Yamaha Reviews

The Yamaha Corporation was founded by Torakusu Yamaha in 1887 (originally called Nippon Gakki Co Ltd) and celebrated its 125th Anniversary in 2012. Initially producing just reed organs and pianos, Yamaha has gone on to become the world’s largest musical instrument manufacturer. With improvements in technology in the early 1980’s Yamaha introduced it’s first digital pianos and in 1983 the first Clavinova, the YP-40 which used FM synthesis to reproduce the sound of an acoustic piano. In 1985 the first range of CLP and CVP models was launched (still using FM technology) and were specifically designed for home use as an alternative to a regular piano. In 1986 Yamaha introduced the CLP50, the first Clavinova which used AWM sampling technology giving a far more realistic sound. Over the last 30 years Yamaha has continued to develop the CLP and CVP models, and Clavinova has become probably the most well known range of higher end digital pianos.

As well as the Clavinova series, Yamaha has developed several other ranges including the YDP (Arius) series which are lower priced cabinet style models, the P series portable pianos, the DGX Portable Grand, NPV Piaggero series, the Modus series and the CP stage piano range. Yamaha also manufacture the N series AvantGrand models which incorporate the best of Yamaha’s digital and acoustic piano manufacturing skills into one instrument.