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Yamaha Avant Grand Now In Stock

Yamaha Avant Grand Now In StockYamaha Avant Grand Now In Stock
This is the only page you'll need on the web for information about the new Yamaha N2 and N3 Avant Grand Pianos. It's a piano geeks paradise.


In an ideal World, I'd like either a hand crafted Yamaha CFIII3SS or Steinway Model D grand with Marianne (our tuner) constantly on hand to tune and regulate it. "Do it!" I hear you say, but both pianos sell at over a £100,000.00* (that's right, over one hundred thousand of our lovely British pounds!) and that's out of the question for me and 99% of pianists. So consider the new Yamaha Avant Grand series.
*At time of writing.

Why the Avant Grand is the best digital piano in the World (in my opinion) in 3 points.

1) Touch
They have a real grand piano action, that's right! They've modified real grand piano action.
2) Best Amplification
16 Individual Amps driving 16 speakers (12 on the upright version), no joke!.
3) The Best Sound
Sampled from four locations (left, right, centre, and rear) of a grand piano.

AvantGrand … A new identity for the piano, born from the fusion of twenty-first century technology and more than a century of piano-crafting experience.
The blissful moment when you and the piano resonate as one…. is here.

Promenade Music's Avant Grande Specialist is David Wood. Call him on 01524 410202 for more information and prices.

Message To All Pianists …
When do you, as a pianist, feel elation? Is it in that instant when you see a score for the first time, and feel the inspirations of the composer bloom inside your mind?

It might be when you're up on stage playing a grand piano that projects every aspect of your sound, bathed in a shower of applause from an appreciative audience. Call it accomplishment, call it exultation – we're certain that you've experienced your share of such moments. But above all, there is that incomparable joy you feel in those moments when you sit at your piano.

Those instants when, threading the fragments of your imagination together as sound, you become at one with the instrument; those treasured moments of delight for all who love the piano, regardless of their skill or experience. It's why we believe that you can spend so much of your life in front of the piano.

Yamaha's desire is to craft pianos that bring a little more of this joy to as many people as possible. This is a treasured ideal that we have long held dear and one we have now transformed into a new piano. Meditating on those hours of happiness, those indescribable moments of joy experienced at a piano, we decided to do our best to respond to your desires and aspirations for this instrument.

Yamaha Avant Grand Details

Concepts & Goals …
Playing the piano – freeing the pianist of all limitations. And then, the joy of transforming the act of playing into something new…

To play when you want, how you want, as much as you want.
For those that love the piano, this is an extravagance above all else, something that all pianists yearn for.
In reality playing the piano brings with it many limits.
Beyond the physical issues of time to play and a place for the instrument, there are the fine nuances, particularly with the grand piano, of touch, tone, and reverberation, that contribute to the true thrill of playing the piano.

At Yamaha, we hope to offer the best sound we can to as many people as possible.
We have held this goal unchanged throughout our history of over a century of piano making.
Together with the know-how and inspiration gleaned from each new experience, along with the new technologies that have emerged over the years, this goal has taken us closer to our pictured ideal and seen with it the manufacture of a multitude of different pianos.
So what features does a piano have that make it essential in the lives of you, the people who possess both an unreserved love for playing the piano and an awareness of its essential excellence?

The AvantGrand emerged from our desire to re-look at these elements.
We took the techniques we had cultivated making keyboards and pedals for acoustic pianos and combined them with the latest digital and acoustic technology, driven by the belief that the resulting instrument would be a model for how a piano should be in the modern age.
Innovation born from a thorough knowledge of the true soul of the piano, brought to the fore.
Everything you need, right in front of you.
Ideas and technologies that unify tradition and innovation. A piano evolved for the modern age.

Not creating a piano, but rediscovering one.
This, summed up in a single phrase, was the concept behind the development of the AvantGrand.
Making a so-called "acoustic" piano requires extensive technique and know-how, qualities accumulated through our many years of experience.
However, a major theme in the creation of the AvantGrand involved consciously refraining from relying on this experience.
Rather than designing from a standpoint of what a piano must be, we gave priority to looking at what it could be, searching for the kind of instrument that would suggest a new direction for the piano.

For Yamaha, with our history of over a century of piano crafting, it was digital technology that provided the impetus for such an outlook, giving us the confidence that we had matured enough as craftsmen to be able to give life to the ideals we had pictured in our minds.
In creating a digital piano that presented the piano as a more informal and enjoyable instrument, we had many expectations for its sound that had to be fulfilled in the initial stages of development.
It is no exaggeration to say that digital technology evolves in the blink of an eye.
We felt that developing an instrument that took two major trends in the piano world to create a fusion, in the truest sense of the word, was a task that we simply had to complete.
Even with our history in making both digital and acoustic pianos, it was a feat that took everything that we at Yamaha knew to accomplish.

The AvantGrand is the crystallization of our hopes for the piano, something which cannot be summarized by simply calling it a hybrid of the digital and acoustic.
It was our superlative knowledge of the piano that supported this bold endeavour; that, and the bond we feel with you, with your enduring love for the piano.

Avant Grand Technology …
Technology refined through the new interplay between the digital and the acoustic; technology polished by the new relationship between the piano and the pianist.

We all wish to be enveloped in the sounds we play, yet find ourselves constrained by concerns for those around us. There are probably many, even among those who own grand pianos, who have wished they could play at a reduced volume from time to time. So it was that we felt there were two clear goals to achieve in the development of the AvantGrand. One was to create an instrument that mirrored the attraction of the grand piano as closely as possible. The other was to endow it with a responsive feel, without sacrificing the rich expression the grand piano offers when played with restraint. To realize these goals we examined everything down to the minutest detail in crafting the AvantGrand; from the keyboard and pedals that are the "gateway" to sound, to the sampling methods used, and the speaker system from which the sound exits, we left nothing overlooked.

Action
More than just a piano you can play, a piano you can play well. A real-wood keyboard and specialized grand piano action for the AvantGrand.
The nuanced touch and response of the grand piano are an essential standard yardstick for piano quality. The AvantGrand offers the player a specially-developed grand piano action that features the same configuration as the action of a real grand. The hammers strike the "strings" from underneath, allowing minute adjustments to the weight distribution of the hammers, and to the movement of the hammers themselves, for a smoother feel when playing. In addition to a hammer sensor, the AvantGrand employs a non-contact key sensor that has no effect on the movement of the keys, affording excellent recognition of the player's pressure on the keyboard, timing, and the other delicate nuances that affect musical expression. This combination provides an impressive sensitivity for the entire range from pianissimo through to fortissimo, and the ability to translate even the swiftest trills of the pianist with transparency. The wood construction of the keyboard mirrors that of the grand piano, and features New Ivory II on the white keys. This is a unique new material developed by Yamaha, with a texture superbly close to that of natural ivory, allowing you to play swift passages with ease while also offering a sure response for slower pieces.

Sounds
Looking at sound from a soundboard from a new perspective. Investments in new technology for the AvantGrand.

Spatial Acoustic Sampling
Together with a variety of piano sounds, the AvantGrand features samples of the actual vibrations from within the soundboard of the instrument. For the AvantGrand, we took an entirely new approach to our methods of sampling. To permit the sound to travel well to the player's position, as it does with a grand piano, we sampled the sound from four locations in the left, right, centre, and rear of a grand piano.
Sampling from deeper inside the instrument, we were able reproduce the attraction of the original sound almost perfectly. It was the experience of our engineers, and a reiterative cycle of trial and error conducted with piano tuners that made this success possible. And of course, the samples in the AvantGrand are all taken from a specially-selected example of Yamaha's CFIIIS full concert grand piano.

Spatial Acoustic Speaker System
Opening the lid of the AvantGrand reveals 4 speakers in an impressive and attractive layout.
The AvantGrand utilizes a four-channel multi-speaker system, designed in a three-way configuration with the bass woofer pointed down and the treble cones facing up, to allow more natural reverberation in the soundboard. Each of the speakers in this layout is equipped with its own dedicated amplifier, a luxury that reduces the interference in each pitch range and offers more natural expression to the delicate nuances in each sound. Moreover, by using speaker positioning that mimics the positions in the grand piano from which the original samples were taken, the AvantGrand offers a more natural sound to the pianist.

Soundboard Resonator
In addition to the four-channel multi-speakers, the AvantGrand also features a flat-panel "Soundboard Resonator" where the music stand would be when laid flat, allowing a more subtle reproduction of the build-up of sound felt by pianists when playing a grand piano. An oscillator called a "transducer" transmits vibration to the flat-panel soundboard, giving a realistic sound response that is especially evident in the higher range. (Only as for N3.)

Tactile Response System (TRS)

The sound of an acoustic piano resonates throughout its entire body. The bass range in particular is an essential part of the reverberation that is continually transmitted to a player's body. In the AvantGrand, this is replicated by our newly-developed Tactile Response System (TRS) that focuses on reproducing reverberation. This system features two transducers in the soundboard, the area underneath the keyboard, resonating natural reverberation throughout the entire instrument. The player's hands on the keyboard transmit the natural sound felt from the feet as they depress the pedals; the epitome of real piano playing. This system can be turned on and off, and the vibration set to one of three levels.

Pedals
Specialized grand piano pedal for AvantGrand, duplicating the finesse of the pedals of the grand piano.

Light to the touch at first, subtle firmness partway through its travel, and lightening again as the player pushes further; the pedals of the grand piano have subtly different stages than can be felt when the pedal is depressed. Skilled players take advantage of these pedal movements by using extremely delicate pedalling that allows them to achieve finely nuanced expression in their play. In developing the AvantGrand, we set out to reproduce the sensations of a grand piano's pedals as faithfully as possible. The resulting pedal allows for music as you believe it should sound, equally responsive for more impressionistic pieces that require a lot of half-pedalling.

Innovation with soul The AvantGrand… Created to Resonate with You.

Yamaha Avant Grand Specs …

Yamaha N3 Avant Grand (Grand Piano Cabinet)     
Keyboard: 88 Keys (A1-C7)
Key Tops: Ivorite ™
Action: Specialized Grand Piano Action for AvantGrand
Pedal: 3 Pedals (Damper with half-pedal effect, Sostenuto and Soft)
TRS: Tactile Response System
Tone Generation: Spatial Acoustic Sampling
Polyphony(Max): 256
Sounds: 2 x Grand Piano, 2 x Elec Piano, 1 x Harpsichord
Amplifiers: 10 x 22 watt, 4 x 30 watt, 2 x 80 watt,
Spatial Acoustic Speaker System: 4 x 16cm, 4 x 13cm, 4 x 2.5cm
Soundboard Resonator: Yes
Function Controls: Reverb, Metronome, Tempo, Transpose, Tuning.
Scale: 7 types
Preset songs: 10 preset songs + 5 voice demo songs
Recording: 1 Song, 1 Track (300KB, 30,000 Notes)
Headphones Socket: 2
MIDI: IN/OUT
AUX IN: {L/L+R}-{R}
AUX OUT: {L/L+R}-{R}
USB: To Device
Finish: Polished Ebony
Dimensions: W=148.1cm, D=119.5cm, H=101.4cm (with music rest 173.4cm)
Weight: 199kg

Promenade Music's Avant Grande Specialist is David Wood. Call him on 01524 410202 for more information and prices.

Yamaha N2 Avant Grand (Upright / Vertical Piano Cabinet)    
Keyboard: 88 Keys (A1-C7)
Key Tops: Ivorite ™
Action: Specialized Grand Piano Action for AvantGrand
Pedal: 3 Pedals (Damper with half-pedal effect, Sostenuto and Soft)
TRS: Tactile Response System
Tone Generation: Spatial Acoustic Sampling
Polyphony(Max): 256
Sounds: 2 x Grand Piano, 2 x Elec Piano, 1 x Harpsichord
Amplifiers: 10 x 22 watt, 2 x 80 watt,
Spatial Acoustic Speaker System: 2x16cm, 3x13cm, 2x8cm, 5×2.5cm
Function Controls: Reverb, Metronome, Tempo, Transpose, Tuning.
Scale: 7 types
Preset songs: 10 preset songs + 5 voice demo songs
Recording: 1 Song, 1 Track (300KB, 30,000 Notes)
Headphones Socket: 2
MIDI: IN / OUT
AUX IN: {L / L+R} – {R}
AUX OUT: {L / L+R} – {R}
USB: To Device
Finish: Polished Ebony
Dimensions: W=147.1cm, D=53.1cm, H=100.9cm (with music rest 118.1cm)
Weight: 142kg
Music Reset: Yes

Promenade Music's Avant Grande Specialist is David Wood. Call him on 01524 410202 for more information and prices.

NEWS PIECES

#1
A new hybrid piano combines the best of a digital piano with a concert grand acoustic piano. NY1's Technology reporter Adam Balkin filed the following report.
Yamaha's soon-to-be-released Avant Grand, a hybrid grand piano, has been designed to sound almost the same as a nine-foot acoustic grand, at half its size and about a third of the weight.
"When you're sitting in front of a piano, especially a grand piano, the sound isn't coming to you in stereo, it's coming from all over the
place and there's also depth to the sound," says Mark Anderson of Yamaha. "We sampled in four places, so if you look at the speakers they're about where we took the sampling and beyond that there's also a resonator. It's making it sound omni directional from there, so the sound doesn't appear to becoming from any one place."
Developers were also able to replicate the feel of an actual acoustic piano. When a player hits the keys, a hammer strikes a bar in back just like an acoustic's hammers hit strings. The whole piano vibrates under hand just as a real one would, and even the pedal replicates the increased tension felt when it's pressed harder on an acoustic.
"On the pedal it's mechanical to duplicate that, and for the feeling in the hands and running through the body there is a tactile response system built inside, basically creating vibration under the keyboard," says Anderson.
Pianist Matthew Cameron, who is not paid by Yamaha but does call himself a "Yamaha artist," gave NY1 his first impressions after sitting down at the Avant Grand piano for the very first time.
"It's much better than I expected actually," says Cameron. "The first thing I always notice when I'm playing an electrical piano is it lacks a certain pedal nuance that I found here. and it's got a nice colour. It's very responsive."
The Avant Grand goes on sale this summer for $20,000, about one-fifth the price of a real grand piano. One can also save a few bucks every few years, since the piano never has to be tuned.
#2
Yamaha's forthcoming "hybrid" Avant Grand may not set you back quite as far as, say, a Hamburg Steinway Model D-274, but it still ain't priced for amateur budgets. The piece was engineered to be around half the size and a third of the weight of a real-deal nine foot acoustic grand piano, all while maintaining the same heralded feel and sound. Dubbed a "hybrid" grand, this thing not only has four speakers that envelope the player in audio, but even the keys trigger a hammer that strikes a bar in order to replicate the feel of slamming a chord on one of the world's most prized instruments. The good news is that you can get 99 percent of a grand in your home for just $20,000. The bad news, coincidentally enough, is that you can get 99 percent of a grand in your home for a staggering $20,000. A video demonstration is in the read link.
#3
Yamaha’s new Avant Grand digital piano fuses twenty-first century technology with Yamaha’s more than a century of piano-crafting experience. The result is a digital piano that mimics the touch of an acoustic piano by using the same key, level, and hammer mechanisms of an acoustic piano combined with special embedded speakers to recreate the feel of an acoustic piano's keys to the player's hands.
At less than half the size of a nine-foot grand, the Avant Grand is designed for music aficionados with limited space and at nearly USD$20,000, is nearly $100,000 cheaper. The piano features upgradeable software and comes loaded with samples derived from Yamaha's $120,000 CFIIIS concert grand piano. The four speakers on the piano’s soundboard are located in the same positions as the four microphones that were used to sample the nine-foot grand source instrument while the bottom panel of the Avant Grand houses four subwoofers with each speaker powered by a dedicated amplifier.
The Avant Grand also features Yamaha’s newly-developed Tactile Response System (TRS) that focuses on reproducing reverberation and is designed to resonate the sound of the piano throughout its entire body thereby providing tactile feedback to the player. This system, which can be disabled, features two transducers in the soundboard, the area underneath the keyboard, resonating natural reverberation throughout the entire instrument.
First deliveries of the Yamaha Avant Grand N3 are expected in July 2009 with the unit attracting a USD$20,000 price tag.
#4
Legendary jazz pianist Chick Corea recently took Yamaha’s newly launched AvantGrand N3 hybrid piano for a “test drive.” Initially sceptical about the world’s first stringless piano to feature the sound, touch and action of a concert grand, the 67-year-old jazz superstar was quickly won over.
“My standard of comparison is the Yamaha CFIIIS concert grand piano with a gorgeous, beautiful sound, so I was a little apprehensive when I first saw the AvantGrand,” says the Yamaha Artist, who was recently named JazzTimes’ 2008 Artist of the Year.
“I thought, ‘look at this little thing, what’s it going to do?’ It blew me away,” recalls Corea. “I sat down and adjusted the volume to make it sound like a big piano and immediately went into reverence at the R&D department and how they pulled it off, because it’s quite an accomplishment.”
Priced at a fraction of the cost of a concert grand, the N3 features the exquisite sound of the acclaimed Yamaha CFIIIS concert grand piano in a stunning grand piano style cabinet.
Yamaha AvantGrand Currently on tour as a member of the Five Peace Band, also featuring John McLaughlin, Corea will be making select solo appearances, including the Nice Jazz Festival in Nice, France and the Detroit Jazz Festival in Detroit, Michigan. He will also perform with Stanley Clarke and Lenny White for several dates in September.
“Once I started playing the AvantGrand and getting into the musical flow of it, I could lose myself in the music just like I like to do. I could certainly envision using this instrument in my louder bands, my electric bands.”
Fusing 21st century music technology with Yamaha’s century-long heritage of piano craftsmanship, the N3 features highly advanced sound reproduction and sampling technology, without the tuning, cost or footprint of a comparable stringed instrument.
One of the greatest challenges in creating a true acoustic piano experience electronically is to accurately re-create the vibrations integral to the playing experience. The AvantGrand Series are the first pianos to actualise the physical connection with their instrument that pianists could only experience – until now – with an acoustic grand.
Its innovative Tactile Response System transmits “string” vibrations through the keys to player’s hands. Even the foot pedal action became subject to Yamaha’s demanding criteria. In traditional pianos, resistance is created in proportion to how deep the pedal is depressed. To replicate this, Yamaha created a new, specialized grand piano pedal for AvantGrand that reproduces the finesse of acoustic pedals, duplicating the spring, friction and inertia of traditional pedals.
The placement of the four-channel, three-way Spatial Acoustic Speaker System mimics the points where the original grand piano samples were taken, while the Soundboard Resonator create a non-directional sound dispersion directly in front of the player, duplicating the subtle reproduction of the build-up of sound felt by concert pianists. These technologies combine to authentically re-create the depth of tone of the Yamaha nine-foot CFIIIS grand piano, the choice instrument of many of the world’s top musicians and performance venues.
In addition to the remarkable grand piano sound sample, the N3 also features electronic piano and harpsichord voices.
The AvantGrand N3 is slated to ship in July 2009. The AvantGrand N2 upright model will be available in September 2009. Both include a matching padded bench.

Promenade Music's Avant Grande Specialist is David Wood. Call him on 01524 410202 for more information and prices.