0-rtQ_cQK9S4ZCJ-qfUy3UlAZcb93ASMQMAREtPXh8ctaDWYY1WVK3nNNQyJa59q8426Arfs=w800-h732-no

 

In the image above (sorry but either Google Photos or UBB doesn't want to let me embed), I"ve selected Name from the Settings menu. The data dial scrolls through alpha-numeric characters for a given character place in the name, and you need the Live Set selection buttons for the rest. Buttons 1 and 2 cursor back and forth along the Live Set name. Button 3 inserts the selected character before the highlighted character space. Button 5 changes the current character to the selected one. Since you"re selecting characters with the data dial, the intuitive thing to do when you get to the character you want is to press the dial (Enter) to make it part of the name. Nope â you want to use button 3 or 5 for that. Back in OS version 1.0, making this mistake would bounce you out to the home screen and lose your changes. As of 1.31 (or perhaps before, I"m not sure) the situation has improved: You now get a prompt to 'store' or 'do not store now,' with the latter highlighted by default. Pressing Enter still returns you to the home screen, though â you want the Exit button to get back to the naming screen.

 

At any rate, scrolling through characters on a little LCD is no part of what Prince meant by partying like it"s 1999, which again speaks to the need for a CP editor. I"ll say the same for swapping and moving live sets around from one page/number location to another â though it"s better that the CP includes this ability than not.

 

What I also haven"t found a way to do â and perhaps I"m missing something obvious â is more complex zoning setups on the three internal sections. Let"s say I want to split the keyboard three ways or have Voices overlap within a limited range of keys. I know you can do this with external zones with the CP in Master Keyboard mode (which we"ll tackle in the next post), but again, I haven"t yet figured out the correspondence between the CP"s three instrument sections and how it communicates MIDI to them internally. I"ll keep at it.

 

Next

 

We"ll look at the CP"s abilities as a MIDI controller for external sound sources.

 

  • Thanks 1

Stephen Fortner

Principal, Fortner Media

Former Editor in Chief, Keyboard Magazine

Digital Piano Consultant, Piano Buyer Magazine

 

Industry affiliations: Antares, Arturia, Giles Communications, MS Media, Polyverse

 

 

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I have to say, this format is *amazing* for digging into new gear. Mr. Fortner is a talent when it comes to 'splaining things.

 

Although I'm not in the market for the CP (using a Nord Stage 3 Compact as my main board these days), it's interesting to see how Yamaha is addressing this market. While I appreciate their limited library of great curated sounds, the Nord approach lets me load almost anything (including sample shots from popular songs) which turns out to be a very useful thing if you play across several bands.

 

I'm a big fan of this review format. I really hope it continues.

Want to make your band better?  Check out "A Guide To Starting (Or Improving!) Your Own Local Band"

 

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Thanks for the kind words, cphollis! More to come on this GearLab piece, and more gear threads coming very soon!

Stephen Fortner

Principal, Fortner Media

Former Editor in Chief, Keyboard Magazine

Digital Piano Consultant, Piano Buyer Magazine

 

Industry affiliations: Antares, Arturia, Giles Communications, MS Media, Polyverse

 

 

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MIDI CONTROLLER FUNCTIONS

 

The CP73/CP88 can function as a four-zone master MIDI controller when its Master Keyboard mode is engaged. This is accessed by pressing the Settings button. Then, selecting the Master Keyboard item gives you a choice of three submenus:

- Mode SW: Turns Master Keyboard mode on or off.

- Advanced Zone SW: Decides, per zone, whether you have access to a basic or far more extended set of MIDI settings.

- Zone Settings: Per zone, lets you scroll through and adjust these MIDI settings.

 

The behavior of the internal sound engine and keyboard splits/layers is completely independent of whatever you"re doing with external zones. Presumably this is because the CP puts internal and external control on different ports. Activating splits on the CP didn"t affect the MIDI channel that was showing up in a simple monitor app I was running.

 

The upside of this is that you can have the full benefit of splitting and layering the CP"s internal sounds per the control panel, then work with four additional zones controlling a combination hardware and/or software sound sources connected via the USB-B or traditional 5-pin MIDI ports. The downside is that there doesn"t seem to be any way to address the internal Voices and sections with more advanced MIDI zoning than what the panel offers. Let"s say you wanted a three-way split, something pretty common at gigs where you"re covering multiple keyboard parts with minimal equipment. As far as I can tell, the CP doesn"t offer a way to make this happen. It"s odd and I feel like I must be missing something, because you can do this with external zones to your heart"s content.

 

Basic vs. Advanced Zone Modes

 

First things first: All of what I"m about to go over is saved at the Live Set level, so you can move between internal-Voices-only and hybrid setups with ease. The Advanced Zone switch is different from the Advanced Mode switch. As I wrote in a previous post, the latter lets you put any internal Voice in any section. The former enables a boatload more MIDI parameters per external zone.

 

Without the Advanced Zone SW, each zone has on/off, MIDI transmit channel, octave-shift, transpose, and low and high note limits.

 

Enable the parameter, and each zone can now transmit program changes, bank MSB and LSB, and MIDI volume (sent by the CP"s master volume knob) and panning. Then, you get a bunch of toggles for whether a given zone transmits controller messages. These cover note-on/off, volume, pan, program change, bank select, pitch-bend, modulation, and all four pedals (sustain, switch, and two continuous) independently.

 

Note that you can also decide whether internal Voice sections are affected by the 'wheels' (those little silver levers) and pedals, but this happens in a different place: Settings > Controllers. In this submenu, you also can assign what CC message the continuous pedals send, but the switch pedal assignment is global to the instrument and accessed via the MENU button. (In general, MENU button stuff is global while SETTINGS button parameters are saved with Live Sets.)

 

In Use

 

I tested the CP"s abilities as a MIDI boss with a number of virtual instrument setups in Gig Performer, MainStage, and Logic Pro. There"s not a lot to comment on here, because everything worked as expected and reliably. Match transmit channels to receive channels and you"re off to the races. Of course, any sort of host software is smart enough that you could handle all the zoning and controller reception on the receiving end and just use the CP as a nice slab of keys. The advantage of making the CP the 'brain,' though, is that you can make everything Live Set-centric and change your whole setup with the CP"s hardware buttons.

 

A cool advantage of controlling USB-connected instruments is that the CP also streams audio over USB. With one connection to my iPad and a multi-timbral iOS synth such as Korg Gadget, I can have one hell of a lot of sounds underneath my fingers and all coming out the CP"s tidy XLR outputs. I still wish the USB-B port would charge the darned iPad, though.

 

One unexpectedly cool bonus was that the CP can be set up so that when a Voice section is turned off, its knobs transmit MIDI. If whatever soft synth you"re controlling has a MIDI Learn function (and most things these days do), filter sweeps and envelope tweaks are easy to achieve. No, it"s not having a bank of assignable knobs and faders as you would on a dedicated MIDI controller or large synth workstation, but it"s something.

 

Stephen Fortner

Principal, Fortner Media

Former Editor in Chief, Keyboard Magazine

Digital Piano Consultant, Piano Buyer Magazine

 

Industry affiliations: Antares, Arturia, Giles Communications, MS Media, Polyverse

 

 

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CONCLUSIONS

 

A term I like to use is 'bottom keyboard.' Meaning, the instrument (often weighted and larger than 61 keys) that occupies the bottom tier on your keyboard stand and provides a ton of your go-to sounds including piano and electric piano. Depending on your gigs, the bottom keyboard can also be the only keyboard. The CP does one hell of a job being either. The sounds are premium if a bit limited in scope, but Yamaha"s focus with the CP seems to be 'Do it well or don"t do it at all,' and again, you can view this as curation that actually makes your musical decisions easier.

 

The ¼-inch audio inputs and USB audio streaming make the CP particularly useful as the hub of a multi-keyboard or hardware-software hybrid rig. As I get older and crankier, I find that any piece of gear and associated setup time I can shave off my live gig setup makes a difference. With the CP, this includes a compact mixer and/or stereo direct box â two more things I don"t have to hook up or figure out where to put if I"m crammed into a corner space the size of a bistro two-top.

 

The CP73 in particular hits the sweet spot for me in terms of portability, size, and price ($1,999), even to the point of stealing a little thunder from its upmarket sibling. If you"re piano-centric enough that the upgraded action and full 88-note range are worth the extra $500 and about 15 pounds, you know who you are.

 

With this, I"d like to bring my official portion of the MPN GearLab discussion of the Yamaha CP73 and CP88 to a close. Of course, this thread will remain open for questions and I will try to answer them as quickly as possible. If I don"t know something, I"ll endeavor to get you answers from the horse"s mouth at Yamaha.

 

In short, the CP73 and CP88 are damned great stage pianos that pack just the right sounds and supporting features into the right form factor at what I think is a more-than-fair price. If that"s what you"re looking for, you"d do yourself a disservice not to get some hands-on time with one or the other before pulling the trigger on buying anything.

 

Stephen Fortner

Principal, Fortner Media

Former Editor in Chief, Keyboard Magazine

Digital Piano Consultant, Piano Buyer Magazine

 

Industry affiliations: Antares, Arturia, Giles Communications, MS Media, Polyverse

 

 

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Stephen-

 

If you're in communication with Yamaha, maybe you could get their answers on some things. I'd like to hear your guesses as well, if they're not forthcoming:

 

1. What is the status of the CP88/73 with MIDI 2.0? They've been heavily involved with MIDI 2.0 through the AMEI and I'd like to know whether their current instruments were designed to incorporate it, or will need to be updated in some way to take advantage of it.

2. Does Yamaha intend to make an editor program of some sort (an iOS Universal app preferably) to allow you to configure lives sets easily, name things quickly, etc? If not now, will they if enough folks request it?

3. Any chance they can develop a sound library and sound librarian similar to what Nord does? If users could contribute to the available sounds, and if sounds could be moved on/off the board at will, it would relieve the problem that there are still so many sounds that the CP's just don't offer.

 

tfort, just a postscript to say I asked Blake Angelos of Yamaha these questions and he promised to hop on this thread and answer as soon as he"s able. I"ve been over there many times and know how busy they are, so give him some time. About question 3, Yamaha does have this online sound-sharing community called Soundmondo, with sections for various instruments (it launched at the same time as the Reface synths), and the CP is in there. But I think that"s for sharing patches (Live Sets) only, i.e. stuff you can program with existing sounds in the instrument. Now, that's plenty, but it's not the same thing as, say, the Nord Piano Library, where you can download sounds with new wave content. In terms of that, I"ll bet Yamaha prefers to keep it under tighter control and release new sounds with OS updates. They've already done a pretty good job of that, too. Upside: Since the sounds are all in ROM, there's no boot-up time, however many updates Yamaha makes. When I turn on the power switch, I can't even count to three before the CP is ready to play.

 

Hopefully we'll hear more from the Yamaha mothership soon re your questions.

 

Stephen-

 

Just a note that I'm still checking in hoping to see Blake answer my earlier questions. If he could either answer them himself or pass his answers on to you to post that would be much appreciated.

 

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tfort, I'll ping Blake again. An editor-librarian is the biggest thing on my wish list for the CP. As for MIDI 2.0, great question as well. I would imagine there are some plans for compatibility, though. For hardware reasons it obviously won't implement every feature (e.g. MPE), but I'd love to see things like Property Exchange and profiling.

Stephen Fortner

Principal, Fortner Media

Former Editor in Chief, Keyboard Magazine

Digital Piano Consultant, Piano Buyer Magazine

 

Industry affiliations: Antares, Arturia, Giles Communications, MS Media, Polyverse

 

 

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  • 2 months later...
A belated thanks for this amazing in-depth review of the CP88/73. Just received my YC61 last week and have been in a deep dive figuring it out. I was looking for a place to cross check how I was setting it up and with no in-depth reviews on the YC yet I decided to look for CP reviews because the architecture is virtually identical....other than the organ section of course. The vast majority of the above is applicable to the YC as well. Looking forward to your getting your hands on a YC...will be very curious to see how you feel about the organ section. Compared to Nord at least, Yamaha has taken quite a different approach to creating the basic sounds of the underlying organ and the Leslie sims.
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  • 2 months later...

I really appreciated this review format. Nicely done. I'm on the cusp of picking up a master controller for which an 88-key hammer action is an absolute must. The CP88 is pretty much at the top of my current list because, while I really like the Kurzweil Forte I have at another location, it's now 6+ years old and seems due for a replacement. If a new Kurzweil flagship comes out, or the Montage gets a successor with the YC organs and a more responsive touchscreen interface then I can't imagine it would be hard to find someone who would like a discounted CP88 to make the switch. All good. I also expect I'd love the action of the CP88 based on everything I've read and playing related Yamaha actions, so no concerns there.

 

My sole concern is whether I'd like it enough as a source of piano while composing, something I can just flip on and play. I tend to find Yamaha acoustic pianos too bright for my taste, and as a stage piano they seem to be leaning heavily into that same style here. I tried and passed on a Yamaha C7 when I was searching for the perfect piano, and wound up buying a Shigeru Kawai SK7 that I absolutely adore. So questions I have for those who own a CP73/88:

 

Is the Bösendorfer Imperial mellow enough in this instrument to suit my taste?

 

Is there enough tone control to tame the other pianos? The manual seems to oddly suggest that the tone knob doesn't shift from bright to dark, but rather from mid-heavy to mid-light. That seems like an odd choice.

 

How good are the piano samples for long, exposed sustains? Is there audible looping? Nothing I've been able to find addresses the question of how large the sample set is, or how much storage there is for additional instruments.

 

Any thoughts would be appreciated. I won't be jumping on a purchase for another month or so when the desk is ready, but it's definitely time to establish a clear viewpoint (the height of the desk drawer is what makes the Kawai MP11SE or MP7SE a non-starter, and also rules out a current Montage, by the way.)

Acoustic: Shigeru Kawai SK-7 ~ Breedlove C2/R

MIDI: Kurzweil Forte ~ Sequential Prophet X ~ Yamaha CP88 ~ Expressive E Osmose

Electric: Schecter Solo Custom Exotic ~ Chapman MLB1 Signature Bass

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  • 2 months later...

Very late to the party, but can anyone confirm that the sustain pedal can be programmed to sustain both sides of a split? Or if it"s uneditable, what is the default?

 

Thanks!

____________________________________
Rod

Here for the gear.

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Stephen, I'm impressed with your attention to detail. Well done.

 

I was drawn to the piano like it was a black hole when I was a kid. Your review puts me into a fever dream. If you had offered me any of these instruments back then, you would have needed a broom to get me off the ceiling. Its surreal to look between my early hit-or-miss starter instruments, my ample Logic/plug-in resources and the YC61/CP Yamahas. If I'd had a YC61, I wouldn't have discovered girls for 3 more years.

 "I want to be an intellectual, but I don't have the brainpower.
  The absent-mindedness, I've got that licked."
        ~ John Cleese

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Lady Gaia I'm sorry I somehow missed your post some time ago. I watch these threads for questions all the time. Anyway, I would say the short answer to your concerns is yes. The Bösedorfer multisample is round, woody, and has a nice singing sustain to it. The onboard EQ is fairly basic but will do what you need if you'd like to mellow the Bosie out even more. You might be surprised by the Yamaha CFX sample in the CP series, too. The CFX can go bright, but it doesn't go there as eagerly as the famous (some would say notorious) C7.

 

clawback Good question, and I powered it up and checked. This is indeed editable. You can select whether the sustain pedal affects each of the three sections (Piano, E. Piano, and Sub) individually. You get to it via Settings button > Controllers > Receive SW > Sustain, at which point you'll see a menu where you can turn the sustain pedal receive on and off for each of those three sound sections. That behavior will then apply when you create a split or layer.

 

David Emm We're pretty spoiled these days, aren't we? Heck, just the stuff that comes with Logic for $200 is enough to make a more than decent record or even a film score. I'm an '80s teen, and when I added a DX7 to my first synth (Korg Poly-800), then later augmented that with a borrowed Ensoniq ESQ-1 (the old version), I felt like I was Rick Wakeman. I still noticed the girls at our gigs, but of course, they noticed the drummer and guitar player.

Stephen Fortner

Principal, Fortner Media

Former Editor in Chief, Keyboard Magazine

Digital Piano Consultant, Piano Buyer Magazine

 

Industry affiliations: Antares, Arturia, Giles Communications, MS Media, Polyverse

 

 

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  • 3 months later...
Joining late but hopefully you are still watching this thread. I just picked up a CP88 and noticed that one of the sliver switches (the one that turns the Electric Piano section on/off) has a very different "feel" than the others. It works, but it has a 'click' sound the others don't have and feels 'looser' as well. Is this just a breaking it in sort of thing or do I have a defective switch? I have also noticed that after a week of playing, the keyboard has settled in a bit from new and is less 'stiff' - actually makes it a bit easier to play - but is making me wonder if the switch is also just breaking in.

_____________________________

For the love of music

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Hi, I am still watching, and my CP73 doesn't behave like that. All the switches are consistent. I think you may have an oddball part. If you just bought it I"m pretty sure any retailer would swap it out.

Stephen Fortner

Principal, Fortner Media

Former Editor in Chief, Keyboard Magazine

Digital Piano Consultant, Piano Buyer Magazine

 

Industry affiliations: Antares, Arturia, Giles Communications, MS Media, Polyverse

 

 

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  • 2 months later...
which again speaks to the need for a CP editor. I"ll say the same for swapping and moving live sets around from one page/number location to another â though it"s better that the CP includes this ability than not.

An editor-librarian is the biggest thing on my wish list for the CP.

I'm pretty sure you can move Live Sets around via smartphone using the Soundmondo app. Have you looked at that?

 

As long as I'm here...

The CP73 {is designed to} be non-fatiguing on electric keys where the original instruments (such as Rhodes, Wurly, and Clavinet) in fact have lighter actions than any acoustic piano.

Clavinet, yes, lighter than any acoustic. But, while it's been many years since I've played one, my recollection is that the Wurli action is in the ballpark of a lighter feeling acoustic, and some Rhodes actually feel heavier than some acoustics.

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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  • 1 year later...
On 2/19/2020 at 4:13 PM, Stephen Fortner said:

Better still, I"d like to see a software editor (paging John Melas)

 

Done!

  • Like 1

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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  • 1 month later...

Hi

Wonder if you can help me please. 

I bought a Yamaha  CP73 and two HS5 speakers recently . I am a piano beginner and play the CP73 in my attic office/studio.

The sound I get when playing CFX piano through headphones is soft, warm and mellow compared to the hard edgy sound I get through the speakers. Is there any recommended setting combination on the CP 73 and speakers to soften the sound through the speakers?

I guess the EQ would influence this but what about the trim and room control on the speakers.  

I would really appreciate your advice

Thanks

Steve

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  • 1 year later...

Hey Stephen, 

 

My Yamaha CP73 has been a pretty great board until now. I'm having a repeated issue where the sustain pedal works until I change patches. The only way to get the sustain back is to unplug it from behind and plug it in again. Then suddenly all is fine. 

 

I have tried making sure that all sustain settings are set to ON, a full factory reset and different sustain pedals but the problem persists. There is no visible crack or issue with the port where the sustain plugs in either. I'm in a bit of a panic to resolve this as I have a tour that begins next week.

 

Thanks for any help,

 

Dan

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On 9/5/2023 at 10:47 AM, Danimalsnyder said:

Hey Stephen, 

 

My Yamaha CP73 has been a pretty great board until now. I'm having a repeated issue where the sustain pedal works until I change patches. The only way to get the sustain back is to unplug it from behind and plug it in again. Then suddenly all is fine. 

 

I have tried making sure that all sustain settings are set to ON, a full factory reset and different sustain pedals but the problem persists. There is no visible crack or issue with the port where the sustain plugs in either. I'm in a bit of a panic to resolve this as I have a tour that begins next week.

 

Thanks for any help,

 

Dan


Hi, Dan - 

 

Welcome to MPN!

 

What an odd problem.  The full factory reset/attempt to use another pedal not helping makes it even odder. 🤔

This sounds like a question for Yamaha’s tech support folks.  If anyone’s seen it before/knows the remedy, it’d probably be them.  I’m guessing it might be hard to diagnose without being able to duplicate it.

 

dB

:snax:

 

:keys:==> David Bryce Music • Funky Young Monks <==:rawk:

 

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  • 6 months later...

Excuse the late post but I just wanted to thank Stephen for the excellent review and tutorials.

 

I was in the market for a "bottom board" for live performances. I'm pretty much a Luddite and a Midiiot, so the lack of menu diving in the CP73 suited me well.

 

Thanks again and keep up the good work. We're out here listening.

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Yamaha CP73; 145 gig Leslie; Nord Electro 61; Oberheim OB3^2; Wurlitzer 200A; Ampeg Gemini I amp; Speakeasy Leslie preamp; QSC K-10

 

 

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Hi! I an thinking about getting CP73 for a long time. I have a question but I think the answer will be "no" 🙂 CPs dont have audio in. I plan to use external synth that can do audio over usb. Do You think it is possible to feed Yamahas audio interface with sound from module via USB?

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The CP73/88 have stereo audio line in and USB audio so you can simply connect your iPad with a single USB cable.

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Korg Grandstage 73, Keystage 61, Mac Mini M1, Logic Pro X (Pigments, Korg Legacy Collection, Wavestate LE, Sylenth), iPad Pro 12.9 M2 (6th gen), iPad 9th gen, Scarlett 2i2, Presonus Eris E3.5

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Ipad, yes, but from my experience with the Modx that is due to being able to set the Modx as the audio interface in the audio app(s) I used.  In other words, unlike sending analog audio to a mixer or speaker where the sending unit doesn't care or know what is connected, I had to set the Modx as the destination or it wouldn't have sent anything.

I'm not sure if a synth that can send audio over usb would be able to do so with another keyboard, unless it had a way to do the same...never thought about it though (which synths can send audio over usb?)  

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On 3/13/2024 at 3:48 PM, Stokely said:

 (which synths can send audio over usb?)  

My trusty Typhon can:

 

"Audio over USB
-Typhon gets recognised as Audio/USB device. This feature enables Typhon to act as an audio input and be recorded from a computer directly without the use of a sound card. This feature got implemented to support the previous described feature so as the user doesn’t have to connect the physical audio out to his sound card, and so on create a ground loop, which cause a constant buzzing at Typhon’s audio."

 

https://www.dreadbox-fx.com/typhon/

 

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