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?

So you think you understand marketing better than they do? If the Helen Blog attracts attention, and if Yamaha marketing wants to tap into that attention, then it makes perfect sense to send her an Avant Grand jacket. Cheap publicity. Simple. How can you not understand that? How is that "hilarious"? How is that an example of "doing it wrong"?

Ha, just read the Helen Blog thing. She doesn't even write a word about its tone (or in fact anything at all about how it sounds). So is this Yamaha's target market for the thing? No wonder they want to send her a jacket. She can probably write a blog about that too...but won't mention a thing about how it looks or fits.

If you are selling your soul to a large multi-national corporation, you should get cold hard cash for it, not some lame AG jacket.

Before things get out of hand, anyone can leave a comment at that blog and sign any name they wish to. We don't know for a fact that the signed comments are from those who actually wrote them, ... though I did write and left two comments.

Wow, you guys seem pretty harsh on somebody who's just simply a piano owner happily blogging about her experience with a new piano purchase. Why? Is it because it's an Avant-Grand that she bought? Would the reaction have been different if she's bought a different brand or model DP or an AP?

She's not a professional writing a review article, so how can you blame her for being technically ignorant? OK, so she didn't say anything about how it sounds, so how did that make her deserving to be called a "stupid cow"? And she's not even asking for a jacket, so how can you say she sold her soul to Yamaha for a lame jacket? Why such hatred on a regular person who's just happily blogging about their piano purchase? Posters here post proudly about their piano purchases all the times, don't they? Why can't we just congratulate her like usual, instead of being so critical on her for no apparent reason?

Two things she wrote:

Some notes are suspect in terms of tuning and can’t be individually changed (as far as I know)
Sometimes will run into the boundary of the max polyphony (256 voices) – rare, but annoying when it does happen

What notes are suspect? I have not come across any notes that are out of tune (unlike my GT1 which did have two 3 note samples that were out of tune with themselves but only when the sustain pedal was depressed). I have come across two Db's below middle C that have a quality that makes them stand out from the notes surrounding them but they're not out of tune. (To be honest, my C3 also had a few notes that had the same gnarly quality.)

256 note polyphony ... boundary, annoying when it does happen .... ?

What the f*** does that mean? Worse case scenario - Yamaha used four mics to sample their flagship piano and there are four 3 way speaker systems in the AvantGrand. Assuming there are 4 sets of samples, we would then have only 64 note polyphony; each single note depressed would count as four note polyphony. If that is in fact the case - and I'm not convinced it is, you would have to play the piano with a two by four to depress that many notes.

I for one hope she has a long and happy life. But the degree to which she's puffing herself up on her blog seems to call for a bit of mockery.

I'm not defending her or anything, but I was just surprised at the negative reactions.

In terms of suspect notes she implies that are out of tune, I agree that I don't hear any myself. But people have different hearings and if she thinks some notes are out of tune and said so, it may be a problem with her hearing or in her head, and it doesn't carry any weight with me. I wouldn't take serious issue with it because it's just a personal opinion. It's not like she said she uses some kind of electronic tuning measuring instrument to prove that some notes are out of tune.

On the 256 note polyphony, again, it's a personal opinion that doesn't carry a lot of weight with me. Just like you said 32 is good enough with you, Dave, or others say they can hear some note dropped. I do agree that it's a tall order to claim to hear dropped notes in a 256 note polyphony. Can your mind really process that kind of detail and be able to tell? It's probably more likely that your fingers manage to drop the notes themselves and your head blames the piano.

But again, I didn't see why a couple of personal observations could have incited such a negative reaction.

As for technically whether it's 256/4=64 note polyphony due to 4 channels, or whether it's actually 256 note polyphony including the 4 channels, I'd be inclined to think that the 4 channels must have already been included because the claim never said 256 note polyphony shared by 4 channels. But I have nothing to back that up and marketing claim can be sneaky.

In terms of using 2x4s to be able to depress that many notes, I don't think it's about the ability to depress so many notes to max out on the polyphony count, but it's about causing all the notes to sustain off a struck note when you keep the sustain pedal held down. So for example, if you hold the sustain pedal down and strike a note, it should technical have triggered the main note, plus all 88 notes on the keyboard as a reaction to that struck note, resulting in 89 notes sounding off. So if you play a 3-note chord on an open sustain, technically you can already trigger more than 256 notes off of that one chord alone.

So I think the higher polyphony note count basically enables better sounding sustain because more notes can be heard in the sustain. The question is whether your brain can decide whether the sustain is adequate or lacking or what...

Well, this kicks off the blog entry:

That’s right, I bought a $15,000 instrument. Because that’s how I roll.

OK... In the next paragraph she tries to establish street cred without veering too deeply into geek territory - always a delicate balance. Next, she tells us how she and the AG were meant for each other after reading a puff piece in Slate (of all things). She finally tries one and - surprise - falls in love with it. She then drives her family and friends crazy buying one but avoiding state tax and moving expenses. After she gets it she says "I wouldn’t call it an acoustic piano killer" which is something of a backtrack IMO. And she ends it all with the following:

Finally, my (former) professor, Dr. Jean Barr, came over for coffee and a little piano playing a few weeks ago and was very impressed by the touch, feel, and pedaling. And that, my friends, is enough to never make me question this purchase, ever.

Which is a bit too close to a Colleen2000 plug for my comfort, even down to the "my friends" phrase no less.

Then Yamaha bursts into the blog and offers her an AG jacket. If you weren't sure before, you definitely know you've written some puffery after that happens.

I think she is fairly attractive FWIW. And she has an MM so she can't be too much of a slouch in the music department. But she's still young, and that's her fault (veiled Cat Stevens reference).

Well, if we're on to Cat Stevens references I would like to tell the world that I love my dog. So despite my scathing attack on the lovely Helen this surely means I'm not all bad.

Do I get a jacket?

Silly. Large multi-nationals don't distribute jackets to people who are merely nice. You have to work harder at being more subservient to their agenda. And be obvious yet cool about it to attract the anti-technorati.

OMG, what have I done? Lawrence, is it too late to stop you? For the the sake of all that is holy, whatever you do, don't click on the Donald Duck in MathMagic Land Link!!!

Heh. Heh. You think you'd get my dry humour, by now!

I received several e-mails from Robert Heller, the National Sales Director for Yamaha's Keyboard Division. Regarding this specific situation he wrote:

Her situation was somewhat unique. In short, the local dealer where she lived refused to order an Avant Grand for [her] unless she paid up front. (We’re reviewing our relationship with that particular dealer) She wanted to try it out. The picture on her website is actually one of the events that Yamaha often attends. Since she had such a difficult time getting an Avant Grand, I wanted to give her a small token of our appreciation, directly from Yamaha.

Dave, may I ask if you sought permission from Mr Heller before pasting the contents of his private email on a public forum?

If you already did, and he was in agreement, then my apologies.
However, I believe we need to exercise a little caution before openly quoting the contents of private emails.

Kind regards,
James
x

I guess I'm confused because in her blog she said her dad went to the dealer to measure the N3 3 separate times to make sure it fits in the minivan. So that means there's a floor model. So why does Robert Heller's email say that the local dealer refused to order one for her to try out unless she paid up front?

No, I did not. I wrote him initially to confirm that he actually wrote at that blog. While I may have committed a faux pas, I felt it answered the issue at hand.

When someone signs their e-mail as a representative of a company, I look at that as being less than personal e-mail - he's representing a company.

For what it's worth, I left out his comments on the 256 note polyphony issue.

Could you give us the gist of his comments re. polyphony?

He and I are in agreement.

So does that mean it's actually 256/4=68 note only due to the 4 channels? Or is it still full 256 note polyphony for real even with the 4 channels included?

Uh, OK - could you give us the gist of your comments re. polyphony?

dewster, I'll tell you what, why don't you get your hands on a N2 or N3, play a bunch of notes and then report back if you can hear anything that sounds less than 256 note polyphony.

I couldn't hear any notes dropping on my GT1 and that piano only had 32 note polyphony.

Wait a minute, are you the one who had an N2 and then returned it to the dealer? Who was that?

How about you just tell us what he said about the polyphony issue?

Cheers,

Steve

I wasn't dissing your mad polyphony detecting skilz.

I just wanted to know what the Yamaha guy said about it. Your initial response was so cryptic I had to ask again. Sorry to have upset you, it wasn't intentional.


Snazzyplayer had an AG and sold it. There may be others here but I'm not really tracking any AG issues myself.

Snazzy had a N3.

No, I'm not upset. What was stated to me was slightly personal in nature. I made a comment regarding the polyphony in the GT (32) and my views on one aspect of that blog and he agreed with me.

Oh. You said this earlier:


So I thought perhaps the Yamaha guy made some technical clarification regarding polyphony in the AG. But I guess that's not the case.

I'm not trying to pry into a personal conversation or anything, I'm just wondering if it is possible to exhaust the polyphony on the AG as Helen seems to be reporting in her blog.

Yes, I see your point. However, I still believe it would have been courteous to contact Mr. Heller prior to posting the contents of his private email in a public forum.

Cheers,
James
x

I only contacted him because I felt I deserved a jacket; I've spend a small fortune on Yamaha products over the years. If Yamaha is giving out jackets ... and the blog was less than accurate, well, I think I should qualify for a freebie. I know I've persuaded a few folks to buy a GranTouch over the years. Now that he explained to me exactly why she was offered a jacket, I didn't feel this was a breach of confidentiality.

I did not quote him regarding the polyphony issue since that comment was slightly more personal.

But the bottom line is this, I don't have to read a spec sheet to make a decision on a piano; I use my ears ... and since the issue in question is note polyphony and the spec sheet would seem to be a vast improvement over the GranTouch ... and since the GranTouch never gave me the feeling of being shortchanged, .... I find this entire .... sentence just a tad too long.

Now that much time has elapsed...

Hello. I am the Helen whose (personal) blog you discovered and so lovingly covered. I thought I'd come here myself and respond to a few points.

First and foremost, I see that you have varying opinions about who you think I might be and my mental acuity, but rest assured that I am easily accessible on the web and you can find out quite a bit about who I am and what I do. I'll even give you a start: http://www.helenhousandi.com

Regarding the jacket and the contact from Mr. Heller: I am not a Yamaha shill, and I would apologize for coming across as one, but I don't think apologies are needed here. I certainly don't expect any.

Regarding the tone: it sounds like a (recorded) Yamaha concert grand. Seeing as that's exactly what it is, I think that should explain itself. I don't look for a unique sound in a mass produced piano and thus took no notes on it.

Regarding the local dealer vs. the one near my father: I live nowhere near him and have not for some years. I'm not sure what transpired between Yamaha and the dealer located in the state I was living in at the time, but I suppose that explains why I got the offer of a jacket (which came and was about what you'd expect for digital piano related swag, by the way). Thank you for providing details on something I had not put much thought into.

In the end, I suppose I should just be glad that somebody finds me "fairly attractive", no? I hope that in the future, some of you might think to contact a person individually first, especially if your inclination is to go for ad hominem attacks.

Hi hhsandi,

I'm looking for an AP replacement due to my living situation and your review was helpful for me. Helpful pros and cons too, thank you.

As for your nice reaction here to the critics in this forum: I wouldn't worry much about them, it's generally speaking a mix of envy, misogynistic tendencies...and too much free time!

Best,
Manolios

Beautifully put.