Whatever Happened to Electric Pianos?: Yamaha CP-70

Today we have the opportunity to demo the Yamaha CP-70 suitcase electric grand piano! Pat and Ted are very excited to showcase how amazing and unique this electric piano sounds acoustically and plugged in. Check out our Alamo Music Audio Lab video on the Yamaha CP-70!
→ • Yamaha CP70B: Is It Wo...
Download our free piano buyers guide here → www.alamomusic.com/discover-m...
Store Locations:
San Antonio/Austin → www.alamomusic.com
St. Louis Kawai Gallery → kawaipianostlouis.com/
Kansas City Kawai Gallery → kawai-piano-gallery-of-kansas-city
____________________________________________________________________
? Talk to an expert here → bit.ly/FindYourPiano
♪ Contact us: bit.ly/ContactAlamoMusic
♩ Call toll-free: [phone]
♬ Connect:
Twitter → bit.ly/AlamoTwitter
Instagram → bit.ly/AlamoPianoInstagram
Facebook → bit.ly/AlamoPianoFacebook

[@scottptolomey3498]

Peter Gabriel,Tony Banks and Phil Collins all love the CP70 grands especially with the Boss CE.1 chorus pedals patched in

[@GVike]

Those things were EVERYWHERE in 80s music.

[@fabiobarbieri2213]

I have my CP-70 !! I'm from Argentina!! This piano costs about 10.000 now and here!!

[@Yamil97]

No se habla lo suficiente sobre el uso que le dió Charly García al CP-70 en los ochenta; fue clave en definir su sonido en esa época. Me pregunto qué habrá pasado con ese piano…

[@highcorp9678]

Que no falte Charly, vine buscando este comentario!

[@diegoardiaca1080]

@@Yamil97 Charly tenia dos; hace unos pocos anios usaron el segundo para restaurar el primero. Esos pianos habian estado "perdidos" durante un buen tiempo, pero en realidad estaban en el taller del restaurador.

[@horacioduek]

Aguante Charly!!!

[@juanpagg88]

@@diegoardiaca1080 Fabian Von Quintiero tuvo uno tambien y lo uso en el Estadio Obras y en Signos con Soda Stereo

[@enricolongo242]

The sustain is awesome

[@horacioduek]

Few artists have made the CP70/80 shine as Charly García, the most beautiful music have been composed using this instrument. I can also think of Herbie Hancock and George Duke…

[@MrHermanRinger]

Tony Banks? Ese pibe va a andar bien con Genesis... ;-)

[@fabiangiannattasio8699]

Agree 100%, for me CP70 = Charly Garcia

[@Shred_The_Weapon]

I distinctly recall the first time I tried playing the piano model in September 2004. It was in the home of somebody who lived where I grew up in the Upstate New York village called Washingtonville. About seven months earlier, I had done an in-house recording session for an acquaintance who owns one of his own and had thought about turning loose of it. In between, the British group Keane had become the first act since the mid-80s to enter the charts with a sound that used a Yamaha CP70 as its core. Although I had been considering purchasing my friend’s piano by then, I had to intentionally delay going through with it to be sure I wasn’t just doing it because I liked the music of Keane. I finally took possession of it in October 2007 and kept it in my childhood home for the following five years or so. I only wish I hadn’t done the foolish thing and let it go. When I got it, it had a lot of white noise in the outputs, and I had accidentally damaged the sustaining system when I transported it to New York City where I moved in December 2010 and still live as of May 2024. I should have held onto it and figured out how to eliminate the white noise and have the sustaining system repaired. I’d like to add an historic tidbit, if I may. These pianos are not the only place in which Yamaha utilized that trapezoidal body shape. When the 80s began and Dr. John Chowning from Stanford licensed his additive synthesis techniques to Yamaha which led to the DX7, the first place where it was utilized was in the GS1. That model basically was a CP80 with a whole different sound-making system installed inside of it. Beyond that, it is worth mentioning the first instance in which the sound was approximated digitally, the Roland RD-1000 piano and its counterpart module, the MKS-20. Instead of using sample playback techniques, Roland created a technique called structured adaptive (SA) synthesis which reassembled the harmonic partials of an analyzed sound in the mainframe. That resulted in them creating arguable precursors to the first three parts of the General MIDI sound set: grand piano, upright piano and electric grand. It’s been fun and interesting switching back-and-forth between the realistic CP presets on my Yamaha S90XS and the “SA Piano” preset on my Roland VR-09.

[@georgeservian9383]

Knew nothing about Electric Pianos! Sounds great! Thanks for the education and for sharing.

[@RockStarOscarStern634]

It's a Baby Grand w/ Pickups in it so it actually sounds like a True amplified Piano

[@jenstornell]

Arturia has a CP-70 vst plugin emulation which is very good. It's on 50% sale now. I have bought it.

[@ClassicTVMan1981X]

Of all the classic electric pianos I miss the most, it's the Wurlitzer 200 since unlike the Rhodes, there have not been any modern-day updates of it.

[@midnight4109]

Amazing, absolutely amazing. Just when I think that I have seen everything, you guys top it! Coincidentally, I seem to wind up with Yamaha.

[@RockStarOscarStern634]

Those Electric Bowed instruments are like that too, they're Electro-Mechanical cause they have a Tone Generator that's amplified by a Pickup

[@gcoudert]

I thought the guy on the right looked and sounded like Zach Marr, then his name came up on screen and I understood! Great video!

[@NoMoreRatRace4Me]

I had to move mine to the garage for temp storage....does the cold negatively affect it?

[@rogerboltoncomposer]

Lovely video. I have a CP70 but the electrics are not working at the moment. I love it. Have just posted a new piece I wrote on it a couple of days ago.

[@RockStarOscarStern634]

The pickups yeah those need to be fixed

[@RockStarOscarStern634]

The Scaling of these Pianos has been compromised because the Bass Strings are shorter than a Standard Piano. What they could've done is to add an Octave Coupler to the lowest notes so that the Lowest notes are doubled up an Octave to give them more clarity.

[@jamesa375]

the electric pianos were the only real Hybrids,pianos that truly combine a piano mechanism and electric signal,and create a real sound.Unlike digitals that are called hybrids but are really just digital pianos with a better keybed that simply produce a prerecorded digital sound.

[@titob.yotokojr.9337]

Oh yes, I have vague memories of a piano that had metal prongs instead of strings and which had an amplifier to amplify the sound! One selling point of that piano was that it did not need tuning. At that time I thought it was cool. Whatever happened to that piano? And I am certain it was not in the thirties because that's way ahead of my time!

[@NegativeReferral]

Sounds like the Rhodes piano! It was popular in the 70s, but the synthesizer gradually replaced it in popularity.

[@Muzikman127]

You're almost certainly talking about the fender Rhodes. Very coveted instrument to this day

[@Muzikman127]

Sounds like this kzbin.info/www/bejne/bZDTmZWmbM-Ja9E

[@mightyocean411]

what the name of the song at 19:33? its amazing!

[@RockStarOscarStern634]

this one has real strings like a standard piano, & also hammers.

[@calinguga]

yep. sounds really nice, about how i had expected - in the same way an electric guitar is different to an acoustic. it's kind of a mix between an acoustic piano and a rhodes. i might just like it more than a rhodes or a wurli.

[@RockStarOscarStern634]

@@calinguga Yes the sound falls in between those 2 Pianos. In fact they have Piezo Pickups to make it sound more like a True Piano

[@RockStarOscarStern634]

@@calinguga The CP80 even feels like a Normal Piano

[@KenSlager]

That 3rd string makes all the difference from drone to tone. They are still cool though.

[@ChonkTek]

More about the string length and harp size, but there's one other thing. These CPs make amazing acoustic sounds, but nobody is really recording it properly. Most are ONLY using the direct outs in these videos, but the real magic is by mixing that with stereo mic signal. When playing a CP in person, it sounds much more acoustic and real than what is heard in this video, because our ears hear the room sound of direct piano too.

[@Shred_The_Weapon]

Such is the case with the tone bars inside of a Rhodes piano, ​@@ChonkTek. You can hear them when the power is off, but it is immensely faint.

[@andrew6978]

Famously used by The Edge.

[@willdatsun]

would liked to have heard it without being turned on/plugged in

[@DeanHorak]

The smell you mentioned is probably leaky capacitors.

[@michelprimeau4531]

You should have played Riders on the Storm and a Bach piece.

[@midnight4109]

The sound complimented the Doors as well as the Beetles.

[@matthewcreelman2736]

CP70s sound like crap.

[@Darrin.Crawford]

You need to invest in some Q-Tips

[@RockStarOscarStern634]

Actually it sounds more like an Amplified Grand Piano cause it's not Digital, it's Electro-Mechanical.

[@rickhadfield1097]

Obviously you know nothing about them! Troll!

[@matthewcreelman2736]

I have owned one before. I sold one to Jimmy Barnes. They are not Good Keyboards. I am a Keyboard technician

[@rickhadfield1097]

Yeah they are soooo. Bad that top bands have used or are still using them.