The CP33 stage piano is the perfect find for the player who’s looking for first class piano sound and feel in a compact portable. Three layer stereo samples including sustain and key-off samples provide the scope of expression which is usually only available from acoustic instruments.Drawing on our rich tradition and experience, this instrument gives the live performer all the sound and expressiveness of a superbly mic’d grand piano with the portability and versatility of a modern digital instru
Fantastic Quality – Fantastic Keyboard,
At home or on stage, the CP33 is a beautiful piano to play. The 88 keys are superb quality, fully weighted, and a joy to play, some may even find the Yamaha GH keyboard a little on the heavy side.
This is really a stage piano and aimed at the live performance market, it has a wealth of features to tailor it to live performances and some that you may expect to find in a home piano are missing. The CP33 has no built-in speakers and must be played through the headphones or an external amplifier (or both). It also has no built-in sequencer for recording your playing, these are found on lower specification models such as the P85, the CP33 makes up for these however, and how.
This piano ships with Steinberg Cubase AI, a very powerful piece of software that is a complete music production system. Connect the CP33 MIDI or USB port to your computer and you can record as many tracks as you like and print them out as a music score, it works on PC and MAC. You can also program the CP33 using this software, it really is quite intuitive and powerful, I haven’t used all of the features yet, there’s plenty more to go at.
There are 14 primary voices and 14 secondary voices (variations on the primary voices), these can also be combined, so for example you can combine a grand piano and jazz organ if you so wanted (who am I to ask?). There are five primary piano voices (including a mono one) and five secondary voices that sound beautiful, really indistinguishable from an acoustic grand piano. The CP33 can also be used as a keyboard controller only and control another instrument. Plug it into your synthesiser and use the CP33′s outstanding keyboard to control it. In addition there are four buttons for Brilliance (Bright, Normal, Mellow), Reverb (Room, Hall 1, Hall 2, Stage), Effect (Chorus, Phaser, Tremelo, Rotary SP) and Touch (Hard, Medium, Soft, Fixed). The touch button alters the amplitude of the note rather than the actual feel of the keyboard. Each of the effects can be tailored to your particular requirements. The keyboard can also be split into zones and each zone adjusted for volume separately.
So is there a down side? Well there isn’t a purpose built stand for the CP33 – I bought the LP-3 but it doesn’t really fit, mine is `sat’ on a solid stand because I don’t like the X-frame stands. It also comes with only a single FC-3 pedal (with half-pedal effect) but it does has an aux jack for another pedal , or a more basic foot switch can be used. The Aux input can be set to Expression, Soft Pedal or Sostenuto.
In conclusion, the CP33 is very well built, solid, a delight to play and feature rich. It comes with powerful software and performs on stage or at home with equal aplomb. I have no hesitation in recommending it and you won’t be disappointed if you take to plunge.
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