Replace damaged Yamaha CP4 with Crumar 7?

[cedar]

I've been very happy with my Yamaha CP4 for years, but it's now at the shop and I'm waiting to see if it can be repaired after being in a recent flood in my house.

 

If it's not an expensive repair, I'll just keep it. But if it needs to be replaced, I'm wondering if the Crumar 7 would do the trick for me.

 

I really only have used the Yamaha for its acoustic and electric piano sounds. Although one never knows about future possibilities, I'm confident that my needs will remain the same.

 

So here are my questions:

 

How are the acoustic piano sounds on the 7?

How is the action on the 7? I think I heard it described at "semi-weighted," but I'm not sure what that means or how it compares to the CP4.

 

Bottom line for me: if the experience of playing acoustic piano on the 7 is comparable to CP4, then it's a real option; but I won't give the 7 a second thought if the sound/action for acoustic piano purposes is not as good as CP4.

[ImproKeys]

I only checked the Seven once in a local store. For Rhodes the playability is great. For acoustic piano it is not my choice. When I cant play a real piano, I am used to Nord Stage 2 HP or Yamaha S90 ES.

[Delaware Dave]

I believe that the "7" has two pianos, both a sampled piano and a modeled piano. They are NOT of the same quality as the CP4 for sure. On the bright side, Guido is working on new pianos which I'm sure he will import into the Seven, not sure when that will be and you should never bank on promises. Guido did recently write and tell me this: "..we're planning to add new Piano instruments". Take that for whatever it is worth; they might not even be acoustic piano however he is showing on his site a Steinway in which he is recording so you'd have to read between the lines as to what that means.

 

https://www.facebook.com/instruments.crumar/

[stoken6]

The two are very different animals. The CP4 has strong APs, while the Crumar is an EP specialist. The Crumar has a TP/100 action, which was apparently chosen for its similarity to a Rhodes action, but I (and others on this forum) dislike it for AP.

 

If you want a good acoustic piano experience, I would start with the Yamaha CP88, and take in the usual Roland, Korg, Kawai, Nord, suspects.

 

Cheers, Mike.

[AnotherScott]

How is the action on the 7? I think I heard it described at "semi-weighted," but I'm not sure what that means or how it compares to the CP4.

I believe it uses a Fatar TP100 action, which is a "fully weighted" (hammer) action, as is the CP4, but despite that, it is not as piano-like as the CP4. I agree with Mike that you'd probably find the Yamaha CP88 to be a more satisfying choice from an action and acoustic piano perspective, while still having strong EPs. There's a bunch of comparison between the CP88 and CP4 in the thread at https://forums.musicplayer.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/2969072/yamaha-cp88-and-73-deserve-their-own-thread , particularly in the posts from Aug 12, 2021 forward.

[AnotherScott]

For some reason if that doesn't work out, I guess all that's left is to begrudgingly pay the extra for the organ that I'll never use and go with the YC88.

I wonder if all YC88s feel similarly different to all CP88s, or if there might be some unit-to-unit variation, perhaps from different production runs of the actions in those boards, such that you might find a given YC88 that feels like the CP88 you played, and a given CP88 that feels like the YC88 you played. Not that I have any reason to beleive that per se, but with the chassis and the software being so similar between those models, it seems strange that one model would inherently feel very different from the other.

 

If there is actually some inherent different in the YC and CP implementations, then I'd also be curious to know whether the YC73 similarly feels different from the CP73. Hmmm.

[cedar]

Well, this discussion has certainly persuaded me to keep the CP4, if at all possible. As mentioned at the outset, I've always been very happy with this keyboard; but just wondered whether there was something comparable that essentially gave me the same experience with both AP/EP, and omitted the rest of the sounds I never use.

 

But the vast majority of the time, I am playing AP sounds in small jazz groups, so that is by far the most important thing to me.

[HammondDave]

I would wait and check out the Numa X Piano. This looks like the real thingâ¦

[Noah DC]

Damn, I just looked up that new Numa⦠and yeah, real interested to see and hear this 73-key option with audio interface and a new action ('TP-110') at 25 pounds⦠Somebody should start a thread.

[cedar]

Just got the estimate from my keyboard repair guy: the cost isn't trivial. And for all I know, it's excessive. But still much less than buying a new board. Since I was totally satisfied with the CP4 until now, I'm just going ahead with the repair.