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This all comes down to control. The longer the key (the greater the distance on both sides of the fulcrum), the more control you have. (Now, I'm sure there a sweet spot regarding the percentage of the length on one side of the fulcrum compared to the other side, but with grand pianos we're dealing with some constraints and the comparison is between a six footer and a nine footer.)

Now, I don't know if I would pass a blindfold test on guessing the specific actions, I just know that all things being equal, I'd have more finesse on the action from a nine footer.

I owned a Steinway M (5' 7") before trading it in for a B (6' 10.5"). That was when I first discovered that one can, in fact, feel the difference between the actions. I don't have a clear preference between the two, but they are different.

I'm planning to conduct a jovial little parade at my place one day soon. Dewster, if you're not too busy shattering dreams and destroying illusions held dear by wide-eyed optimists on your side of the pond, be a dear and pop over and rain on it will you? Otherwise the positivity would probably be unsettling.

By the way, I so wish I'd paid £8000 for my AG! And "quadrophonic" - you're showing your age there!

Steve

I'm no expert on any of this but I'd say that the action for the AG matches the level of sampling engineering you can achieve with today's technology. If it had a 9' grand action wouldn't you need some new development which would allow for more variations of the sound of a piano so you'd have something greater to control?

I'm having trouble finding a reference, but I thought AG is supposed to have many more possible velocity levels internally than the 128 provided by MIDI. Isn't that right? Yamaha "greyscale" or something?

Did I get this confused with another product?

There's no doubt that the N1 is not a Fazioli 228. But then it's not >$200k in cost and 7-1/2 feet long either.

The clear consensus among pros is that the AG action is far better than anything else available on a non-acoustic, and better than virtually all acoustic uprights and some grands. And the sound, if not perfect, is pretty danged good.

One might ask a lot more for the money. For example, I might like like Scarlett Johansson turning pages... but where are you going to get that deal?

Are you suggesting they've hobbled the AG action to keep it on roughly the same technological level with the looped internal sound generation technology? Or that you would need more MIDI velocity resolution with a longer key action?

First off - I love my N2. If there are loops or any other imperfections with the action, I don't hear or feel them and I'm not looking for them. IMO - this is like other posts say "better than any upright and many grands."

As to my layman's post - yes velocity standards, I believe, haven't changed since first introduced so my thought was if you had an action from a 9' that is suppose to give you more control over dynamics, it only makes sense that it would be better suited attached to some new velocity standard.

I realize that Yamaha has taken sampling farther with the AG and I certainly get that feeling when I'm playing it but what if they could match twice as much nuance of a 9 footer?

There's some chatter about that on this thread, but I don't see references so I can't tell the origins of the info other than PW member athomik, who states:


The "12 separate audio channels" to me sounds like simple frequency band separation via filters (tweeter, woofer, sub). *Yawn* as James would say. If the 4 channel thing wasn't true it would be a bombshell.

The grayscale thing strikes me as meaningless hype. I imagine most keyboards resolve velocity to more than 127 levels in order to have no missing MIDI codes after running it through thresholds and curves and such. Higher resolution velocity measurement is virtually free, just extra bits in the counter they're using as a timer.

The real trick would be high resolution position tracking, you could do literally anything with that.

Just to be clear, minimization of mechanical advantage variation only depends on the length from the playing end of the key to the pivot point.

This whole short keys in the AG thing has me intrigued. Is it difficult to access the the front of the action in the AG? For reference I just popped off the fall board on our 6.1' Young-Chang and accessed the action well enough to measure the pivot point of a white key to the playing end. It measures 9 1/2 inches and is constant over the entire keyboard. The black key pivots are located about 3/4" farther in:


From a white key pivot to the end of a white key - 9.5".


From a black key pivot to the end of a white key - difference in pivot point locations is 0.75".

And the distance from that pin all the way to the hammer is ... ?

Dunno. I was probably unclear? When I said "playing end" I meant the end you play with your fingers, not the end with the hammer.

For comparison, based on the picture, it looks like the MP10 keys are about 7 1/4 inch for white keys and...hard to tell...6 inches for black keys maybe? (to the pivot point from the front of the key).

Interesting. Yeah I guess it makes you wonder whether the sound is really resolved at better than 128 levels or whether velocity is just mapped to 128 and then 128 blends of however many sampled layers are available in the sounds.

When I first started with digital pianos I was shocked that midi only has 128 levels and thought it was quite a limitation. After having played software pianos for a while I'm not so sure. I'm coming around to the belief that our ear couldn't discern the difference between midi and some kind of true grayscale with far more velocity levels possible. I guess I don't have a way to test, but 128 certainly works well enough for my ears and fingers.

On a slightly different note, I've been thinking about kippesc's comment a bit ago (link) that his N2 will not play off the jack as his acoustic and Roland will. If the N2 will not register a key press from that height, does that mean the sensors are not configured or capable of registering very fast repeated notes? In other words, is it possible that the double escapement in an AvantGrand (though physically present) does not actually work because the sensors won't pick it up as a hammer strike?

If so that would be a significant strike against AvantGrands, since PHAIII and RM3 actions both allow this type of repetition and the real grand action is a major AG selling point.

Anyone with experience or thoughts on that?

If the N2 will not register a key press from that height, does that mean the sensors are not configured or capable of registering very fast repeated notes?

Start listening from 6:15 to the end.

@Kippesc:
RE: the "playing off the jack", I'm wondering whether it's simply that the double-escapement position sensor is not positioned exactly at the point where the jack starts to be pulled sideways by the whippen. One thing you could do is to make absolutely sure that it has ANY double-escapement sensing, by doing the following test:

1. Play a note normally, and hold the key down.
2. While the note is still sounding, slowly release the key until the sound stops. Note the point in the return at which the sound stops.
3. Lift off the key completely
4. Play the note again, and hold the key down
5. While the note is still sounding, slowly release the key to a point just below the point where the note is known to stop. If you go too far and the note does stop, lift off completely and go back to Step 4.
6. With the key just below the note termination point, and with the note still sounding, press down on the key again forcefully. If a new note sounds, you have double escapement sensing. If a new note does NOT sound, you probably do not have double-escapement sensing.

My Casio PX-330 passes the above test, and so do tri-sensor Yamaha Clavinovas and Roland PHAIII-based DPs. (it would be extremely bizarre if your N2 did not pass this test)

Greg.

@Dave: RE: that performance, I don't think I hear any extremely soft playing that might be a test of "playing off the jack". And whilst it is very impressive overall, parts of it sound sloppy to me, but I am not familiar with that piece. I.e - in some parts where he is rapidly repeating, it sounds like there are missing notes - it just sounds sort of slurred and "wrong" to me. (anyone else notice that? I am listening from 6:15 but stopped when it went back to the narrative.)

Greg.

Though right around where I notice missing notes, he starts saying it makes more sense to miss some notes and connect with the audience than to play perfectly and bore them.

Wish I had the option. Most often I miss notes *and* bore them.

The N2 passes this test just fine and very realistically.

Good. So, you could now determine the minimum return amount to allow a repeat. If that point is above the point of increasing jack/whippen resistance, that might explain why you can't "play off the jack". If you are pressing down very slowly so you can stop the notes at the "notch", it may have registered a note-start BEFORE you reach that point, and by the time you actually complete the stroke, it has decided that the notes have been played too softly for the hammers to strike the strings, even if your mechanical hammers really do strike your rubber stop.
(there's a point - are your hammers actually hitting the stop, or not? If not, maybe it needs regulation!)

Greg.