Hi,
We recently bought a grey market U3 (originally from Japan) with a playback-only Disklavier systerm. The S/N on the piano indicates it's a 1986 model, although the test menu on the controller seems to show 1993 firmware (Maybe a retrofit system). It looks like a MX80 unit with separate control unit and has the same physical layout and test menu as the MX80 according to the service manul I found on the web.
I hooked it via a USB-Midi cable to my computer and to play the downloaded midi files (From www.kuhmann.com). What I found is that the piano seems to play at same volume no matter what I do with the velocity of the midi files (I use Veloset). Also for soft notes it also plays quite loud. Say for a midi piece with note velocity ranged from 10-100, all notes seems were played at same volume.
However in the test mode, it seems can play softely and forcefully.
Is this normal for it or something wrong?
I've made some more test midi files with different velocity and volume settings, and will do more test tonight.
Appreciate any info.
Cheers
Message
Re: [disklavier] 1986 Disklavier midi play back volumne
2011-03-09 by George Frederick Litterst
I don't know anything about this particular Disklavier, but I can say that those very early models did not respond to controller 7 (volume) and controller 11 (expression) messages. Therefore, any differences in loudness are a result of note-on velocity.
If you MIDI files have a noticeable range of note-on velocities but you hear no difference in the resulting sound, it may be time to have your piano calibrated.
Regards,
PianoBench
On Mar 8, 2011, at 10:12 PM, jboxnz wrote: