Another area of focus in our development of digital pianos is the dialogue between the player and the instrument. For the player, the sounds the piano emits as they play are critical feedback for subsequent notes. The quality of this feedback is crucial for musical expression; thus, solving the mysteries of this feedback is the key to creating the sound of a digital piano.

The player plays, the piano responds, and the player continues to play. The player conveys the feelings they want to express, and the piano responds, in an ongoing exchange that forges a dialogue between the two. Music is a way to express human emotions and everything that exists in the world, and grand pianos have the range of tones, sounds, and volume needed to make music. The rich dialogue between the piano and the player is one in which the sound of the piano envelops the player, whose entire body receives it, and whose mind creates a vision of what to play next. To make this possible on digital pianos—which are shaped and produce sounds quite differently than grand pianos—we must create textured, clear sound spaces that allow a variety of sounds to spread and resonate in the same way as grand pianos while giving players the same feelings throughout their bodies.

For over a century, we have continuously studied the sound-producing mechanism of the grand piano—that is, how the strings vibrate, how their vibrations are transmitted to the soundboard and case, and how the sound radiates into the surrounding space and creates a distinct resonance that fills it. In developing the Clavinova, we use these principles and the latest tone generators and acoustic technologies to simulate in real time the full resonance created by the vibration of the entire instrument and replicate the sound image and sound field produced by grand pianos. We aim to create pianos that inspire excitement in players immediately when they start playing.

One of the best reasons to choose a Clavinova CLP-800 Series piano is access to multiple pianos on a single instrument, from world-class concert grand pianos to fortepianos for a more authentic classical music experience. The CLP-800 Series is equipped with a new tone generator chip developed by Yamaha that deliver our highest-quality, most beautiful piano voices to date.

Clavinova pianos feature voices of two world-renowned concert grand pianos. One of them is the CFX, Yamaha’s top-flight concert grand piano. Pianists around the world are enamored with the impressive, dazzling, richly expressive sound of the CFX in concert halls. Another sampled concert grand is the Imperial, the flagship model of Bösendorfer, a time-honored Viennese piano brand with an ardent following. The Imperial is known for its abundance of color and natural, warm feeling. Yamaha faithfully reproduces the idiosyncrasies of these concert grand pianos by carefully recording the entire tonal range of each of the 88 keys, making minute adjustments to capture the most harmonious tones each piano has to offer.

CLP-800 Series pianos are also equipped with the voices of the fortepiano, the predecessor to the modern piano. The sounds emitted by a fortepiano are simpler than those of a modern piano, and decay much more rapidly. Hearing the sounds of the instruments played when the likes of Mozart, Beethoven, and Chopin were composing their songs should illuminate the original intent behind the notes on the page. Here is a novel opportunity to communicate with historical composers by playing these period instruments.

The list of keyed instrument voices goes on to include electric pianos, organs, and more. A single CLP-800 Series piano is all you need to enjoy music from different eras and genres, from jazz and pop to healing music and 1980s classic rock.

The fortepianos shown in the picture are from the collections of at the Hamamatsu Museum of Musical Instruments.

The true pleasure of playing a grand piano is when the player can add expression to each and every note with total control over their touch and have the entire instrument respond by ringing out in full splendor.

Such a playing experience is created by the complex interaction of the 8,000 parts that make up the instrument; Clavinova CLP Series pianos replicate these physical phenomena with the help of Grand Expression Modeling and Virtual Resonance Modeling (VRM), two of Yamaha’s proprietary digital technologies to be explained later.

Players can experience the effects of Grand Expression Modeling by playing a song on a CLP-800 Series piano. For example, playing the many fast passages in Mozart’s “Piano Sonata No. 16 in C major”—a piece familiar to piano students—with the same light touch as you would on a grand piano results in a rolling, light-hearted tone, yet each note is clearly distinct from the others. When the same note is played repeatedly with the damper pedal down to sustain the sound, these pianos replicate the natural tonal variation produced by the physical phenomena in grand pianos by simulating the way the hammers strike strings that are already vibrating. This allows the player to add expression to repeated notes as if they were practicing on a grand piano, a useful option in places like the development of Beethoven’s “Für Elise.”

Pianists can vary the output by playing the keys to different depths and with different speeds, even when using techniques such as trills or legato or emphasizing the melody over the accompaniment. Grand Expression Modeling excels at faithfully reproducing the output expected of these techniques in many well-known songs. In Debussy’s “Clair de Lune,” a loose touch creates the faint tone that makes the melody stand out more crisply. In Liszt’s “Un Sospiro,” the accompanying arpeggios accent the melody without overwhelming it, and varied expression of the melody gives it the same quality as vocals. In the last of the Chopin nocturnes, trills, legato, and other delicate techniques where fingers seem to float over the keys deliver the airy, smooth tonal expression required. Playing such pieces on a highly expressive piano helps the pianist learn various techniques and experience the same joy of expression as a painter, but through sound.

In CLP Series pianos, VRM also replicates the momentary dynamics and deep resonance that are produced by the entire body of a grand piano. With CLP Series pianos, we invite you to enjoy a lush playing experience that is as close as it gets to a grand piano.

When a pianist plays a grand piano, they cause the entire body of the instrument to reverberate, and become enveloped in the colorful tones created from the combination of various acoustic elements in the air around them. The pianist becomes immersed in the diffusing sound and reverberation. CLP-800 Series pianos deliver this pleasant feeling through Grand Acoustic Imaging (to be explained later) and other distinct acoustic technologies. Moreover, a new tone generator chip allows fine-tuning and control of the sonic elements of each frequency band, dramatically improving the precision of sound design.

The concept behind the acoustic design of the CLP-800 Series is to cause sound to radiate into the surrounding space as widely as it does from grand pianos. For example, the CLP-865GP/845/835/825 feature diffusers—a special mechanism for diffusing sound. The higher-end CLP-895GP/885/875 models replicate the rich grand piano sound with diffusers in addition to waveguides, Bidirectional Horns and cleverly placed and oriented speakers. These design features allow players to feel the sensations of the sound filling the entire space, the hammers striking the strings in front of them, and the reverberation dissipating into the edges of the space (Grand Acoustic Imaging).

Each model in the CLP-800 Series features the best acoustic design for its case—no matter which model you play, you will be enveloped by a natural, pleasant sound with harmonic balance from bass to treble.

The keys and pedals are the interface between player and instrument. The keys and pedals of CLP Series pianos are designed to feel as similar to their grand piano counterparts as possible, so that the way they behave in response to input from the fingers and toes perfectly matches the resulting sound output.

GrandTouch/GrandTouch-S keys

The GrandTouch and GrandTouch-S keyboards were designed around the concept of “a keyboard with the feel of a grand piano action,” with the goal of allowing pianists to feel the keyboard with their fingertips in the same way as they would when playing a grand piano, and from there to create exactly the sound that they are looking for. Specifically, these keyboards are notable for their responsiveness, offering everything from light, delicately nuanced tones to boldly powerful notes in answer to the strength with which the pianist plays the keys. They replicate the pleasing response felt when the grand piano hammers strike the string, and are free of any wobble when pressed to their fullest extent. Highly absorbent synthetic-ivory white keys and synthetic-ebony black keys prevent slipping even during extended play and feel just like those of a grand piano.

The GrandTouch keyboards equipping the top models in the CLP Series feature the longest-ever pivot length on a Yamaha digital piano, ensuring that the keys are easy to play from the edge to the back. Finally, Yamaha’s 88-key Linear Graded Hammers are the only* digital piano technology that provide a distinct touch for each key with the same weight and return for the corresponding key on a grand piano.

The GrandTouch-S keyboards on CLP-800 Series pianos are even more responsive than ever thanks to further optimization of the weights of the hammers.

*Yamaha research as of June 2024

GrandTouch pedals

The pianist controls the pedals to add expression to the music, and makes frequent fine adjustments to how deeply they depress them in order to create the envisioned sound.

On a grand piano, pedaling requires more force when depressing the pedal, with the pedal feeling lighter on the return. This is because lifting a heavy damper requires more power than lowering it. GrandTouch pedals differ significantly from those in previous CLP Series pianos in that they replicate not only the resistance on the toes when the pedals are depressed, but also how that resistance lessens as the pianist returns the pedals to their original positions, a telltale physical property of grand piano pedals. This enables more precise pedaling and subtler changes in tonal expression, not only when depressing the pedals, but also by making it easier to hold the pedals in mid-stroke and control them as they slowly return to their original positions.

The higher-end models also feature a GP Response Damper that starts out light to the touch and grows heavier as it is depressed and the pedaling begins to take effect, just like on a grand piano. This gives players the physical feedback they need to master the delicate art of half-pedaling.

Among the myriad other design considerations, we have also deeply examined the relationship between the piano playing experience and the design of the instrument. Specifically, while our top-end Clavinova CLP-800 Series of digital pianos is modeled after grand pianos in terms of appearance, the playing experience is also designed so that players unquestioningly feel the natural sensations of playing grand pianos from the moment they sit down at the piano to the moment they finish playing and stand up.

This iteration of the CLP-800 Series features many gentle curves in the shape of the body to give the pianos a feeling of warmth and openness. Sitting in between the sweeping curves of the side arms of a CLP-875, for example, gives you the strong impression that you are playing a grand piano. The wide music stand integrated into the instrument is not only unobtrusive to the player’s dialogue with the music, but also highly functional, capable of holding several sheets spread out.

The LED display of the control panel of the higher-end models is designed to turn off except when the player is changing settings so that it looks like an unassuming keyblock in the player’s field of vision while they are playing. Simply eliminating unnecessary elements from the player’s field of vision allows them to become immersed in piano playing.

We hope you take the opportunity to experience the immersion of sitting in front of a CLP-800 Series piano on your next visit to a store where Yamaha pianos are sold.

One advantage of choosing a digital piano is that you can play with headphones on to keep your surroundings quiet. However, many people may find that their ears become fatigued if they play with headphones on for too long. One of the main reasons for this is that sound played directly into the ears is completely different from the natural sound of an actual piano.

Binaural sampling solves this problem. This is a method of sampling in which special microphones are placed on a mannequin’s head in the same positions as the pianist’s ears to capture piano sounds the way that they sound in reality. We chose this method to create the ambience and full, natural resonance of acoustic pianos in Clavinova pianos. This makes pianists feel as though they are sitting at a grand piano even when they play with headphones on. The experience is so pleasant that they forget they are wearing headphones, no matter how long they continue to play. On the CLP-800 Series*, binaural sampling was used for the Bösendorfer Imperial as well as the Yamaha CFX.

We also developed the Stereophonic Optimizer function to achieve the same effect for the piano effects. Stereophonic Optimizer technology replicates the natural diffusion of sound in headphones nearly as closely as binaural sampling for the piano voices other than the CFX and Imperial.

*Binaural sampling of the Bösendorfer Imperial is not included on the CLP-825.

CLP Series pianos feature 50 of the most famous classical pieces as well as 303 exercises by Hanon, Beyer, Czerny, and Burgmüller. Sheet music is also available for download and viewing on the Smart Pianist app. Try practicing with one hand at a time, or simply listen and enjoy.

The CLP-800 Series is also compatible with the FC35 optional three-pedal unit, which functions as an auxiliary pedal for small children to practice pedaling. Simply place the FC35 on a suitable stand* or otherwise adjust it so that it sits in a position appropriate for your child’s height.

*When placing the product on a stand, make sure that the stand is sufficiently large, flat and stable to prevent the pedals from wobbling or falling when they are pressed.

Smart Pianist is a free application for use with Yamaha digital pianos/hybrid pianos that can create song data from PDF scores and then play it back, as well as analyze song data stored in your smart device and display chord progressions. The Bluetooth® MIDI function* of the CLP-800 Series lets you connect to Smart Pianist wirelessly.

Combining Smart Pianist with a CLP-800 Series makes it easier to enjoy playing the songs you want to play and increases your performance repertoire.

*Availability of Bluetooth MIDI varies by country.

You can play music through the audio system on the CLP-800 Series* by using a Bluetooth-enabled smart device. You can stream audio data such as mp3 files, and even enjoy playing along with any songs on your smart device.

*Availability of Bluetooth audio varies by country.

The CLP-800 Series comes complete with 20 different and simple rhythm patterns* (drums and bass accompaniment) that are perfectly suited to many types of music, letting you spice up your performance with some backing musicians, make practice more interesting, or open up your creative flow with inspiring new ideas.

*The rhythm function is not included on the CLP-825.

The CLP-800 Series offers a variety of ways for you to record your favorite performances, described below.

Multi-track MIDI Song Recorder

The recording function featured in the CLP-800 Series allows you to record your performances* with a single touch, which is useful when you want to review your playing objectively. Additionally, you can record up to 16 tracks** for simultaneous playback, so different hands can be recorded separately or overdub parts with different voices.

*Recordings are made in MIDI format and can also be saved on a USB flash drive. Compatible software is required for playback of recorded data on a computer.

**CLP-825 features a 2-track song recorder.

Recording to the Smart Pianist app

You can record your performance in Audio or MIDI format. The recorded data is saved to the smart device. When the piano is connected to Smart Pianist via Bluetooth MIDI, only MIDI recording is possible.

USB Audio Recorder

Insert a USB flash drive into the USB [TO DEVICE] terminal to record performances to the drive and create audio files*** to save and play back on a computer or share with friends.

***Data is saved in WAV format.

A new Volume Limiter function lets you set a fixed maximum volume level, to protect your hearing from loud sound over the speakers or headphones. The function is a safeguard against small children damaging their hearing by accidentally turning up the volume too high.

One of the allures of the grand piano is the sympathetic resonance created by the vibration of the entire instrument. CLP-800 Series pianos reproduce a richer, more natural resonance than ever before, featuring a new tone generator chip paired with a groundbreaking technology called Virtual Resonance Modeling (VRM). VRM creates a richly varied sound by simulating the complex sympathetic tones created when the vibrations of the strings are propagated to the soundboard and other strings, corresponding to the timing and intensity of key playing and pedaling. This technology even replicates the sounds the dampers make when they are raised off the strings, in addition to the resonance of the duplex scaling, strings, soundboard, and case. CLP-800 Series pianos allow you to enjoy the same momentary dynamics and deep sympathetic sounds that are produced by the entire body of a grand piano.

Grand Expression Modeling is a groundbreaking technology that enables richly varied, textured musical expression in comparison to conventional digital pianos, which tend to offer little tonal variation, inevitably resulting in a rather flat output.

The interaction and interplay of the hammers, dampers, and strings inside a grand piano respond to the intensity, speed, depth, and other subtle nuances of the pianist’s touch, creating a limitless range of tonal expression. This range comes from both types of tonal variation, the type controlled by the player and the type that occurs naturally as a result of physical phenomena happening inside the piano when it is played. When playing a grand piano, the pianist infuses their performance with different types of expression, from the force they apply when depressing the keys to what they decide to do with sustained notes in terms of releasing the keys to cut them or layering them with subsequent notes.

Simple tone generator algorithms on conventional digital pianos are not capable of this level of expression. On CLP-800 Series pianos, Grand Expression Modeling now senses the depth of the player’s touch on every key in addition to the intensity and speed to precisely calculate how a grand piano would respond physically to the nuances of the player’s input. As a result, players now have access to more capacity for musical expression than ever before on a digital piano.

This technology is the result of our advanced digital technology for sound as well as our extensive knowledge of the piano, which we owe to our many years of manufacturing grand pianos.

A grand piano is an instrument that amplifies sound throughout its large soundboard and case so that it resonates in the surrounding space. In contrast, digital pianos have a structural limitation—they can only produce sound through speakers. This results in the player and listeners hearing sounds differently depending on where they are in relation to the instrument, and the differences are more pronounced with digital pianos than grand pianos.

To overcome this structural limitation to the extent possible, Yamaha has applied a combination of knowledge and techniques gained from over 120 years of acoustic piano manufacturing and advanced acoustic design technology for concert halls, theaters, and other commercial venues to the acoustic design of the CLP-800 Series. Specifically, we optimized the placement, orientation, and volume balance of the speakers in the low, mid, and high frequency ranges of the CLP-800 Series based on our analysis of the sounds emitted by the components of grand pianos and where and how they radiate away from their sources. We also installed diffusers, waveguides, and Bidirectional Horns to take advantage of the indirect sound reflected from the walls to enhance the reverberation of the sound. These design features reproduce the reverberation and depth of natural sound in the surrounding space, creating a sound field close to that of a grand piano.

Another important aspect in the acoustic design of digital pianos is offering acoustic characteristics that are as close to perfect as possible in any room where users might play them. That requires an ideal development environment that is unaffected by room acoustics such as sonic reflections from the wall or floors, and Yamaha headquarters is home to one of the largest anechoic chambers in the world. In this chamber, we measure the acoustic characteristics of speakers and make the adjustments necessary to account for the many different environments in which musical instruments are used. Yamaha possesses numerous research and development facilities that allow us to develop higher-quality instruments.

Yamaha developed GrandTouch/GrandTouch-S keyboards based on the concept of keys that convey the feel of a grand piano action. This does not mean that we take the approach of giving each key the same weight as its equivalent on a grand piano keyboard, or replicating the action of a grand piano. Rather, this keyboard mechanism is notable for how the loads applied to the fingertips and the way they change during performance is similar to that of a grand piano.

When playing grand pianos, pianists make minute adjustments to their input in response to whether the hammers at the ends of the keys are striking the strings in such a way that the piano produces the desired sound. In other words, players create sound by sensing the smallest changes in the resistance they feel in their fingertips within strokes measuring only 10 mm. We focused on this essence of sound creation from the player’s perspective and the changes in resistance they feel in their fingertips. Thanks to this unique approach to development, GrandTouch/GrandTouch-S keyboards provide an outstanding level of control to players so that they feel the same sensations as they would on a grand piano keyboard.

When playing a grand piano, the player feels two types of resistance in their fingertips. What makes players feel as though a grand piano action is behind the keys? In our view, it comes down to two key points: First, the resistance that players feel in their fingertips from the moment they press the keys to the moment the hammers spring upward to strike the strings. Second, the response that players feel in their fingertips when the hammers strike the strings. To make GrandTouch/GrandTouch-S keys simulate this resistance—a challenge given the compact size of the digital piano keyboard unit compared to the larger grand piano action—we do things like adjust the weight of the hammer weights and alter the shape, materials, and movement of the internal parts to bring the absolute resistance perceived in the fingertips as close as possible to that of a grand piano action. We also change the materials used, and reposition and refashion the stoppers in the GrandTouch and GrandTouch-S keyboard units to arrest the impact of the hammers, simulating the feeling of pressing grand piano keys to the bottom of the stroke. Of course, the resistance depends on the intensity of the player’s input. However, our innovations allow GrandTouch and GrandTouch-S keys to simulate a wide range of resistance from that felt when playing a powerful passage to the lightest, most delicate of keystrokes.

We designed GrandTouch pedals to not only look similar to grand piano pedals, but also to allow players to feel the same resistance in their feet as on a grand piano when they depress and release them. They are structured completely differently than those of the previous CLP-700 Series; we positioned the pivots and set the pivot-to-tip lengths, angles, and other measurements equal to grand piano specifications so that they travel the same paths as grand piano pedals when players use them. This allows players to apply the same force as they would on grand piano pedals. Also, since pianists make minute adjustments to their pedaling depth in the half-pedal range for more precise control, they need to be able to have that finesse with the depth while they are pedaling. GrandTouch pedals leverage friction to enable that finesse and reduce the force required to hold the pedals in place thanks to our creative decisions with the shapes, materials, and positioning of the rotating parts. This makes the pedals feel like grand piano pedals and also boosts the control players need to express subtle nuances. With these innovative advancements, GrandTouch pedals bring everything about the digital piano experience—from initial contact with the toes to the finest nuances of pedaling—that much closer to the grand piano.

The higher-end CLP-895GP/885/875 models feature a GP Response Damper pedal. CLP-800 Series pianos not only simulate the resistance of grand piano dampers when the pedals first begin to take effect, but also accurately blend the tonal variation with the sensation of the dampers being raised off the strings with precision sensing of pedal depth. This allows players to practice proper pedaling—even half-pedaling—at all times. The combination of GrandTouch pedals and the GP Response Damper in higher-end models of the CLP-800 Series enables more authentic, grand piano-like pedaling than ever before.

As mentioned previously, binaural sampling is a method of sampling in which special microphones are placed on a mannequin’s head in the same positions as the pianist’s ears to capture piano sounds the way that they sound in reality.

Yamaha has developed a mannequin head specifically for binaural sampling. We also measured the ear shapes of nearly 100 people to create an “average ear” model and carefully examined the types and positioning of microphones to use with it to ensure that everyone can enjoy the same effects. As of 2024, Yamaha makes the only digital pianos with binaural sampling-based piano sound* for headphones.

*Yamaha research as of June 2024