Yamaha Silent Piano™
Silent PianosTM combine the best of Acoustic and Digital Pianos.
Our prime goal is to ensure that we provide a beautiful acoustic piano, built with the knowledge and skills of over 100 years Yamaha piano history. Then we add our market leading Silent PianoTM technology to enable the piano to be played silently using headphones. When the silent function is activated, the hammers will no longer hit the strings and instead, a highly sophisticated sensor-technology captures all movements of the keys and sends them to the digital tone module. Play a real acoustic piano with headphones at any time, day or night without being disturbed or disturbing others.
The Yamaha Silent System is unsurpassed, allowing 24hr practice as well as possessing many other features including a range of pre-installed sounds, being able to record your own performances or connecting mobile devices to use the latest Apps. Yamaha, the world’s leading provider of sound muting technology offers two Silent Piano systems in the range, each with different levels of operation and quality of sound available when in silent mode.
“The SH silent system provides a truly unbelievable quality of piano sound. It’s that good you may even find yourself removing the headphones just to make sure you’re in “silent” mode!”
How can you use it?
Not every pianist is the same, and neither is the way you can use a Silent Piano.
There will be times when the deep, resonant sound of a Yamaha piano is not always appreciated especially if it is disturbing a neighbour or family member.
For those times there are our SH and SG2 Silent Systems which can be switched on in an instant. All the sensitivity and touch of a real Yamaha piano action and all the sound of a Yamaha concert grand delivered through headphones while others can watch TV or listen to their own music in the same room.
Early mornings, late nights, no problem. Practise in silence without disturbing others or being disturbed.
Compatible with the new generation of technology, including apps like Piano Diary and NoteStar, PCs and MIDI-equipped instruments, the latest Silent Pianos offer a serious alternative to both acoustic pianos and digital keyboards too.
The ability to practise in silence on a real piano through headphones, without disturbing others or indeed, being disturbed, is a massive benefit. As is the Silent Piano’s comprehensive connectivity. You can capture and share audio and MIDI via the on-board recorder or just luxuriate in the staggeringly realistic sampled sound of the CFX Concert Grand (SH only).
For home, studio, stage and classroom it’s the ultimate piano experience.
A Silent PianoTM is an extremely versatile instrument. There are numerous jacks on-board enabling you to connect your iPad® to Apps such as “Piano Diary” or to a computer to record your performance externally. You can also connect to a Hifi-System, mobile audio devices, external speakers or any other MIDI device.
Practising anytime, night or day, without disturbing others or being disturbed gives Silent Piano owners a huge advantage. Yamaha’s patented Quick Escape MechanismTM (GP only) lets you play with the same touch and feel in both acoustic and silent modes.
The totally convincing illusion of sitting at a concert grand in a recital hall is created through headphones by the binaurally sampled Yamaha CFX piano (SH) . A variety of great instrument sounds are included too, as well as a metronome and transpose feature. There’s MIDI of course for expansion and, in silent mode customizable brilliance and different reverb types.
There’s no substitute for the touch and response of a real grand piano action. And whilst amplification of a grand piano presents a particular set of challenges in a live situation, many choose this route. Now, thanks to Yamaha’s SH Silent technology, real piano touch can produce real piano sound without the need for complex mic setups.
Meanwhile MIDI connectivity puts the Silent Piano at the heart of a sophisticated performance setup.
It’s the ultimate piano for stage and studio. It’s a real piano.
Connectivity
A Silent PianoTM is an extremely versatile instrument. There are numerous jacks on-board enabling you to connect your iPad® to Apps such as “Piano Diary” or to a computer to record your performance externally. You can also connect to a Hifi-System, mobile audio devices, external speakers or any other MIDI device.
It’s genuinely a different experience playing the Yamaha Silent piano – put the headphones on and instead of feeling like the sound is being pumped into your ears it feels so natural, like the sound is dancing around you.
When I switched on the Silent mode and played with the new headphone on, I was completely overwhelmed by the fantastic sounding digital piano, the spaciousness and the dynamics. It even made me take off my headphones a few times to double check if I wasn’t listening to the acoustic one!
When I first tried the SH silent system I really could not believe what I was hearing. After the first few notes I had to check that I was in silent mode as the sound was that good it was like playing the piano acoustically.
Advantages of the Silent Piano™ system
A Silent Piano is full of advantages and provides all to fit your personal requirements.
The Yamaha SH Silent systemTM is the first and only system in the industry to be equipped with an incredible sound sampled from the new Yamaha CFX full-size concert grand piano.
Yamaha´s SG2 type Silent PianoTM is equipped with a sample from the Yamaha CFIIIS full-size concert grand piano.
All SH models come with an incredible Silent PianoTM sound heard through headphones. It is the first in the Silent PianoTM industry to be equipped with a sound sampled from the Yamaha CFX full-size concert grand piano using state of the art binaural sampling techniques. This is a highly sophisticated recording technique in which a special combination of microphones are used; including two installed into the ears of a dummy head so that the sound reproduced is that from the pianist’s perspective.
Binaural sampling technology delivers a three-dimensional sound which seems to come straight from the heart of the piano. The sound via headphones is so realistic, you may have to remove your headphones to check that you really are practicing silently …
The SH system has outstanding specifications such as 256 note Polyphony, 256Mb WAVE-Rom and individual sampling for all keys to provide the world-class Silent PianoTM sound.
Advanced Wave Memory
The SG2 silent system uses a stereo sampling method which creates the realism of an acoustic instrument by using digital technology to record the Yamaha CFIIIS full concert grand piano sound and applying high-quality digital filter technology to the recorded audio samples. The waveform of the sound created by playing the key of an acoustic piano differs just as a real piano does depending on the playing strength from pianissimo to fortissimo. The stereo sampling can produce such dynamic nuances by recording samples of various playing strengths.
The Yamaha Silent PianoTM systems offers a variety of sounds creating a more diverse enjoyment opportunity and enables you to choose a different sound to match perfectly the music genre you are playing. Every Silent PianoTM model offers you a range of different sounds as well as Reverb options to give you the freedom of expression.
Polyphony is a vital feature as it defines and supports the quality of the sounds that you are using. Both Yamaha systems offer a high level of polyphony especially on the SH system at 256 notes, meaning you can play many notes at once and still be able to enjoy the full sound quality.
In every piano with a sound-muting system the hammers need to be prevented from striking the strings. This process influences the striking distance and therefore the touch and feel of the piano is affected.
To overcome this, Yamaha invented a modified grand piano action part called, QuickEscapeTM, which is standard for all Yamaha silent grand pianos. This system automatically optimizes the striking distance in acoustic and silent mode ensuring a natural touch at all times.
Wave rom size is key, as it defines the storage level for the sampled sound data. A larger level of wave-rom allows Yamaha to include longer samples, many velocity layers, key sampling for each individual key and sustain sampling. With all of this combined, Silent PianoTM creates an incredibly realistic sound that is both rich and deep.
The SH System provides an easy way to record your own performances using Audio (not MIDI) directly onto USB. This data can be played back immediately from any audio device like mobile phones, tablet devices, mp3 players or shared in an instant with friends and family using cloud technology or social media networks.
Midi
With the MIDI (IN/OUT) sockets you can connect an iPad® to use apps like PianoDiary, connect your PC to record with a sequencer program, or connect any other MIDI device.
USB
Connecting commercially available USB storage devices to the unit allows you to save your performance and playback songs stored on the device. On SH models you can record directly onto USB.
Headphones
Every Silent PianoTM is equipped with two headphones sockets allowing you to play at any time without disturbing others or being disturbed yourself. You can even play silently together with a friend or teacher.
Aux (In/Out)
AUX IN (stereo mini jack). You can use the Silent Piano function together with sound received from another connected device. i.e. connect a mobile device to play-along with audio files.
AUX OUT (stereo mini jack). The signal output from this jack is the same sound as that heard when listening through headphones. So you can use this output i.e. to connect to your hifi.
6,3mm Audio Outputs
All SH grand piano models have a 6,3mm L/R audio output; giving you a professional and stable output to connect to amplified speakers or to mixing consoles.