Yamaha CP Pianos (reviews): These are stage pianos with fully weighted, hammer key action, bigger sound palette, and come with several buttons to help in live playing.
Yamaha CP Series: Excellent Stage Pianos
Way back in the 80s, Yamaha CP pianos used really hammers and strings to their pianos to make them feel as authentic as possible to the users. No doubt the pianos were heavier but they had many trusted followers.
Few decades down the line, Yamaha CP pianos have been revamped, the technology used is modern, but they still feel very authentic even today.
The so-called “electric grands” have made it possible for musicians (concert performers) to easily take their favorite sounds onstage.
The Yamaha “CP” series (CP stands for ‘Combo Piano’) consists of Yamaha’s most professionally-targeted stage pianos. You will find more buttons on these (compared to other home pianos) to make it easy to make the various selections. Great selection of top-notch sounds (acoustic pianos, electric pianos, and more), fully weighted keys, excellent touch, lots of cool features define this series.
More features:
- Several well-placed sliders and buttons that helps while live playing
- Includes several premium Grand piano sounds from Yamaha’s popular concert pianos.
- The keyboard action and touch is quite authentic – you get Graded Hammer Key action.
- You get many more instrument sounds, several effects and a foot pedal is usually included.
In order to make the pianos lightweight, these pianos do not come with onboard speakers (some players prefer speakers for warming up before the actual show).
- PROS: Rugged pro player keyboard, Great for live playing
- CONS: No built-in speakers for practice, no multi-track sequencing
Looking for more options? Checkout more Yamaha synths and workstations here.
Yamaha CP Series: Reviews
Here are the popular models in this series. In recent times, they have added a few affordable models as well to this series.
Yamaha CP88 and CP73
Yamaha launches CP88 and CP73: New Stage Pianos from Yamaha. Yamaha CP73 for the gigging keyboardist and Yamaha CP88 for the discerning pianist.
Dedicated sections for Piano, E. Piano, selecting patches is a breeze. Connect to outboard gear with the built-in two channel audio/midi interface.
The CP88 features realistic wooden key action ‘NW-GH’ (Natural Wood Graded Hammer keyboard with synthetic ebony and ivory keytops) keyboard that provides you with an authentic piano playing experience. It allows you to play thunderous bass notes with your left hand, and play those fast passages easily on the high notes.
Useful Accessories for CP Pianos
Here are some useful accessories for CP Pianos.
Yamaha YMR-04 Music Rest
Yamaha YMR-04 Music Rest is designed specifically for the CP piano series. Use it to hold music books or sheet music, it nicely blends in with a CP piano’s sleek aesthetic (works with CP73, CP88 and CP300).
Yamaha CP Pianos: Guide
If you’re a pro-keyboardist who spends a lot of time performing and are looking for a top quality professional performance stage piano with expressive power, pro-quality outputs, and live performance features, check out the Yamaha CP Stage Pianos.
The CP series pianos are sleek looking pianos with wooden side panels that make them look like the vintage electric pianos.
The CP pianos use excellent sound samples of acoustic pianos, vintage electric piano, organ, guitar, strings, etc.
The pianos come with Graded Hammer keyboards, keys are lighter on the right side and heavier on the bass side of the keyboard.
Since it is a stage piano, you will find several buttons and sliders, useful for making quick selections, for blending two tones, either in the split or in the layered mode, and more.
Another added advantage is that these can also be used as midi controller.
The tiny screen, however, can be a bit difficult to decipher, so you will need to keep your manual close by, at least initially until you get used to it.
The sound is big enough to stand out when played through a full band onstage. At the same time, it is equally capable of delivering the nuances, such as string resonance, stereo sustain, and even key-off samples that capture the felt dampers muting the piano strings, when played in a smaller setting / club.
These pianos use stereo samples of top-quality instruments, recorded with various dynamics that help you demonstrate the most authentic and nuanced acoustic piano voices.
These pianos ship with several instrument sounds. You can always make changes to the parameters of the individual voicings to make them sound better. You really don’t have to go by what is offered in factory pre-sets. But if you do decide to change them, do store the original settings somewhere, just in case you need them as things can get crazy when you start making changes to the parameters. You can always layer the various sound to get combinations that sound out of this world.
A 3-pedalboard ships with these pianos.
Yamaha CP stage pianos are performance pianos with an impressive selection of sounds, including vintage electric pianos, and are apt for playing in gigs.
The earlier CP pianos used to be huge, but the recent models are much more lighter. In any case, professional musicians own multiple keyboards and may prefer to use a lighter one, depending on the venue and the size/scale of the show.
In case you want more synth and organ sounds, you can get an additional board, something like a Hammond and use it along with this piano. You can use the Yamaha CP to provide the bass and harmony sounds, and use the synthesizer as your lead instrument.
This is just an example of one type of setup. Basically, you can combine your CP piano with another synth keyboard to cover a wide range of sounds.
Also, a lot of keyboard players feel that the piano action on a Yamaha digital piano is heavy, but for piano players who have grown up playing an acoustic piano, it sounds just about correct.
In case you are looking for a stage piano with great sounds and if you like the Yamaha graded hammer action, then this is the series for you.
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