Yamaha CP4: I'm in love

[Doerfler]

Traded my CP4 for a CP 73. Well, not exactly, but I purchased a used CP 73 for the same money I got selling my CP4.

Wanted it mainly for EP's. Big upgrade there from the CP4. Also loving the upright piano's. Smaller footprint.

Everyone doesn't play jazz piano.

[confidence]

(I'm actually upgrading from my Oberheim MC2000 which is 10lb heavier AND requires an external sound source). I'm more interested in getting a setup into as few boxes/units as possible.

 

I still have an Oberheim MC2000EX (with onboard sounds) I bought it years ago on a whim as I always heard how good they were. Only started using it now 10 years after buying it (for my wife to use to teach her grand daughter occasionally). As far as semi weighted keyboards go it's not bad at all but the onboard sounds are ...well.... But far too heavy for me to gig with.

 

The onboard sounds can be upgraded; the board has a socket that takes wavetable-style cards like the one Yamaha used to make that piggy-backs on your PC soundcard. When you buy the EX version it just means Oberheim have fitted their own board to that socket instead of leaving it blank, but you can remove their board and fit a different one easily enough. However there's not really anything available in that format that's any good by current standards.

 

I've gigged with mine and yeah, it's a stretch. I'm certainly no "whippersnapper" as you put it but I can manage it. Can't deny that losing 10lb or so with the move to CP4 will help, but that's not actually my main motivation for decomissioning the Oberheim. I'm just bored of having to hook up a MIDI controller to modules or computers and deal with two pieces of gear rather than one. I want to be able to switch one thing on and "just play". Got the Hammond for the unweighted organ side of that, and looking to the CP to do the same job on weighted piano side. Obviously with a much more appropriate action than the Oberheim, too.

 

The Oberheim's an awesome controller though, beyond anything available now that I'm aware of. If I had more space in the studio I'd probably find a use for it. Might even stick it in the loft and see what happens rather than selling it, as it probably wouldn't fetch much. Amazing to think I've had it close to 20 years as my main/only board. That's got to be some kind of record in this game.

 

I actually picked up one of their MC3000d desktop controllers - the one that has all the functions of the MC3000 but no keyboard - as it was going cheap and I thought I might want access to the functionality after changing boards. It's pretty bulky though and weighs a ton, so would probably only be worthwhile in an old-style rig to bring together loads of boards and modules.

[confidence]

Traded my CP4 for a CP 73. Well, not exactly, but I purchased a used CP 73 for the same money I got selling my CP4.

Wanted it mainly for EP's. Big upgrade there from the CP4. Also loving the upright piano's. Smaller footprint.

Everyone doesn't play jazz piano.

 

Many fewer sounds, though. That's what ultimately stopped me going CP88/73.

 

Just one example: one of the great things about the CP4, for me, is the quality of the brass sounds. Not that they're particularly fantastic (and they're obviously not as good as what's available in software), but they're much better to my ears than what you usually get on even quite expensive keyboards. I actually feel like I'll be able to use them without apologising.

 

I think the CP73/88 has what, two bras patches? I'm sure they're very good, they may even be better. But it's not enough.

[AnotherScott]

The CP covers most of the essentials, but does have a few gaps as a complete bread-and-butter board... What I posted as a request on ideascale:

 

I think there are just a few really common gigging sounds still missing... I'd like to see trumpet, sax, violin/fiddle, and banjo. (Those last two come up a lot if you play any country.) Other than that, the purist in me says that a top tier stage piano (and somthing competing to some extent with somewhat similar boards from Nord, Korg, Crumar and Viscount) should have all 4 clav pickup positions (even better if you can support using the mod lever as a mute bar, and EQ variations). Release samples on the clav sounds would be nice, too.

[Doerfler]

I think the CP73/88 has what, two bras patches? I'm sure they're very good, they may even be better. But it's not enough.

 

Fair enough, if that's what you are looking for. As for me, I'm not playing brass patches from a stage piano. YMMV

[SamuelBLupowitz]

The CP covers most of the essentials, but does have a few gaps as a complete bread-and-butter board... What I posted as a request on ideascale:

 

I think there are just a few really common gigging sounds still missing... I'd like to see trumpet, sax, violin/fiddle, and banjo. (Those last two come up a lot if you play any country.) Other than that, the purist in me says that a top tier stage piano (and somthing competing to some extent with somewhat similar boards from Nord, Korg, Crumar and Viscount) should have all 4 clav pickup positions (even better if you can support using the mod lever as a mute bar, and EQ variations). Release samples on the clav sounds would be nice, too.

I could definitely get behind the clav stuff, but even so, I don't see myself using the clav on my CP88 unless I have an unweighted controller hooked up. And different strokes for different folks -- if me covering the banjo part from, say, Take It Easy on a piano sound isn't cutting it for a bandleader, I'd politely ask them to hire a banjo player. If I needed to cover Any Non-Guitar Sound, I wouldn't have picked up a CP88. I got one because I need an 88-key board I can use to comfortably play piano onstage, and it's helpful to have electric piano sounds that don't make me cringe as well so I can fill that role. I specifically didn't look into the YC88 because even if the Yamaha organs weren't lousy, I don't care to play Hammond on a weighted piano action. A workstation or a Mainstage setup would be a better fit if I needed One Board to Rule Them All for an event band or a musical.

[AnotherScott]

I could definitely get behind the clav stuff, but even so, I don't see myself using the clav on my CP88 unless I have an unweighted controller hooked up.

And unfortunately, unlike on the YC, the CP doesn't give you a way to selectively play its sounds from an external controller (it's all or nothing). I suppose clav may at least play better from the CP73 than the CP88, though. And honestly, an unweighted action doesn't feel quite right for clav either! People do commonly use their hammer action stage pianos for their clav sounds, so it might as well be fully supported. Organ is more defiitively "wrong action" for these boards, and yet, if you get the YC, the organ design is fully implemented. It seems odd to me that clav is not fully implemented on either the CP or the YC. At least these boards' strong MIDI capabilities pretty easily facilitates adding clav sounds from an iPad or whatever.

[SamuelBLupowitz]

I could definitely get behind the clav stuff, but even so, I don't see myself using the clav on my CP88 unless I have an unweighted controller hooked up.

And unfortunately, unlike on the YC, the CP doesn't give you a way to selectively play its sounds from an external controller (it's all or nothing).

Oh, that's unfortunate. I thought I remembered going through some of that with Fortner in his GearLab review, and he had basically sussed out a way that you could have a certain patch set for a certain zone to respond to a certain MIDI channel so that you could trigger that alone from a separate board. But that was a long time ago, and it may have been hypothetical? Also that's a pretty complicated series of hoops to jump through just to not bring a second board. I think I just wanted to know if I could trigger the CP clav from one of the manuals in my Mojo in a two-board rig.

And honestly, an unweighted action doesn't feel quite right for clav either!

Very true. Knowing what the real thing feels like is a gift and a curse.

People do commonly use their hammer action stage pianos for their clav sounds, so it might as well be fully supported. Organ is more defiitively "wrong action" for these boards, and yet, if you get the YC, the organ design is fully implemented. It seems odd to me that clav is not fully implemented on either the CP or the YC. At least these boards' strong MIDI capabilities pretty easily facilitates adding clav sounds from an iPad or whatever.

Yeah, you know, I guess that while clav is a "staple" classic keyboard sound, really knowing the ins and outs of the instrument is even more niche than Hammond has become, so I think some manufacturers still don't expect anyone to really know or care about the difference? Of course, the preamp on my D6 is shot, so I haven't been able to use the pickup switches on mine for a few years until I can afford to get it rebuilt anyway... I've gotten used to settling for one tone!

[Morrissey]

Traded my CP4 for a CP 73. Well, not exactly, but I purchased a used CP 73 for the same money I got selling my CP4.

Wanted it mainly for EP's. Big upgrade there from the CP4. Also loving the upright piano's. Smaller footprint.

Everyone doesn't play jazz piano.

 

I remain jealous you snagged this CP73 deal!

[Bobadohshe]

My CP4s have served me incredibly well over the past seven years. I spend thousands of hours playing them every year. That piano sound is so versatile. It is equally at home in a jazz trio and smashing out the piano part to September. Tomorrow I will play a wedding ceremony, play a cocktail hour, then rush over and do a 4 hour Top 40 set and use 2 CP4s (and a Montage 7) for the whole shebang. Eight hours of playing these versatile and wonderful boards.

 

All that said I am considering a CP88 myself for the better EPs. 2 lbs seems like a small price to pay.

[Piktor]

I had to give up my office/studio space in March, 2020 when my wife was sent to work from home. I did not realize at the time that the move would be longterm, so I left some of my gear set up in that room. Evententually I watched my CP4 get buried under mounds of paper, binders, etc.

I am very happy for my wife that she got to retire two weeks ago, but now that I have reclaimed my space AND the CP4, I am also happy to know that my feelings about the instrument have not changed.

[Magiamusical]

Does the CP4 have an internal battery, every time I power-up I lose the users presets. If it has one what battery?

[jazzpiano88]

.

Didn't catch this was a zombie thread :):)

 

 

[DovJ]

Just saying…it’s a discontinued board, but I love my CP4! 

 

So far, I have not played another hammer action board that works anywhere near as well for classical playing. Everything else I’ve tried feels like a keyboard driving a computer. There’s something about the CP4’s “SCM” AP modeling (as opposed to the straight AWM2 sampling of the YC61 I use for Hammond sounds) that makes it feel closer to a real grand piano than anything else reasonably portable that I’ve tried.

 

About a year ago, I put a suggestion in Yamaha IdeaScale to put SCM back into new stage piano offerings. It seems that they are seriously considering this.

[allan_evett]

4 hours ago, DovJ said:

 

 

So far, I have not played another hammer action board that works anywhere near as well for classical playing. Everything else I’ve tried feels like a keyboard driving a computer. There’s something about the CP4’s “SCM” AP modeling (as opposed to the straight AWM2 sampling of the YC61 I use for Hammond sounds) that makes it feel closer to a real grand piano than anything else reasonably portable that I’ve tried.

 

About a year ago, I put a suggestion in Yamaha IdeaScale to put SCM back into new stage piano offerings. It seems that they are seriously considering this.

 

I agree that the CP4 is very strong choice for solo classical playing; I used one for about two years -  covering a wide variety of 'non-classical' material, though I did a few solo gigs with it. It also had some great sounding electro-mechanical offerings, minus the tonewheel organ samples though.  The sample-based synth tones seemed better for layering.

I eventually ended up with a Yamaha YC88. While I understand the appeal of SCM-based piano tones, the playability of the current CP and YC pianos is substantial, and subtleties within the DSP create a solid fingers-ears connection. I chose the YC due to its variety of synth tones and extensive, retro-style effects. And having Yamaha's TW organ model on board certainly doesn't hurt, especially since the release of the new, rotary sim.

[drand48a]

On 7/22/2021 at 7:32 AM, AnotherScott said:

.. should have all 4 clav pickup positions (even better if you can support using the mod lever as a mute bar, and EQ variations). Release samples on the clav sounds would be nice, too.

 

The CP4 does have release samples (a bit too loud, frankly.)  But yeah, it should have at least one alternate pickup selection.

 

On 7/22/2021 at 1:40 PM, AnotherScott said:

And unfortunately, unlike on the YC, the CP doesn't give you a way to selectively play its sounds from an external controller (it's all or nothing). I suppose clav may at least play better from the CP73 than the CP88, though.

 

I've only used mine as master controller (usually just the CP4 plus laptop or CP4 plus Electro.)  The CP4 works great with external gear for splits and layering, taking advantage of the CP4's built-in split and layer featured plus its "master keyboard" controls.  However, for zones, it has one really stupid limitation: you can set up a zone on the master keyboard (for playing an external sound) but you can't mute the internal sound for that zone.  BadMister thinks that a zone mute feature would violate the CP4's architecture, and nobody needs it anyway because you can control all that externally.  (sheesh.)

 

On 7/10/2022 at 4:22 PM, Magiamusical said:

Does the CP4 have an internal battery, every time I power-up I lose the users presets. If it has one what battery?

 

Get your CP4 fixed.  It's broken.  But if you can't or won't get it fixed, then just get one of those little stubby USB thumb drives and save your setup to USB and reload it every time you power on.  (I bet it uses flash memory, not a battery, so finding a battery to replace wouldn't help.  Just guessing, but battery backup for nonvolatile storage went the way of the dinosaur decades ago, thanks to cheap flash memory.)

 

On 7/10/2022 at 5:06 PM, JazzPiano88 said:

Didn't catch this was a zombie thread :):)

 

Once a zombie, always a zombie?

 

Anyway, I lost all my gear a few years back, and replaced the CP4 immediately (well, right after classical guitar but that was a super lucky find on CL, exactly what I was looking for and cheap too.)  When I checked out the CP88, I don't recall what, but it was missing some feature or other, I think in the controls, that made it a non-starter.

 

The CP4s biggest weakness is its organs.  Whoever set them up had no clue.  The sound engine on the CP4 could have supported a half-decent imitation, but instead it has real crap.  And by "half-decent", I mean by ROMpler standards, not modeller standards.  Baking percussion into (most of) the samples is just the start of the many failures.  Failing to include a basic 88800000 or similar sound is another.  The list goes on and on.  They were designed to sound cool on the showroom floor, not be useful for gigging musicians.

 

The standouts are the epianos and pianos, which I love.  I mostly use the CFX, but I really like the CF and S6 depending on what I'm doing.  Sadly, the S6 samples have a nasty ring for one zone in the low notes.  I actually resampled the S6, skipped that one bad sample and mapped the adjacent zones, and so if I want to play the S6 I play it as a sample set.  Which loses the string resonance and pedal-up resonance and half-damping, all features that really help add to the CP4's realism.

 

Whoever did the Rhodes setup was a true believer; there is a wide variety of different Rhodes.  IMHO they names don't always really match up to the models they're supposed to be (though probably were really sampled from) but they cover a pretty wide range from nice bell tone to honker, and for any given patch, the dynamics are great making for a single patch working well for both rhythm and solo use.  The Wurlies are great too.  And while it has only one clav, it's a pretty darn good one-size-fits-all clav (if you can get over the piano action.)  Nord's are better, but I think mostly because you can dial in exactly what you want.

 

I really like the CP4's action.  I prefer it to my 1892 Steinway B, despite the B's action being remarkably good for that vintage of piano (and well-maintained before I bought it.)  Of course, action is a matter of preference.  But I never found a stage piano with better action.  (I never got a chance to try the Kawai some folks rave about, though.)  I admit I'm not fussy about action; it's not so much "how does it feel" but rather "what can I do," and anything I can do, I can do on the CP4.  (On the B, I have problems when playing some fast runs where certain notes have to be light; it's "touchy" at in the p to ppp range and I'm more likely to get nothing.  Probably my lack of skill.)

 

I'm 65 and no weightlifter (!), but I can manage its weight.  I use the Gator soft case (I think it's the 73-key version.)  The CP4 fits very snugly, which is ideal.  This just barely fits behind the driver seat in my Prius.  Wheels wouldn't fit, and frankly I wouldn't use them anyway.  The hardest part is getting it in and out of the car, but that's manageable.  Carrying it with the strap is fine.  The diciest part is sometimes I have to pick it up and then take a big step up onto or down off of a stage, and my balance isn't great.  I suspect that in 10 years, I'll be using a lighter piano and keep the CP4 at home.  (Yeah, I tend to keep gear for a long time.)

 

Anyway, the sun has set on the CP4, but IMHO it's still a contender, if you find a used one.  Also, it seems very rugged, and the only parts likely to break off are the knobs on the 5-band EQ at the right end of the panel.  (I have a love-hate relationship with those.  Hate because I often forget to reset them when I start, and they sometimes get moved when I carry it.  Love because it's a real easy way to quickly adjust for the room.)

[D. Gauss]

Do any of you CP4 owners know how to fix velocity sensitivity issues on various keys?  i.e. certain keys (not all) play at maximum volume?   Is it an easy fix? (i don't mind the time factor of removing a million screws). 

Reason I ask is that i can buy a used CP4 from a friend that has the afore mentioned issues for really cheap.  like $100 cheap.

[Dave Number Four]

I had that exact issue. Got a contact strip replacement from a certified repair place for about $200 USD. Not sure about doing it yourself, but even if you pay for the repair it seems like a good deal, if nothing else is wrong with it.

8 minutes ago, D. Gauss said:

Do any of you CP4 owners know how to fix velocity sensitivity issues on various keys?  i.e. certain keys (not all) play at maximum volume?   Is it an easy fix? (i don't mind the time factor of removing a million screws). 

Reason I ask is that i can buy a used CP4 from a friend that has the afore mentioned issues for really cheap.  like $100 cheap.

 

[DovJ]

@D. Gauss I also had this issue. An entire octave suffered from faulty velocity sensing.

 

The authorized repair center in my country (Israel) replaced a “voice card” and contact strip. The CP4 now responds correctly.

[kayriss]

I recently picked up a used CP4. I don't have the velocity issue, but the keys bottom out harshly at the low end of the keyboard compared to the rest of the action - so much so that I can feel a vibration through my hands when the keys hit the base (this occurs from the second F# from the left, all the way down to A).

 

My best guess is the cushioning has worn/come away. I can see various replacement felt strips available at Syntaur, and I plan to have it inspected soon to see what can be done. Has anyone experienced this before?