TransAcoustic™ TA2

Newly developed TransAcoustic™ technology transmits digital sound directly to the piano soundboard, thus making the piano itself behave as a speaker. On a TransAcoustic™ piano, the sound that you hear is resonating directly from the soundboard. The tone generator sends an optimized audio signal to transducers that are connected by a coil to the soundboard. This sets the coils in motion, causing the soundboard to vibrate and generate sonic vibrations that travel through bridges attached to the soundboard, and are ultimately transmitted to the strings, making them resonate with sound.

There are times when the full sound of an acoustic piano may not be appreciated by your family or neighbors. For these situations, simply activate the TransAcoustic™ mode and the hammers will no longer strike the strings. Non-contact sensors under each individual key detect your keystroke depth, velocity and timing and send this information to the tone generator. Just adjust the volume and hear the digital sound of your piano performance coming from the entire instrument. Naturally, there is no need for headphones or external amplification.

You can play TransAcoustic™ TA2 type with the voices of CFX, Yamaha’s finest concert grand piano, and Bösendorfer’s legendary Imperial. All 88 keys are sampled individually. As Yamaha’s flagship grand piano, the majestic CFX boasts a wide palette of tonal colors, from sparkling high notes to powerful bass tones. The legendary Bösendorfer, meanwhile, is renowned for its sonorous and rich Viennese sound.

TransAcoustic™ TA2 type offers total 20 pre-installed sounds such as electric pianos, harpsichord, organs, strings, choir, and synth pad, allowing you to select the ideal voice to match your preferred musical genre.

Thanks to their unique construction, TransAcoustic™ TA2 type allow you to layer the natural, resonant sound of the acoustic piano together with voices from the tone generator. Perhaps the most scintillating sounds are created by combining the acoustic and digital properties of the instrument—for example, gentle orchestral strings seemingly played from an acoustic piano—to achieve sonic textures with a natural quality not found on any other instrument.

Enjoy playing along with any of the 50 preset songs that come with TransAcoustic™ TA2 type, accompanying your playing with songs you have recorded yourself, or even with commercially available songs played back through the sound board. You can play a duet with yourself, or you can just sit back and listen to the playback.

Yamaha's SILENT Piano™ SH2 technology allows practice sessions to be conducted with headphones. Yamaha's SILENT Piano™ SH2 technology also features a superb binaural sample from the Yamaha CFX concert grand piano recorded using special techniques to perfectly capture the sound from the player's natural listening position. These two technologies combine to create the perfect environment to play without disturbing others.

Yamaha’s advanced binaural sampling technology uses samples from the CFX, Yamaha’s acclaimed concert grand piano, recorded with specialized microphones that capture locational information and other nuances discerned by the human ear. The resulting sound is so natural, so enveloping, that you’ll soon forget you’re even wearing headphones at all.

In a grand piano, sound resonates throughout the body of the instrument, producing a rich reverberation that envelops the listener in sound. This phenomena is reproduced perfectly through enhanced Virtual Resonance Modeling (VRM). The original VRM calculates the various states of the strings for each of the 88 notes on the keyboard, from one instant to the next, and timing and depth of damper pedals pressed. The enhanced VRM now also calculates aliquot resonance in the upper octaves, and the full resonance of the soundboard, rim, and frame. This technology allows for vivid, bright, richly-varied expression that reflects the limitless number of factors inherent in piano performance.

Stereophonic Optimizer is an effect which reproduces the natural sound distance, like with the sound of Binaural Sampling, even though you are listening to it on headphones. When one of the Piano Voices other than CFX Grand is selected, the Stereophonic Optimizer is enabled.

Featuring Yamaha's Smooth Release technology, TransAcoustic™ TA2 type offers the crisp tone heard when playing staccato as well as the lingering sound produced by releasing the keys more. This provides finely-nuanced response to the pianist’s playing.

The moment a pianist’s fingers are lifted from the keys of a grand piano, subtle changes occur in the instrument’s tone as the damper is lowered onto the strings to mute its sound. Key-Off samples features actual recordings of these changes, offering a faithful reproduction of the most subtle changes in the piano’s sound, allowing for a more realistic performance.

Under each of the 88 keys is a Yamaha-unique continuous-detection grey-scale shutter key sensor. These sensors detect the movement of the keys continually, allowing natural musical expression even when the piano is in TransAcoustic™ mode or SILENT Piano™ mode. Since they do not come into contact with the keys, these sensors do not affect the feel of the keyboard in any way.

Grand piano with TransAcoustic™ TA2 type are fitted with hammer sensors that allow even slow keystrokes or rapid trills. To ensure that they do not affect the feel of the keyboard in any way, Yamaha uses non-contact sensors.

Grand piano with TransAcoustic™ TA2 type features a quick escape system that allows the sound muting mechanism to be fitted to a grand piano without sacrificing any of the playability or musical expression demanded of such instruments in an acoustic performance. This system allows optimal separation to be obtained between the hammers and strings by adjusting the distance between the hammers and strings, ensuring that the feel of the keyboard stays in the best possible condition whether playing acoustically or with the sound muted.

The control unit has been given a sophisticated design that unobtrusively blends with the piano itself. Moreover, the simple controllers allow you to operate the instrument easily.

For Polished White finished piano, the white colored unit will be installed.

The headphones that come with TransAcoustic™ TA2 type are designed in a way that minimizes the strain on users after long hours of playing. This newly employed headphones contribute to the improvement of sound quality as well as to the reduction of fatigue during performance.

TransAcoustic™ TA2 type has a built-in metronome that can be used in both TransAcoustic™ mode and SILENT Piano™ mode so that players can listen to precise rhythm while they play.