Disklavier

The adjustments used in Maintenance Mode are mostly used to manually set the 
minimum amount of enery required to play each note as quietly as possible.  
Each note requires a varying amount of energy to overcome the friction 
necessary to make the note play at all.  Once this friction is overcome and 
the hammer is on its way to hitting the string, all bets are off as to how 
fast it is traveling.  That is why this calibration is done by sitting at 
the piano and listening to it play. The ppp value is adjusted so the note 
plays as quietly as possible.  That minimum determines how softly your piano 
will play at the lowest setting of the volume control knob.

For many DKV owners, this still makes the piano play too loudly.  That is 
when we start looking at the MIDI data in the music and lowering the value 
of the velocity on the tracks that play the piano. Remember that the 
velocity value in MIDI is only a number that does not take into 
consideration how much energy is required to overcome the friction in a 
mechanical piano action. For those DKV owners who have electronic pianos, 
like the Grand Touch series, this is not a problem as you can just keep 
turning down the volume on the tone generator.  Same thing on a MarkIII 
using Piano Part = out and turning on the Silent Mode without using the 
headphones.

The main thing to remember is that electricty can play your piano with more 
force than your fingers.  When your piano plays louder than you can play it, 
there is risk of damage to the piano action over time.

Carol Beigel
crbrpt@...


>From: Robert Welcyng <rwelcyng@...>
>Reply-To: disklavier@yahoogroups.com
>To: disklavier@yahoogroups.com
>Subject: Re: [disklavier] Piano Part Velocity Recommendation
>Date: Sat, 16 Nov 2002 21:24:45 -0900
>
>Yamaha's technique for driving the DKV solenoids to produce varying
>hammer velocities is surely not a critical issue to any of us users.
>However, for the record, hammer velocity is controlled not by varying
>the voltage applied to the solenoids, but by varying the time length of
>the pulse applied to the solenoid.
>
>Here is Yamaha's explanation, verbatim, of what is going on in the
>Maintenance Mode when the keyboard is being calibrated:
>
>"In Maintenance Mode - Keyboard
>Measurement, each solenoid is energized
>with a varying, but precise pulse width. The
>actual hammer velocity is then measured and
>stored in a matrix or table. The resultant table
>is used when the Disklavier plays back a
>song."
>
>


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