Yamaha Clavinova

The Yamaha Clavinova is recognized as the leading digital piano in the world. Clavinova's have been around for over 20 years and Yamaha bring out new improved models every 2-3 years. The new pianos always seem to get better and, one day, will probably challenge the traditional piano.

The Yamaha Clavinova is a long-running line of digital instruments created by the Yamaha Corporation. The Clavinova is an electronic keyboard, similar in style to an acoustic piano, but with many features common to other digital pianos such as the ability to save songs, the availability of several different 'voices', and in some cases the ability to be connected to a computer. There are two ranges of Clavinova: CLP and CVP.

Technical Information

Clavinova is Yamaha's brand name for their digital pianos. A digital piano makes music electronically rather than by hitting strings with a hammer. The digital piano consists of two major parts: The keyboard/pedals and the synthesizer.

The keyboard is designed to feel as much like a regular piano as possible. On a standard acoustic piano, pressing a key removes the damper from the strings and causes a hammer to strike the strings. The harder the key is pressed the harder the hammer hits the strings. Holding the key down allows the note to continue. Letting the key up causes the damper to silence the note. This mechanical action produces a certain feel to the keys which pianists are used to. High quality digital keyboards have a mechanical structure designed to simulate the feel and sound of an acoustic piano. Instead of a hammer and damper, they have electronic sensors that determine when a key is pressed or released, and how hard the key is pressed. This information can then be sent to the synthesizer or recorded digitally in a MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) file to be played back later. Clavinovas have the full 88 keys that a standard piano has.

The synthesizer plays the music. Information comes in a MIDI or similar format either directly from the piano keyboard or from a stored source (from within the piano or via a computer or external sequencer). The synthesizer contains samples of real instruments which are then selected and modified by the electronics to produce the desired sound. Digital pianos are not limited to only piano sounds however. The synthesizer can make the sounds of a vast array of instruments and other sound effects. Many models of Clavinovas have hundreds of voices to choose from. These usually include several types of pianos and organs, brass and woodwind instruments, drums, etc.

The synthesizer in the Yamaha Clavinova works in a similar manner to personal computers. Most modern home computers use "Wave Table Synthesis" for sound production. This was a very expensive feature several years ago, but is now fairly standard. The Yamaha Clavinova has a very high quality synthesizer and audio system which can often outperform a PC.

The Clavinova is capable of playing up to 128 notes at the same time. Playing multiple notes at the same time is known as "polyphony." A complicated piece of music can have many notes at once. A note struck on a piano can continue to sound for quite a while when the sustain pedal is used, even after the key is released. Also, complex pieces using multiple instruments at once can take up many notes. A sequencer can play far more notes than a person playing a keyboard manually. Older synthesizers could sometimes only play only 16 or 32 notes simultaneously. Advances in musical technology have made increasingly more complex computer-sequenced pieces possible. Yamaha Clavinova CLP and CVP digital pianos here.

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Most popular Clavinovas of the past 3 years

         1)       Yamaha CLP120                    2)    Yamaha CLP320                 3)     Yamaha CLP170
                             

View all Yamaha Clavinova pianos