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Yahaha pianos. What on earth is it? AWM`s been around since the 80`s I think. And it`s still used on loads of DPs ascribed to this manufacturer. Is CF new, any good? Would an old fart like me be able to tell the difference? Dammitt they all sound pretty good on Youtube (well, nearly all . . .)

Bladdy Hill. this is popular . . .Any New Zealanders looking in?

Hi peterws,

Seems like you're not felling the love today ;-) I do not have the answer and im not sure what youre looking for but this might be a start until someone helps you:

http://ezinearticles.com/?Features-and-Benefits-of-the-Yamaha-P-155-Digital-Piano&id=6769715

Lil' Petey -
The "Pure CF" means they use the CF line
of pianos to sample from - and use AWM
to encode and playback. so it uses both...

Pure CF Sound is a marketing term. It is completely meaningless. AWM is another marketing term, which stands for Advanced Wave Memory. It is also meaningless. Sampling is sampling. Don't worry about what they call it. Today's DP sampling sounds better than those from the 80's even for the untrained ear.

Just because it is marketing hype doesn't mean
meaningless.. the terms do have "meaning".

Sampling: Pure CF for splendid tonality

The technicians for Yamaha chose a CFIIIs complete concert grand having top sound quality and managed to tune it to the best possible condition. They next used one of a kind Pure CF sampling method to sample all sounds to build the sound on the instrument. You can then enjoy the natural sounding reaction as a high-quality piano.

Advanced Wave Memory or AWM: 4-level Dynamic Stereo Sampling

The Advanced Wave Memory (AWM) is a system of sampling which builds sound that is close to the sound of an audio instrument by utilizing digital technology for recording the instrument sound and using the top-quality digital technology for filtering to the audio samples recorded. The Advanced Wave Memory Sampling evaluates these samples and can build such different nuances by taping samples of different playing strengths. The higher amount of samples utilized, the higher will be the potential outcomes and expressive quality.



Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/6769715

AWM isn't always 4 layers. Quite a few have 3 layer and some have just 1 layer.

Thank you guys! My bro in law`s just bought a piano. . . .I looked at a few with similar spec and - they didn`t all sound the same!

@plinky88: They might have meaning, but what you posted there was only more marketing bulls excements. From that mumble bumble i couldn't say which is better.

The original Yamaha AWM, designed AFAIK in 1987, was a PCM sampling engine (Pulse Code Modulation) with an advantage for piano sounds: it used a filter that changed slightly the "color" of the sound depending on the force (velocity) the note is stroked.

As PianoWorksATL noted, at the beginning it only used one sampled layer, and today there are still Yamaha instruments that only use 1 layer with that coloring filter (I guess the P35 is one of them).

It has been many variations on AWM. The original AWM was mono, they added stereo samples a time after. During a brief time existed AWM-2.

Another thing we must have in account is that not every AWM engine is based on CF pianos: there are many AWM models that got the samples from the smaller S6 piano. That, in my humble opinion, could be the origin of the distinction between plain AWM and Pure CF (although this doesn't exclude the possibility that some AWM models use CF samples).

The last step of AWM has been RGE (Real Grand Expression). It promises many things that Roland's SuperNatural already does: natural decays, transitions between layers and so. In the opinion of many forum members this isn't completely true as they say RGE is almost identical to AWM. I don't even know if it has 88 keys sampling. I tried it but not at that detail level

RGE = Real Grand Expression

Sorry (thanks for the correction, modifying original post).

Don't apologise! I think the term is pretty meaningless, just like Pure CF. But Yamaha does claim some advancement for RGE over the previous sound engines. There's a Peter Baartmans video where he tries to explain it for the (then new) Yamaha CLP 400 series. But the use of the terminology (Pure CF, RGE etc) is obviously down to marketing people, NOT engineers!

The video (2nd one down):

http://uk.yamaha.com/en/products/mu..._series/?mode=series#tab=audio_and_video

Actually, having now watched it, it doesn't really say anything with the exception of improved polyphony and "smooth release" (whatever that is!)

I believe "smooth release" is the same as Kawai's "key-off release", in that the 'release' portion of the sample changes, depending on how quickly the key is released (e.g. staccato vs legato).

Cheers,
James
x

This is all very knowledgeable. I thank you gentlemen for the information. At the end of the day, whatever it is- you try before you buy!

As a point of interest, I had a CLP 250 (76 noter) which dated from about `87 or so. It had 2 line outs and 2 line ins, but it was unashamedly mono! The tone hardly altered with increase/decrease in volume; yet I did like it. They sell for around £250 on Ebay. Unbelievable!