Disklavier

I have a DGT7A, full digital piano, which I bought as a piece of furniture. The area in the great room was perfect for a baby grand, loved piano for dinner parties,  and I did not play. It was the perfect instrument at the time. I love it still!!

Well, I started to take lessons and after 4 years I am  now wanting to get a "real" piano.  Real reason is the amplifier HISS is distracting as I play...

I have Selected the DGC1ES to replace the DGT7a...

Any Comments on the DGC1ES? 

I love the silent feature or the DGT7a  and the ability to play both Piano and a Sound generated instrument.. e.g. Organ... OR  just Organ alone without any piano.  

As best I  discern..  the DGC1ES  will be identical in  capabilities  to the DGT7a.. just with strings in the cabinet! Is this correct? 

I use the Silent feature in the early morning when I am the only one up...  perfect time to practice. 

THANKS for any and all input!

I just want to say that if you want to learn to play a real piano, you need to hear the differences of the instruments you are considering, and not just compare specs on a piece of paper. Although I have always loved Yamaha pianos, I have yet to hear a grand smaller than six feet (of any brand) that had what I consider a satisfactory sound. 

I've heard Yamaha's C1 and C2, and they just don't cut it, IMHO. 

If you're prepared to pay full price for a new DGC1ES, look instead for a used DC3A, which has silent mode (I know because that's what I have), or a later six-foot model. A used instrument will let you go bigger for MUCH less than a smaller new piano. And you can use some of the savings to upgrade the controller to a DKC-850, if necessary. 

It may be harder to find a good used piano, but the savings and the improved sound will almost certainly be worth it. For instance, I paid about US$30,000 for my DC3A in 2000, and heard recently from someone who bought a used one for about $12,000. Add moving it, upgrading it, and even some voicing or other minor repairs, and you still save 50% compared to a new instrument. 

My two cents. 

--James

--- In disklavier@yahoogroups.com, "FELKER" <johnfelker@...> wrote:

>
> I have a DGT7A, full digital piano, which I bought as a piece of furniture. The area in the great room was perfect for a baby grand, loved piano for dinner parties,  and I did not play. It was the perfect instrument at the time. I love it still!!
> 
> Well, I started to take lessons and after 4 years I am  now wanting to get a "real" piano.  Real reason is the amplifier HISS is distracting as I play...
> 
> I have Selected the DGC1ES to replace the DGT7a...
> 
> Any Comments on the DGC1ES? 
> 
> I love the silent feature or the DGT7a  and the ability to play both Piano and a Sound generated instrument.. e.g. Organ... OR  just Organ alone without any piano.  
> 
> As best I  discern..  the DGC1ES  will be identical in  capabilities  to the DGT7a.. just with strings in the cabinet! Is this correct? 
> 
> I use the Silent feature in the early morning when I am the only one up...  perfect time to practice. 
> 
> THANKS for any and all input!
>

I agree with James and athomik that if you can afford a DC3 or higher, get it. But if you can't afford that - and there are precious few DC3's available for just $12,000 - you can be quite happy with a DC2A, which is what I have.

At 5-foot-7, it has a nice tone throughout, including the bass. It's true that it doesn't have the hammer sensors. But those sensors likely won't be missed if you mostly listen to pop, rock, jazz, blues, ragtime. My guess is that they are also unlikely to make much difference in a lot of classical music, especially the baroque and classical eras.

I certainly have gotten a lot of pleasure out of the DC2A. And I imagine all but the most discerning Disklavier owners would as well.

Hi J,

I own an disklavier with a DKC50R control unit - I guess that's a bit like yours. I'm very interested in the Raspberry Pi + USB midi controller idea which you have put together. I have some moderate computer skills, but I have never done any programming, so can you explain to me what's involved in setting up a player/libray system like you have done? Or maybe more to the point how much would it cost for you to set one up for me to load all my Disklavier stuff onto? I'm in the UK by the way.

I look forward to hearing from you.

David Atack



________________________________

 From: Pi Piano <raspberrypipiano@...>
To: disklavier@yahoogroups.com 
Sent: Friday, 1 March 2013, 4:31
Subject: [disklavier] Upgrading older disklaviers
 

  
Hi,
I'm an owner of an older disklavier with a DKC5R control unit.  The floppy drive was finally starting to fail on my piano so I decided to see what I could do to keep my piano workable since the latest control units from Yamaha aren't fully compatible with my piano.   I bought a raspberry pi (Raspberry Pi - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) a USB midi controller and created a web-browser interface to allow me to upload and play midi files on my disklavier from a tablet or PC.  I've moved my whole library onto the raspberry pi and now using my disklavier is more convenient than before.  I'm sort of proud of what I was able to do and I'm wondering if anyone else needs a similar solution.   If there's enough interest I can put together a small batch of the properly programmed mini computers.   I'm not looking to do this to make money, but I'm not going to do this for free either.   Let me know if you have the same problem.  If there's enough
 interest I'll post some more details and put something together for distribution.   If no one else needs this, I'll just continue enjoying controlling my disklavier from my tablet.

Regards,
J

Just to be clear, I wasn't suggesting that there are lots of DC3's at that price, just that used pianos, like used cars, drop tremendously in value as soon as they are delivered, and that a late-model used instrument in great condition should be available thousands, perhaps $10,000 or more below the new price. 

--- In disklavier@yahoogroups.com, "Dave" <daveproberts@...> wrote:
>
> I agree with James and athomik that if you can afford a DC3 or higher, get it. But if you can't afford that - and there are precious few DC3's available for just $12,000 - you can be quite happy with a DC2A, which is what I have.

Not having seen the browser you have written I can not compare it to 
what I use but there is a way to access a library on your tablet or 
phone that uses only existing software and a small computer attached to 
the Disklavier. This is what I do for my LX pianos. I can play both MIDI 
and audio encoded files made with MID2PianoC. I reallylike to display 
all the metadata possible so Media Monkey is my preference for a 
multimedia player. It is a little work to get MM to work with MIDI files 
and to display metadata since there is little agreement as to how to 
encode it in MIDI files. I have written utilities for extracting meta 
data from MIDI file and for putting it into MP3 tags or into tag.txt 
files for use with Mid2PianoCD. I prefer to use MP3 files because of all 
the tools available for working with them including the meta data tags.

It is difficult to imagine that anyone has written a tool that comes 
even close to the library management capabilities of Media Monkey. I 
have over 30000 audio tracks for the stereo and the piano that I can 
instantly search, sort and modify in a huge variety of ways with a very 
powerful and intuitive program. Media Monkey is great for anyone from 
the most naive computer user to the power user. Basically, it is what 
Itunes would be if it were not a bloated piece of garbage.

this entry on one of my blogs has the basics of the system.it refers to 
the LX piano but it works equally well for the Disklavier or PianoDisc.
there are a few more entries on the blog with more information. anyone 
who wants to do this is welcome to contact me for more hints and or for 
the tools i have written for dealing with metadata.
http://spencersviews.blogspot.com/2010/05/interfacing-to-lx-reproducing-piano.html

DOES ANYONE KNOW IF THE NEWER DISKLAVIERS WILL PLAY MP3 FILES? A friend 
recently bought one and wants to know.

Of course you can use WAV files which are much bigger but there is 
plenty of room for a large collection on even a small old computer like 
the ones I use for my pianos.

On 3/4/2013 3:10 AM, David Atack wrote:
> Hi J,
>
> I own an disklavier with a DKC50R control unit - I guess that's a bit 
> like yours. I'm very interested in the Raspberry Pi + USB midi 
> controller idea which you have put together. I have some moderate 
> computer skills, but I have never done any programming, so can you 
> explain to me what's involved in setting up a player/libray system 
> like you have done? Or maybe more to the point how much would it cost 
> for you to set one up for me to load all my Disklavier stuff onto? I'm 
> in the UK by the way.
>
> I look forward to hearing from you.
>
> David Atack
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> *From:* Pi Piano <raspberrypipiano@...>
> *To:* disklavier@yahoogroups.com
> *Sent:* Friday, 1 March 2013, 4:31
> *Subject:* [disklavier] Upgrading older disklaviers
>
> Hi,
> I'm an owner of an older disklavier with a DKC5R control unit.  The 
> floppy drive was finally starting to fail on my piano so I decided to 
> see what I could do to keep my piano workable since the latest control 
> units from Yamaha aren't fully compatible with my piano.   I bought a 
> raspberry pi (Raspberry Pi - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 
> <http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=raspberry%20pi&source=web&cd=3&cad=rja&ved=0CEwQFjAC&url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raspberry_Pi&ei=Ii4wUbm_J8jayAH72oDgDg&usg=AFQjCNE7gszP1TCCO100TdYOVzpgGPOcbw&bvm=bv.43148975,d.aWc>) a 
> USB midi controller and created a web-browser interface to allow me 
> to upload and play midi files on my disklavier from a tablet or PC. 
>  I've moved my whole library onto the raspberry pi and now using my 
> disklavier is more convenient than before.  I'm sort of proud of what 
> I was able to do and I'm wondering if anyone else needs a similar 
> solution.   If there's enough interest I can put together a small 
> batch of the properly programmed mini computers.   I'm not looking to 
> do this to make money, but I'm not going to do this for free either.   
> Let me know if you have the same problem.  If there's enough interest 
> I'll post some more details and put something together for 
> distribution.   If no one else needs this, I'll just continue enjoying 
> controlling my disklavier from my tablet.
>
> Regards,
> J
>
>
> 

-- 
Best regards, Spencer Chase
67550-Bell Springs Rd.
Garberville, CA 95542 Postal service only.
Laytonville, CA 95454 UPS only.
Spencer@...
http://www.spencerserolls.com
(707) 984-8356
(425) 791-0309