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Hi all,

I am planning to buy a used piano soon and I found a Yamaha Digital Grand Piano Disklavier GT-7 (exact model from Yamaha website below)

http://www.yamaha.com/yamahavgn/CDA/ContentDetail/ModelSeriesDetail.html?CNTID=1325&CTID=202000

It is 8 years old and in good condition. I am asking advice how much would be the piano like this worth now?

Thank you in advance.

I'll go first, but I'm certainly no expert on price. I would try and learn the original street price of that model and then figure about 40 to 50 percent of that.

I traded in my GranTouch 1 recently which was over ten years old I believe and I got about 50 percent of what I initially paid towards a trade in on an AvantGrand N3. (This is like trading in on a new car, the dealer can inflate one price and take from the other.)

If the dealer won't lower the price see if you can get an extended warranty.

Also, just because the cabinet looks great, the piano could have had a lot of playing. Grab a key at the extreme end of the piano and see how much sideways play there is and compare that to keys in the middle. That might give a rough idea of how much playing was done and whether you might need to have some work done on the action.

Thanks Dave for the advice. Any idea how well this piano sound and play? I am trying to get a digital piano as realistic as acoustic one.

Are there any common mechanical/electrical failure with a digital piano I should aware of?

Well, the action is a real grand (very slightly modified) action and the sample, even though it's 30 megs, sounds excellent.

I made a handful of recordings using my old GranTouch 1 and you can hear them at my web site if you so desire. Also, there will be some here who balk at the 32 note stereo polyphony that the GT7 (and also the GT1 and GT2) has. I never encountered any notes dropping ... ever. There are many folks who prefer to read specs instead of actually playing and listening.

I wasn't 100 percent happy with the built in sound system of my GT1 but through headphones and 1/4" outs it sounded just great.

When you test drive that piano bring along a good set of headphones.

After I had my GT1 for five years or so I experienced notes that continued to sound even though I was not depressing the sustain pedal. A Yamaha tech came out and vacuumed the area under the keys. We had to pull the action and remove all 88 keys. If you ever experience that, do the work yourself and save yourself some money. There should be only two or three computer ribbon connectors to disconnect before completely removing the action. The problem is caused dust getting in the way of the optical sensors under the keys. Also, don't set your vacuum cleaner at its highest setting, use some care.

Wow. I would say that you did really well!

No shite!

They gave me €3500 for my GranTouch 1. I have no idea what the AvantGrand N3 would have cost without a trade in though. Not only did they give me a good trade in price, they knocked off another €450 just to round the final price down to an even thousand amount. (I posted the details in the top thread where everyone states what they paid.)

From another point of view, they really don't have to prep the piano, nor do they have to provide any tunings. My only complaint of the delivery was the pedal harp was not done well. I redid that myself and made a modification to boot.

I just inquired last night about prep. Apparently there isn't any, unless there are problems - whatever that means! I suspect that unless you are purchasing a floor model, the unit will not be unboxed until it reaches your home. (And typically it would be unboxed in or at the truck.)

I've encountered both good and bad note stealing algorithms. With the bad ones it doesn't seem to matter how much polyphony you have, notes drop all over the place. With the good ones it is possible to have fairly low polyphony and be largely unaware of it, even with complex pieces.

If we had some way to categorize / quantify / whatever the note stealing algorithm we would be able tell at a glance how the DP will behave in this regard without the burden of having to play it extensively in order to get a vague feel for this one aspect of the DP.

Obviously the polyphony spec is insufficient to describe what is going on, but that's no reason to ignore it, or to criticize people who are looking for whatever information they find pre-purchase for these highly technical, poorly specified, aesthetic, expensive products.

I use my ears to determine whether or not the polyphony is sufficient. My ears tell me it is.

What do your ears tell you?

I owned a GranTouch 1 for ten possibly 12 years and in that extensive amount of time I never encountered any situation where I noticed the polyphony was not sufficient.

Also, before I bought the GT1 I owned a Yamaha C3 for a number of years (I forget how long, possibly ten years or so), so I have a pretty good idea how a real piano responds.

Just like graded hammers, polyphony, in today's world, is a marketing tool.

I read someone's blog ( Helen's re an AvantGrand ) where she wrote that the 256 note polyphony was not sufficient for her.

Under Cons from her blog: Sometimes will run into the boundary of the max polyphony (256 voices) – rare, but annoying when it does happen

The problem with not being able to identify or in some way quantify the note stealing algorithm is that we end up having to trust other people's ears and subjective impressions about otherwise very concrete things - programmers sat down and implemented some algorithm in every DP in existence. These things are knowable beyond conjecture.


It's more than that I think. Graded hammers are something most pianists want in their DPs. And polyphony, however it is defined (mono, stereo, counting extra noises, etc.) is very definitely a integral part of the note stealing algorithm. The algorithm itself may be crap, but generally speaking the more polyphony the better.


She strikes me as so nontechnical that I'm not sure I would trust her perception of the polyphony limitations.

The problem with not being able to identify or in some way quantify the note stealing algorithm is that we end up having to trust other people's ears and subjective impressions about otherwise very concrete things - programmers sat down and implemented some algorithm in every DP in existence. These things are knowable beyond conjecture.

Is there a program that can tell the user just how many 'voices' are being use at any particular moment?

For what it's worth, back in the early days of electric pianos, I would play jobs where the keyboard only had 16 note polyphony.

Again, having played the GT1 for 10 or 12 years, and having spent considerable time on acoustic pianos, I can honestly say I have never felt any limitation on the polyphony in the GT1.

I have tried, in the past, to see if I could hear that limitation by playing an octave in the bass, depressing the sustain pedal and playing as many notes as I could. If notes were being dropped, I didn't notice it.

If you can't tell the difference, then it makes no difference.

I have to go, I'm busy counting the number of angels on this pin I have in front of me.

But you don't, so you can't.
Playing is a burden? Wow.

Why do I even bother.

Perhaps instead I should spend more time reading Slate for DP advice. In their fawning AG article they refer to a video of Donald duck explaining the Pythagorean scale. Too bad Disney yanked it due to copyright claims, now I'll never understand that part of music theory. Oh, the humanity.

dewster, you were the one who brought up ... having to trust other people's ears and subjective impressions about otherwise very concrete things - programmers sat down and implemented some ...

I thought I explained in some detail my experience with a mere 32 note polyphony. Now I realize that 32 note polyphony is at the lower end of the spectrum and keyboards today tout 64, 128 or even 256 note polyphony.

The fact of the issue, after 10 or 12 years of playing a GranTouch, I never experienced any kind of limitation in regard to note polyphony.

I looked in your profile to see if I could learn anything concrete about your musical life ... and like so many folks here, your profile is sadly lacking. I have no idea if you wrote symphonies at the age of six or if you paste musical samples together just using software.

I know that my opinion counts for something ... and I can back up what I say not only with words but with actual music.

Why do I even bother. Indeed.

Thanks for the pointer to the Slate article. I had apparently missed that when searching for AG reviews.

Just my experience here, having been a GT2 owner for a number of years....I certainly did very clearly hear notes dropping...never really bothered me that much because invariably you had to intentionally try to induce it but in the scenario that Dave uses, ie, play a bass chord and then run up the keys then notes would certainly drop, losing "thickness" on the way. Their algorithm, like most, seems to mean that the lowest note is sustained regardless...clearly if that dropped it would leave a big hole.

I traded my mint GT2 for something short of two grand...can't be certain what the dealer gave me on the trade in. When I bought the GT2 it had a list of £5,500 and I paid £4,500 (no trade-ins involved). So I got back less than 40% of what I paid, and a lot less than that compared to list.

I think the 30mb sample Yamaha used is well off the pace now...it is useable but very lacking in sustain and has a few notes that are slightly too prominent, or have a slightly different (unpleasant to my ears) character...same sample in the GT7. OP says he wants a DP as realistic as an AP...for key action certainly yes, for tone generation, no way. In addition, the reverb is rudimentary to say the least and there is no transpose facility...a glaring omission in any DP in my opinion. The best use by far for any GT now is as a controller...great keyboard to use with a module, sample library, Pianoteq etc etc.

Cheers,

Steve

In addition, the reverb is rudimentary to say the least and there is no transpose facility...a glaring omission in any DP in my opinion.

Did Yamaha change the reverb on the GT2 that existed on the GT1? On the GT1 there were three types of reverb in addition to the separate control on the panel under the keyboard.

When turning the GT1 on, if you did nothing, the default reverb setting would be in use. If you held down the Gb below middle C while turning the GT1 on, you would get a minimal depth reverb and by pressing down the Bb below middle C you would have the most rich setting. (I could be an octave off in this but this is, of course, mentioned in the owner's manual.)

I liked the reverb on my GT1.

Regarding the glaring omission of a transpose function, I have to differ with you. I carry a transpose function with me wherever I go. I find that my transpose function is much like a fine wine in that it gets better as I get older. You know, when there's no electricity, you have to rely on that material between your ears to get the job done. You never know when the power will fail.

Yes I agree about your portable transpose function, very useful. Attainable for no money but lots of hard work and practice no doubt. If you sing though, a little button on the piano is much quicker and less hassle! But if the power fails a DP goes rather quiet...in every key.

You are spot on about the reverb but I think it is very basic nonetheless.

It perplexes me how Slate and their ilk can make the lack of technical knowledge seem trendy and cool - ironically, they pump up their audience by talking down to them.

For as many times as I've encountered this - willful ignorance proudly worn by artistic types - I've never been able to figure it out. That Helen Blog link is a good example. I find it hilarious in the comment section that the National Sales Director of the Yamaha Keyboard Division wants to send her an Avant Grand Jacket. If a large multi-national wants to send you a jacket, by very definition you're doing it wrong.

Hey, Yamaha, I reviewed the AG sound, so where's my jacket?