Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum Scriabin and Rachmaninoff on the Yamaha S7X.

A few snippets of Scriabin sonata 3 and Rachmaninoff piano concerto 2 on my new Yamaha S7X.

Wish it was recorded in stereo. The mono sound is rather unattractive.

Nice playing BTW. Thanks for sharing.

Well spotted Hakki. It was actually recorded in stereo, but it seems my video editing software defaulted to thinking it was a mono video when saving it. I've fixed it and will post a new link shortly.

Much nicer sound. Thank you.

Well selected, I'd say. Quite a remarkable range, and the tone can be quite beautiful. It breathes nicely and seems a perfect fit for a home. Congratulations!

This is an excellent sounding piano, really. It'll develop as well. I'll be interested to hear it after it has been voiced. I think it has an excellent singing tone and I like the supportive and powerful bass. I bet the action is a dream is it?

Excellent playing and the piano sounds lovely!

Are these Rode NT55 mics with cardiod capsules?

Rode NT55 with omni capsules.

I have no complaints about the action, which handles pp playing very well. I'm still not happy about the single string bass notes which have a bit of a "boink" sound. I remain hopeful this is just an issue of wearing in the hammers and strings.

It actually doesn't come across that way in the recording. You might want to consider having the piano voiced slightly more mellow because a softer hammer actually brings out more of the colour in terms of harmonics etc, and then playing it in after that, and having it evened out again when you're satisfied with the brightness achieved. That's one route that a few old-school technicians take. I don't mean have it muted like a 1920 Blüthner, I mean just have the edge taken off it. What I'm wondering is that the whole piano is pretty bright, and the bass is not, and it might be a balance issue rather than a brightness/sustain issue. Anyway that's my two cents.

(I could be completely wrong about this approach for a Yamaha.... I accept that in advance!)

To my taste, the sound is still thin and lack a lot of "ground tone" and long sustained "singing melodic tone" just like all Yamaha premium models I have tried. It also sounds saturated at fff, like a laser gun combat.

Last year, I had a chance to play on a Yamaha C6XA Special Edition. What a difference!

I don't consider the treble too bright. The SX pianos already have special softer hammers to optimize them for pp playing (this is why Yamaha markets them as suitable for "salons" instead of concert halls). I'm actually hoping the treble will get slightly brighter over time so there is more brilliance in virtuosic passages in Rach concertos.

I did notice the sound differentiation between the bass and treble. I think this is the case for all SX pianos, rather than specifically mine. When comparing the other S7X in the showroom to the CFX, I did notice that the CFX had a bass that was much more similar to the rest of the piano. The two S7Xs had a darker bass. Also, the hammers may need to harden up a bit with use as the brand new softer hammers may have more difficulty displacing the heavier bass strings.

Would you share some details ( mic placement etc.) about the mic setup?

You can see the mics in the video. They are inside the piano. The left mic is pointed towards the bass part of the soundboard orthogonal to the strings. The right mic is pointed along the strings towards the treble part of the soundboard. The audio interface is the Focusrite Clarett.

Thank you for the info. Just a couple of more questions.

What was the distance between the mics and how high they were placed from the strings?

Well I don't remember exactly. The mics were not super close, maybe 10cm apart. And they were not super close to the strings, they were hovering in the air inside the lid.

Thank you.

IMO, you would get a much nicer bass and treble with the following setup (Omnis parallel to the floor)