Pianotech

Good morning esteemed colleagues,
I have been sitting on this one awhile (been busy here in the wilds of Wyoming) Received this request from a church in town.
"We are having problems with our Yamaha piano (Yamaha Clavinova; Model No. CLP-265GP),

The piano is taking some of the keys and slamming them down very hard as if the pianist played the wrong note. It can happen in the lower section or the upper section. The sound is very loud when it does this. We are thinking it may have to do with the motherboard but are not sure."

Personally I do not work with digital keyboards, so any thoughts or ideas on how to rectify the issue are greatly appreciated.  

Hopefully the video attachment will work to demonstrate what the customer is talking about.  :)   Questionalble note is Eb2

Also, neither I or my wife  do not hear anything amiss. 

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Thane Yennie - RPT
Cheyenne WY
(307) 871-8718
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Let them find a qualified technician to work on it.  I don't hear anything in the video either, but there must be something wrong or they wouldn't bother reaching out for help.  The symptom of having loud notes is common on keyboards, and it is likely the switches in the keys.  Rest assured, you'll remove a hundred screws just to access them.  Just say, "no" and direct them to the nearest dealer to find where to take it.

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Paul McCloud, RPT
Accutone Piano Service
www.AccutonePianoService.com
pavadasa@gmail.com
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I can't hear anything odd happening in this video.
Clavinova's have a very simple calibration procedure that is run every time you turn on the instrument. Basically, it tests every key to see what position it is in at rest. If there is something that prevents the key from sitting in the correct position when the instruments boots up it can cause that calibration to be a bit wacky, and the instrument may perform incorrectly. Things that can cause this could be accidently having a key slightly depressed when turning the instrument on, having something that has fallen between the keys and is blocking the light sensors, or even just an accumulation of dust, dirt, etc., that has fallen down into the spaces and may be causing unreliable sensing between the led and the sensor. Without opening anything up, I would suggest that you start by taking a look down between the keys to see if you see anything that might have fallen in, (I find guitar pics down there frequently), and then just blowing the keys out with, say, canned air. If that doesn't fix the problem then you should either pass this on to a tech that regularly services these instruments or, if you're brave, call Yamaha tech support and have them help you through it. They're very good at this.

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Geoff Sykes, RPT
Los Angeles CA
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I couldn't hear much wrong in the video either, but the description of the problem is consistent with a cracked plastic flange on the rear of the keys in question. You can order keys from Yamaha 24X7. It's a simple repair procedure. IIRC, Yamaha got a batch of bad plastic way back when, and there was a silent warranty that  offered a  replacement keyboard if the keyboard was built in a certain serial number range and you could document original ownership.

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Ben Palmer
Baltimore MD
(410) 790-0618
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