Disklavier

Good morning, everyone.

In a message dated 1/24/02 11:47:26 AM, John writes:

<< I have a new DC3A. When I try to slow the tempo on music played from 
a floppy disk, it will slow only to 50%.  For very fast pieces this 
may be still too fast if I am trying to analyze a segment to improve 
my playing of the piece.  I have a Clavinova and it will go as slow 
as I want.  Any tips? >>

I do not know the reasoning of the Disklavier engineers for sure, but I 
suspect that they limited normal playback tempos to -50% and +20% in order to 
be confident that all files will play without problems within this tempo 
range and still sound reasonably good. Unlike the Clavinova, the Disklavier 
is a mechanical instrument. As a result, any tempo changes that result in 
very fast speeds might result in dropped notes.

This might explain why +20% is the top end. But, I see no performance reason 
why the tempos should not go lower than -50%.

Except for Yamaha's copy-protected software, you can do an editing trick on 
the Disklavier to set tempos outside of the normal boundaries. To do so, I 
suggest that you work with a copy of your original file.

--Push Record.
--Use the backward Song Select button to select the song file in question.
--Push Metronome.
--Set a new tempo with the + or - buttons.
--Push Stop.
--Push Enter to save the changes.

At this point, you have rerecorded the default tempo. You can play back the 
file at this new tempo, and you can also use the normal tempo control to 
deviate -50% and +20% from this new tempo.

If you want to change your edit or to reset the file to its original 
condition, you can repeat the process.

Regards,
PianoBench