Yamaha Clavs octave

[Aidan]

Ok, simple and brief question - why, on both the CP4 and Motif (and, I assume, Montage) are all the Clav voices programmed by default an octave lower than APs, EPs etc? I've never played the real thing, so is Middle C on C5 there too?

[burningbusch]

Assuming middle C = C4, the clavinet goes from F2 - E7. When trying to fit this into a 61 note keyboard you have to make a decision, which end do you cut off. The lower notes, F-2 through B2, are far more important when playing the clav than the highest three notes. In fact expanding the range down to C2 is OK. It still can sound good and is often helpful in certain keys.

 

Busch.

[Doerfler]

I had never until you asked this question, Aidan, played the Clavinet on my C4. I went into my "museum" and verified that the octaves correspond on my Wurlitzer 200 and my Hohner E7. Then I went to by basement studio and turned on my CP4 and sure enough the Clavinet is one octave lower than the AP's/EP's. As to why, you can probably get an answer out of Bad Mister, I have no idea. Just confirming your suspicions to be correct.

[mate stubb]

The lower notes, F-2 through B2, are far more important when playing the clav than the highest three notes. In fact expanding the range down to C2 is OK. It still can sound good and is often helpful in certain keys.

 

Busch.

 

This.

[AnotherScott]

Assuming middle C = C4, the clavinet goes from F2 - E7. When trying to fit this into a 61 note keyboard you have to make a decision, which end do you cut off.

Makes sense. But as confirmed in another post, they also do this on the 88-key boards. This reminds me of a related pet peeve I have... On the 61-key MOX, the instant "split" button defaults to bass on bottom, with a reasonable split point. On the 88, the split point and octave settings are exactly the same as on the 61, but it no longer makes sense on the 88, as you end up with a whole bunch of "extra" bass keys far below any useful range, and a corresponding unnecessarily small right hand area. Now, I understand they would not want to go through the expense of manufacturing different ROMS for differently sized but otherwise identical boards, but the split point and octave settings are user-programmable, they are not fixed in ROM. So the identical ROM still works, it would just need a differently saved setting in the rewriteable part. It is irritating for a new user to have to immediatly learn (on typical Yamaha somewhat convoluted interfaces) how to alter and save split points and octave transpositions right off the bat for the function to work in the most sensible way.

 

Nords and Kurzweils have something in their design that allow their boards to "know" which action they are connected to and change some settings accordingly, even though the ROMs in the units are presumably identical. I never checked about whether they alter any default split settings, but I did notice other differences, like the Kurzweil picks a different default velocity curve. I don't know whether Yamaha alters anything at all between, for example, the MOX6 and MOX8. They may have just not designed in the ability for the board to "know" what size keyboard it is attached to.

[Delaware Dave]

".. Kurzweils have something in their design that allow their boards to "know" which action they are connected to and change some settings accordingly, even though the ROMs in the units are presumably identical..

I'm guessing that Mr. Weiser had something to do with the "know" part.

[burningbusch]

Scott, you're right and afterwards I thought about it a little and remembered Aidan uses the CP-4 and that my response didn't make as much sense to him. But, I own a Kronos 73 and would still rather have the octave shift on the clav as I can go lower than the E and I don't cut off any of the high notes. On an 88, yes you can comfortably fit everything in, but you'll end up playing more in the lower half of the keyboard typically. I think the octave shift is reasonable regardless of keyboard size. And yes, I didn't explain that I assumed Yamaha just took existing clavs from the Motif or elsewhere and added them to them CP-4.

 

I don't know the CP-4, but can't one just transpose and save to a preset?

 

Busch.