Disklavier

Earlier this year, I trawled the internet looking for a new top-of-the-line, latest technology, reproducing piano. I found few suitable choices:

I particularly wanted a top-of-the-line modern solenoid-player grand piano capable of playing Standard and High Definition midi. For those of you unfamiliar with High Definition midi, it is read by all midi software and will play on Standard midi equipment but encodes much more nuanced information including additional Note-On & Note-Off values with greater data range and resolution which the latest solenoid pianos use to full advantage.

In Canada, Bosendorfer sell Yamaha systems fitted to their new pianos or, from the U.S. a Mason & Hamlin, factory fitted with the latest Pianodisc player and recording technology. Stahnke-made 'Live Performance' players are fitted to Steinway Spirio, but in that case, however, it would also have been necessary to buy and fit a Pianodisc ProRecord system as Spirio does not record. All of these options cost about twice my budget.

The Mason & Hamlin name and factory in the U.S. have been bought by Pianodisc and they now factory-fit their own HD midi player and recorder systems in direct competition to the Steinway Spirio. Courtesy of an introduction through Peter Phillips, I correspond with a pianist in Colorado who owns a 7ft M&H with Pianodisc player/record. He speaks very highly of their pianos and the recordings and reproduction from the XP midi files he sends me are first class – both technically and in his playing. M&H pianos factory fitted with Pianodisc playback & recording units are not quite as expensive as the Steinway with Spirio, but are still more expensive than the Yamaha with Enspire.

'Enspire' seems to me to be an ugly misspelling of the word 'Inspire', yet it is the name given by Yamaha, to their latest and 'finest-ever' Disklavier, and, despite my dislike of the name and my preference for European made pianos with polished wood cases, in mid April I bought one in polished ebony. I chose the C5XEPRO, as it was (for me) affordable and readily available in Sydney. Most importantly, it has a 10 year warranty and is able to be serviced locally.

Yamaha pianos are very well regarded by professional pianists and Tuners & Piano Technicians of my acquaintance. They are also now being used at the prestigious Tchaikovsky Piano Competition, and the C5XEPRO is in use at the Abbey Road Studios in London. The success and demand for Yamaha's premium, hand-made S series pianos has greatly influenced the manufacture of the CX series. CX pianos, factory fitted with the High Definition Disklavier Player and Recording equipment are released as the Enspire Pro.

My Enspire piano has built-in connectivity to the Internet and to my home sound-system. In America – but not here due to copyright restrictions – Live

International Concerts can be downloaded, playing the piano and providing synchronised HD video and audio of the performance playing through large-screen TV and home sound-system. I am permitted to use online video recordings, to the same effect.

High humidity or dry weather can affect the playing of any piano, but Yamaha make allowance for this in another unique feature – Enspire and some earlier Disklaviers (like MkIV) – are self-calibrating, meaning that playback parameters are measured and constantly compared with the those of the recording. Playback automatically adjusts to compensate and reproduce the recording faithfully.

The piano and its reproducing abilty are beyond my expectations. A slim, discretely hidden manual control box is installed at the left of the piano beneath the keyboard. From the front, only a row of tiny lights is visible and only if you bend to see them. An 'On-Off' and Volume 'Up' and 'Down' buttons plus one for 'Next Track' can be felt beneath the controller. Each has a distinctive shape, making it easy to operate by touch rather than by sight. In the front of the panel is a USB slot containing a Memory Stick and 6 lights. Ten settings over the range from from softest to loudest are indicated by 5 lights on the panel and allow playback volume to be adjusted. Last setting always re-opens on next start-up. Another light shows On-Off status and an automatic switch-off happens if the piano is left unplayed for a while.

A Wi-Fi dongle fitted to the rear of this manual controller takes Remote Commands from a touch screen via an Enspire App which can be downloaded onto either an iPhone or an iPad. I don't much like the iPad Remote Control interface as it is Wi-Fi dependent, and control is not always immediate. I also find it less reliable when used beyond the piano room. I would have preferred a dedicated and more immediately responsive hand-held remote.

The Central Processing Unit (CPU) lies further back below the centre of the piano and is adjacent two power-dependent speakers. It has two pairs of RCA inputs for Audio In and Out, plus a USB and MIDI-IN & MIDI-OUT sockets along with LAN and Digital-Out computer-dedicated connections.

The Enspire has no CD or floppy drawers. Yamaha Support has advised that their own proprietary CDs – which play the earlier Mark IV Disklavier with live-recorded accompaniments – may be played on the Enspire via USB from any CD player. I have yet to try this. I have been unsuccessful in trying to download from discs and play their CD piano files directly from computer.

Yamaha preloads 500 piano pieces, of a dozen different genres including Pop, Rock, Jazz, Country & Classical

– several with voice or instrumental accompaniment – into the hard-drive of the CPU beneath the piano which is controlled via the Enspire App on an iPad or iPhone. The App permits me also to select from two free and many subscriber Internet Radio channels which can play the piano continuosly or to select from the preloaded files on the hard-drive or from midis on the USB Memory Stick protruding from the discrete manual control panel under the keyboard. The Enspire App also allows adjustment of all settings and maintenance of the piano electronics and the wireless connection.

From my computer I can purchase and dowload midi or other player files with real instrument or voice accompaniments to the USB Memory Stick, or, at the touch of a on-screen button, my own midi recordings of live performances made on my piano are automatically saved to it. Smart PianoSoft files can only be played through the Enspire via a separate DCK-850 controller.

By removing the USB Memory Stick and connecting it to my computer, recorded files are immediately available as midis (HD or standard) for editing, renaming or relocating to my midi Playlists. Though the preloaded files on hard-drive in the CPU are not accessible for editing, any performances recorded on the piano are. All play directly from the iPad or iPhone.

As I have thousands of midi files (mostly from piano roll emulations) and dozens of Playlists, I prefer to use a Midi Cable from my computer USB outlet to a MIDI-IN socket on the CPU beneath the piano. There are wireless connectors which do this as well.. This permits playing the piano directly from my computer, by-passing the hard-drive and USB and making it unnecessary to use the iPad or iPhone as a controller. In this way, any Standard piano midi in my computer or online, can be opened and played. The CPU also recognises and distinguishes HD piano midi and wav or mp3 audio files.

To optimise playback, I use any of several Midi Editing Suites on my Mac computer to 'live' edit HD midis (XP, as Yamaha calls them) and Standard midis, through the piano. 'RePerform' is a HD Midi Editor I purchased some years ago from Zenph (company now defuct) in anticipation of HD midi becoming an accepted standard. It was the only publicly available Editor to read HD midi files and it saves to various formats including XP for Disklavier Pro. This is perfect for the Enspire.

By far the greatest source of readily available High Definition XP midi files, is from the 'Yamaha Den' collection, from the Minnesota Piano-e-Competion held yearly since 2004. Many hundreds of fine auditions and performances of Classical repertoire are directly accessible online for download. These play faultlessly. I now also have talented professional pianist friends and acquintances live recording their performances in XP format for my enjoyment.

Standard midis work in the Enspire just as well and, apart from the less subtle 'full-on' and 'full-off' sustain pedalling, it is hard to distinguish them from the HD midis.

The technology used in creation of the Yamaha Enspire is very new, but reproduction of performance is superb. No note, however softly played, is missed on playback. Disklavier owners intending to upgrade to Enspire from earlier models may be disappointed by some incompatabilities in playing their earlier Disklavier music files, but I feel Yamaha have taken a leap in the right direction. Enspire may well prove to be "a new pinnacle of technology for reproducing pianos".