I'm Back

[Greg Newell]

Greetings everyone,
    Yes, It's true, I've returned. You should know that Mark Wisner was
reading my posts to this list while I was attending the classes at
Yamaha. He called the posts shameless several times and joked that I
didn't need to suck up because he was sure I was going to pass. I must
say that even though Im sure he's right about the way the posts sounded,
I meant every word.
    Our last day at the Disklavier Service Training Seminar was not
quite as eventful as the first 2. Bill Brandom did pull apart a digital
so we could see the insides of it. Did you know that Yamaha manufactures
a digital with a true piano action? The only thing different is the
hammers are a heavy, high impact plastic that strike a thick, dense felt
instead of strings. I was impressed by the design but for my purposes I
still want the acoustic part of the piano too. Now that I've seen all
that the disklavier can do, I think I'll just have to save up for one
now.
    We spent a good part of the last day with one of our instructors,
Tom, showing us the very method of bedding the key frame that is in this
months journal. A great article by the way that I think everyone should
read. It's true that key frame designs have changed somewhat and the old
way of using slips of paper as gauges with keys removed and stack
screwed on just doesn't cut it anymore. Tom proved it to us in class on
Friday. We also has a tour of a bit more of the facility there. We were
able to see the new Pro 2000. Wow what a machine! It runs with a 15 in
(I think) touch screen win98 based computer that is all the player and
more. It reads the music on screen with you and automatically turns the
page. It will allow you to play one note melodies and play the rest of
the music for you, even waiting for you if you screwup. We only had time
to see a small portion of what it can do but, wow, what a machine.
    We were just about to leave when Bill Brandom caught the guy who
runs their recording studio. I wish I could remember his name for you.
Anyway we were able to see the disklavier that so many of the fine
artists used to make the recordings Yamaha sells on the prerecorded
disks. They run specialized software on  a Mac G3 platform and do things
that only a very short time ago took rooms full of equipment to do. I
was quite impressed! The Disklavier recorded everything the artists did
... even the mistakes. The move now seems to be to leave them in there
for a truer sound. I'm for this as I believe that the too sterile
recording sound like a machine played the whole thing.
    After class ended at 5:00 we went back to the hotel to freshen up.
It became important to change our socks because we went to a Sushi
restaurant for the banquet where we removed our shoes and sat on the
floor. The food was outstanding and the atmosphere great. Many of us
were grilling Terry Nimi for some of the Japanese customs and we all
learned a lot. We had a taste of Soju which I can only describe as
Japanese grain alcohol. Terry told us that it will never cause a
hangover. It tasted a little like Everclear, remembered by a few from
the days of lore. It seems that the Japanese custom is never to poor
your own glass. If you have astute neighbors your glass is never empty.
What fun.
    In closing I'd like to add that my thanks go out to everyone there,
instructors and fellow students to who all made this a very fun and
enjoyable trip. It is one I'll not soon forget.

Cheers,
    Greg Newell

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