Glossary

Here’s a glossary of some of the terms that you may encounter while researching purchasing a digital piano:

Action – The feel and responsiveness of the keyboard

Advanced Wave Memory (AWM) Dynamic Stereo Sampling – The AWM (Advanced Wave Memory) is a sampling system found in Yamaha digital pianos which creates the realism of an acoustic instrument by using digital technology to record the instrument sound and applying high-quality digital filter technology to the recorded audio samples. The waveform of the sound created by playing the key of an acoustic piano differs depending on the playing strength from pianissimo to fortissimo. The AWM Dynamic Stereo Sampling can produce such dynamic nuances by recording samples of various playing strengths. The greater the number of samples used, the higher the expression.

Damper Pedal – A pedal that controls the damping of piano strings. In the case of digital pianos this pedal is plugged into the back of a piano with a cord.

Graded Hammer Effect (GHE) Keyboard – This is a proprietary Yamaha key board action gives all keys an authentic resistance that increases from the top register to the lower – just as on an actual acoustic piano. Which means that you can naturally pound out thunderous low notes with your left hand and let the fingers on your right dance and fly with the high notes.

Half Damper Effect – A feature unique to Yamaha digital pianos where the player can emulate a technique in which the damper (sustain) pedal is only partially pressed down.

Metronome – A device used to mark time by means of regularly recurring ticks or flashes at adjustable intervals

MIDI – Stands for musical instrument digital interface: a standard protocol for communication between electronic musical instruments and computers

Modulation Wheel or Mod Wheel – One of several common continuous controls on a MIDI device. Often used to add a vibrato effect to a sound.

Number of Keys – Acoustic pianos traditionally have 88 keys. Some digital pianos have fewer than 88 keys for the sake of portability.

Pitch Bend Wheel – is a control on a synthesizer to pitch bend (portamento) — to vary the pitch in a continuously variable manner.

Polyphony – This number determines how many notes can be heard at once on the digital piano.

USB – (Universal Serial Bus) is a technology for high-speed data transfer over a cable. It is an alternative to Firewire. It is often used for connecting keyboards, mice, and portable data storage to computers.

Voice – Any unique sound that can be played on the keyboard is considered a voice. Strings, organ, harpsichord, and piano are all examples of voices. The more voices an instrument has, the wider the variety of sounds it can produce.