Yamaha-May is MIDI Month Platinum Sponsor
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Montage
Welcome to the new era in Synthesizers from the company that brought you the industry-changing DX and the hugely popular Motif.
Building on the legacy of these two iconic keyboards, the Yamaha Montage sets the next milestone for Synthesizers with sophisticated dynamic control, massive sound creation and streamlined workflow all combined in a powerful keyboard designed to inspire your creativity.
If you liked the DX and Motif, get ready to love Montage.
Reface and Soundmondo
Soundmondo is a social sound-sharing website and one of the first sites to implement WebMIDI, a W3C (API) pioneered by Google in Chrome. WebMIDI connects MIDI devices to your browser allowing musical instruments to play online synthesizers, as well as save or share sounds with Soundmondo. Because WebMIDI is part of the Chrome, Soundmondo works on Mac, PC,
The reface Soundmondo iOS app lets you store, recall reface Voices on iOS and share them on Soundmondo. Each stored Voice can be rated, named and given a custom image from your photo library.
There are over 10,000 sounds available for browsing and sharing.
The Disklavier MIDI Acoustic Piano
The Yamaha Disklavier is one of the most amazing MIDI instruments in the world.
The Yamaha Disklavier E3 combines technology with tradition to open up a whole new world of musical possibilities to explore.The E3’s innovative features help you find your own customized way to relax. When you pick up the remote control, you are instantly ready to enjoy new music over the Internet or listen to an old favorite from your personal CD collection.The E3 also comes with built-in speakers as well as exclusive Yamaha CD’s, allowing you to start listening right away without a complicated set-up process. And no matter where you live, when you connect the E3 to the Internet, you gain access to a treasure trove of musical performances from the finest musicians in the world.
The history of the piano is a history of technological change and innovation, starting over 300 years ago with the escapement action of Bartolomeo Cristofori and continuing with knee levers, pedals, action modifications, cast iron frame, and so much more. This dynamic history has been the result of the passionate interaction between keyboard players, composers, and instrument makers.
In the 1970s, solenoid-based player systems were added to pianos for the first time. In 1987, Yamaha took that concept to a new level of quality and ease of use by introducing the Disklavier reproducing piano to North America.
The term Disklavier is a clever combination of the words disk (as in floppy disk) and Klavier, the German word for keyboard. At the time that the Disklavier was introduced, recordings were stored on 3 ½ inch floppy disks.
The Disklavier is fundamentally a traditional, acoustic piano with a built-in record-and-playback system. The record-and-playback system and its related features have changed substantially over the years, but one aspect of the Disklavier has remained constant: The Disklavier system has always been offered as a factory-installed system—never as a retrofit for existing pianos
by George Litterst- The History of the Disklavier on the Disklavier Educational Network
Dan Tepfer uses the Yamaha Disklavier and MIDI to create unique compositions
Dan Tepfer is a jazz musician who has developed software to allow him to “improvise” with his computer. When Tepfer plays a note on his Disklavier, MIDI is sent to Super Collider, an open source tool for programming algorithmic music. Tepfer has created different algorithms to augment his playing for example retrogrades to invert whatever he plays, or echoing notes in different octaves. He can even trigger cascades of notes based on harmonic patterns.
For more details on Dan Tepfer’s work, check out these two articles from Engadget and NPR.
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Reprogramming the piano
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Fascinating Algorithm: Dan Tepfer’s Player Piano Is His Composing Partner : NPR
For many years, Yamaha has sponsored the piano e-competition. Classical pianists from all over the world come to have the opportunity to perform on Yamaha CFX concert grand pianos equipped with state-of-the-art Disklavier Pro recording technology. This system, which was pioneered by Yamaha, is the fusion of the acoustic piano and computer electronics and allows all solo rounds of the competition to be downloaded via MIDI to be enjoyed anywhere in the world. This year Google also joined as piano e competition sponsor and is using the e-competition’s classical MIDI files to train their Music AI engine.
Check out our articles on Google Music AI initatives and on the e piano competition.