Days before his death, Prince tweeted a photo of a custom-made purple piano intended to be a centerpiece of his scheduled tour.

The piano, which was delivered to Prince's home at Paisley Park in Minnesota a few weeks ago, was a rush job that had to be completed in about three months, said Chris Gero, vice president of Yamaha Entertainment Group, based in Franklin, Tenn.

"We were on the top end of the idea, but it accelerated so fast," Gero said Friday, revealing the behind-the-scenes work that went into its manufacture.

The acoustics of the piano were fine-tuned to Prince's specifications.

http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/7341778/prince-purple-piano-yamaha

For piano people how do they change the acoustics?

Astasheiks said:

Days before his death, Prince tweeted a photo of a custom-made purple piano intended to be a centerpiece of his scheduled tour.

The piano, which was delivered to Prince's home at Paisley Park in Minnesota a few weeks ago, was a rush job that had to be completed in about three months, said Chris Gero, vice president of Yamaha Entertainment Group, based in Franklin, Tenn.

"We were on the top end of the idea, but it accelerated so fast," Gero said Friday, revealing the behind-the-scenes work that went into its manufacture.

The acoustics of the piano were fine-tuned to Prince's specifications.

http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/7341778/prince-purple-piano-yamaha

For piano people how do they change the acoustics?

i play piano but I think piano players aren't always the best people at understanding the mechanics of a piano, it's pretty complex. We just learn to play, kind of like most people can't build a car but they use one. The acoustics of a piano all depend on the body, the material the wood, everything really and every piano is different. There is also the action and how easy/hard it is to play, some pianos you have to press down really hard to get a sound out of, some are brutal, uprights usually, grand pianos are the best in terms of design and acoustics, the sound is huge because the body is bigger and the way the mechanics of it are built, makes it much better to play from a technical perspective, i tend to make a lot less mistakes when i play a grand. All that said, prince usually played electric pianos of some type which i know even less about than real pianos, i do know the action is easier to play. As a matter of fact, i can't think of a time he played a real acoustic piano in concert, they are harder to mic so he usually had what's actually a keyboard with piano sounds.

not a lot of detail in the specifications he requested so I don't know how it was any different than any other grand piano. It sounds like it had some built in amp outlet of some kind which I'm sure exists but I've never seen one, usually, when a real piano is used, it's mic'ed. the reason real pianos are rarely used in concert is they are a bitch to transport and they also have to be constantly tuned and maintained, thus, many pianists prefer a real piano but just settle for the ease of transport of an electric keyboard.

which led to the misnomer of his last tour. It wasn't a piano and a microphone, it was a synthesizer and a microphone. Hence also the strings detracting from the performances.

.

It was so good, but it could have been great!

mediumdry said:

PeteSilas said:

Astasheiks said:

Days before his death, Prince tweeted a photo of a custom-made purple piano intended to be a centerpiece of his scheduled tour.

The piano, which was delivered to Prince's home at Paisley Park in Minnesota a few weeks ago, was a rush job that had to be completed in about three months, said Chris Gero, vice president of Yamaha Entertainment Group, based in Franklin, Tenn.

"We were on the top end of the idea, but it accelerated so fast," Gero said Friday, revealing the behind-the-scenes work that went into its manufacture.

The acoustics of the piano were fine-tuned to Prince's specifications.

http://www.billboard.com/articles/news/7341778/prince-purple-piano-yamaha

For piano people how do they change the acoustics?

i play piano but I think piano players aren't always the best people at understanding the mechanics of a piano, it's pretty complex. We just learn to play, kind of like most people can't build a car but they use one. The acoustics of a piano all depend on the body, the material the wood, everything really and every piano is different. There is also the action and how easy/hard it is to play, some pianos you have to press down really hard to get a sound out of, some are brutal, uprights usually, grand pianos are the best in terms of design and acoustics, the sound is huge because the body is bigger and the way the mechanics of it are built, makes it much better to play from a technical perspective, i tend to make a lot less mistakes when i play a grand. All that said, prince usually played electric pianos of some type which i know even less about than real pianos, i do know the action is easier to play. As a matter of fact, i can't think of a time he played a real acoustic piano in concert, they are harder to mic so he usually had what's actually a keyboard with piano sounds.

Very interesting info, Thanks

not sure about the piano that was made for him but in previous performances, he would play an electric keyboard/synth/workstation built into a grand piano shell. Dr. Fink talked about this in a 1990 interview once. I believe the idea came when/because Prince used to dance and jump on/off pianos so much back in the day