Disklavier

Kathy,

You may have purchased a so-called "gray-market" Disklavier--that is, 
one not marketed for the Americas or wherever you are.  The catch is 
that neither Yamaha America nor Yamaha of Hamamatsu will support this 
expatriate instrument outside its marketing area.  One purported reason 
has to do with the wood used not being compatible with the climate.  As 
I understand it, many years back, Yamaha found themselves with a major 
warranty headache in the U.S. due to the instability of certain woods 
that they were using--which might be the real reason for this policy.  I 
also understand that some unscrupulous profiteers have imported these 
pianos to sell in the U.S.  You will not find them at authorized Yamaha 
dealers.  Naturally, Yamaha, having burned their fingers once, want 
nothing to do with them.

The encouraging news is that you do have a piano that you can play and 
that there are surely independent RPTs who will be willing to keep it in 
tune and make repairs.  The Disklavier control units are solid state and 
are unlikely to fail; just don't insert a disk upside down and damage 
the drive.  You are not going to be able to obtain updated ROMs, which 
only means that the features of your instrument remain fixed for life.

I was not clear on whether you were able to play the demo disks that you 
have.  If you can play a demo disk, you probably can play any Yamaha 
PianoSoft disk.  (You will not want PianoSoft Plus disks.)  You can buy 
PianoSoft disks from Hal Leonard, at Yamaha dealers, or vendors found on 
the Net.  Sometimes members of our list sell them used.

Good luck!


Kathy Corden wrote:

> Hello Disklavia users
> 
> I wonder if anybody out there can help me, I have
> recently purchased a 2nd hand Yamaha Piano I was told
> that it is a Silent Disklavia unfortunately I have no
> history of it apart from it was made in about
> 1990-1992
> 
> The piano came with 3 standard floppy disks probally
> demo disks from when it was new. I would like to be
> able to get some more pre-recorded discs for the piano
> but I have no idea what type to get as there seem to
> be different types and I would not like to cause any
> damage by using the wrong ones.
> 
> There is no identification on the built in disclavia
> unit and no instruction book, the controls have
> Japaneese wording for on/off, play, pause, and record
> etc.
> 
> Thanks for any help you can give me.
> 
> Kathy
> 
> 
> 
> 
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-- 
Robert Welcyng
Anchorage, Alaska