If you’ve ever heard a piano note go “wah‑wah‑wah,” you’ve heard string beating. For piano tuners, it’s one of the most useful sounds: It tells you, instantly, whether two strings are truly matching or fighting each other. In this article I’ll explain what beating between strings is, why piano string beating is so obvious in … Read more
If you’re searching for Eric Peppe—or you’ve been trying to reach him for tuning, repair, or lessons—you’re not alone. Eric Peppe has retired from piano tuning and has moved from Maine to Vermont. He is no longer scheduling service calls. Older phone numbers, email addresses, and online listings may not be monitored. I’m not able … Read more
I recently had a customer ask me to tune their piano to A432, and had to quickly calculate how many cents flat relative to A440 to tune. This calculation isn’t especially complicated, but it’s inconvenient to do quickly in the field. I decided to create this simple tool for my own quick and easy reference. … Read more
In my Disklavier Upgrades guide article, I refer several times to DKC-850 conversion cables. These are the cables you use to connect your older Yamaha Disklavier to a newer DKC-850 control unit (or a DKC‑800 converted to act like a DKC‑850). The original conversion cables were provided by Yamaha as part of the DKC-850 upgrade … Read more
This article is intended to explain how Dampp-Chaser Piano Life Saver systems are priced and why installed costs can vary so widely from one piano to another. The goal here is to provide realistic, current pricing expectations, explain the factors that affect cost, and help piano owners understand what they are paying for when a … Read more
Over a century ago, famous artists played on specialized instruments from Ampico designed to capture their work. Today, you can download those very same performances as MIDI files available for download! Your very own Disklavier can reproduce those century-old performances. What once were marks made by a nearly-extinct technology on chemical paper can now be … Read more
This list is designed to help you understand the upgrade options for your Yamaha Disklavier. It can be confusing, so start here! As an authorized Yamaha Service Center, I receive this question often, both from local customers here in Maine and from visitors to this site. No matter what model of Disklavier you have, it’s … Read more
I’ve recently installed some external speakers for various Yamaha Disklaviers. Hopefully my experience with this helps somebody else! The Yamaha Disklavier Mark IV is a well-loved, sophisticated instrument. However, upgrading its control unit to the DKC-900 offers several benefits—most notably, access to Yamaha’s ENSPIRE radio stations and On-Demand radio. This is one of my recommended … Read more
Yamaha sold Smart PianoSoft floppy/CD sets for Disklavier Mark III, Mark IV, and DCD-1 upgrade systems. The floppy controls the acoustic piano while the matching audio CD provides the accompaniment, vocals, or backing track. This was a revolutionary technology: You could insert a floppy disk designed to play the actual acoustic piano alongside an audio … Read more
I recently installed a Nalbantov floppy disk emulator using an updated version of the insert and mount that I designed. You can see based on the pictures below that the Nalbantov slim is slightly too small to fill the entire cavity left by the original floppy disk drive. Additionally, there are no mounts of any … Read more