Yamaha Clavinova CLP885 digital piano - Black

Introducing the Yamaha Clavinova CLP885 digital piano

Sitting atop the illustrious Yamaha digital upright piano range, the CLP885 is conceived to replicate the sensations and experience of playing an acoustic grand piano, on a digital instrument, by combining the latest digital technology with the craft of acoustic piano making cultivated over more than 120 years.

The CLP-800 series incorporates several new technologies in every step of the process, to replicate the complex interactions that occur inside a grand piano and offer the pianist an experience that is unprecedented in a digital instrument.

Featuring Yamaha's most advanced speaker technology yet, the CLP885 backs it up with more realistic Virtual Resonance Modeling, outstanding piano sounds, and a new GrandTouch™ keyboard with synthetic ebony and ivory keytops with counterweight, proving a comprehensively superb playing experience.

Digital never felt so grand

The rich sound of a grand piano lies in the complexity of its design. From the moment pianists press the keys to the moment the sound reaches their ears, more than 8000 parts inside the piano move and vibrate in perfect harmony. GrandTouch™ and GrandTouch-S™ keyboards were developed to recreate as faithfully as possible the feel of the keyboard in a grand piano. In CLP-800 we have adjusted the weight, shape, materials, and movement of the internal parts, to bring the resistance perceived in the fingertips even closer to that of a grand piano action.

Superbly realistic feel

In addition, in the CLP-700 series the 3 sensors in the keyboard allowed you to repeat a note without going back to its initial position. With the new algorithm in the CLP-800 series you can now also play a note without fully pressing the key, as you would do in a grand piano, giving you even more control over your playing.

GrandTouch™ pedals

The new GrandTouch™ pedals in the CLP-800 series 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. Yamaha have 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. GrandTouch™ pedals even provide the friction you feel on the pedals of a Grand Piano. The GP Response damper pedal in the CLP-875, 885 and 895GP even reproduces the differences in resistance depending on how you are pressing the pedal, just like it happens in grand pianos.

Capturing your expression

When playing a grand piano, the pianist infuses their performance with different types of expression, and the tone changes depending on different factors:

1. How hard or lightly the key is pressed: When the key is pressed hard and hits the bottom of the key bed, it produces a harder tone, and when it doesn’t it produces a soft sound.
2. How the key is released: When the key is released quickly the dampers fall quickly too and allow you to create a “marcato” sound, and when they are released slowly you can get a more “legato” sound, when layering them with subsequent notes.
3. Key repetition: When a key is played repeatedly, the vibration of the string is affected by each strike of the hammer, creating a unique sound.

Simple tone generator algorithms on conventional digital pianos are not capable of this level of expression. On CLP-800 Series pianos, Grand Expression Modeling takes into consideration those 3 factors on every instant, precisely calculates how a grand piano would respond physically to such nuances of the player’s input, and provides an accurate tone and texture to the sound. As a result, players now have access to more capacity for musical expression than ever before on a digital piano.

Unleashing the perfect sound

The CLP-800 Series is equipped with a new tone generator chip developed by Yamaha, with higher computing power, that delivers our highest-quality, most beautiful piano voices to date. The CLP-800 Series is equipped with a new tone generator chip developed by Yamaha, with higher computing power, that delivers our highest-quality, most beautiful piano voices to date. It features voices of two world-renowned concert grand pianos, the CFX, Yamaha’s top-flight concert grand piano, and the Bösendorfer Imperial, with its renowned Vienese sound.

Faithful sound across the range

To faithfully reproduce the idiosyncrasies of these concert grand pianos, we carefully recorded 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, played in the times of Mozart, Beethoven and Chopin. And they now include the new “Chillout” and “Lo-Fi” pianos, ideal to play more contemporary music.

Better resonance with improved Virtual Resonance Modeling

CLP-800 Series pianos reproduce a richer, more natural resonance than ever before, thanks to its new tone generator chip paired with its ground-breaking technology, 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 pedalling.

Grand acoustic imaging - the most advanced speaker technology

While grand pianos amplify sound throughout its large soundboard and body, digital pianos amplify sound through its speakers. To overcome this structural limitation, applying the knowledge and techniques gained from over 120 years of acoustic piano manufacturing, we optimised the placement, orientation, and volume balance of the speakers in the low, mid, and high frequency ranges of the CLP-800 Series.

Realistic reverberation

We also installed diffusers, waveguides, and Bidirectional Horns to take advantage of the indirect sound reflected from the walls and body of the piano 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.

A design to match the sound

The CLP-800 Series are the closest it gets to a grand piano, not only in terms of feel and sound, but also in terms of design. They feature the many gentle curves that make the grand piano such a precious instrument. Its wider music stand is not only unobtrusive to the player’s dialogue with the music, but also highly functional, as it can hold several sheets spread out. And the LED display of the control panel in the higher-end models is designed to turn off when not in use, eliminating unnecessary elements from the player’s field of vision.

Benefits of the digital world

When using headphones, many people may find that their ears become fatigued if they play for too long. Binaural sampling solves this problem. In this sampling method, special microphones are placed on a mannequin’s head in the same position as the pianist’s ears, to capture the sounds the way that the pianist would hear them in reality. 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.

Connectivity and recording capabilities for convenience

Stream your favourite songs via Bluetooth to your piano and listen to them on the high-quality speakers of CLP Series pianos. You can even sit down and play along! Better still you can record yourself in audio or MIDI format via the Smart Pianist app or connecting a USB flash drive. You can then share your progress with anyone.

Get more with the Smart Pianist app

Enjoy the piano more with Smart Pianist, a dedicated app that adds a beautiful graphic interface and a variety of incredible features to your compatible Yamaha digital piano. The USB to host connection allows you to connect your device to your digital piano to benefit from the features of the Smart Pianist app.