CAUT

We are considering purchasing a Spirio with an endowment dispursement and I have been tasked with finding out what other Colleges/Universities have any. 

Please let me know if you do and share any thoughts you have about having Spirio.

Thank you!

Dave

Your faculty should identify the ways in which a Spirio (or any other recording/reproducing piano) would benefit the students. Would they want to do remote teaching, are composers interested, is creatively editing performances the goal, would pianists want to do technique drills (for example, playing one hand against a recording of the other), or is this about playing back historical recordings? At Juilliard we invested in an elaborate remote teaching setup with state-of-the art high-speed connectivity for a Disklavier, and that is how remote studio and class teaching was done for a few years, but the interest dwindled and now the piano is used as a conventional piano. 

If the idea is to most faithfully reproduce someone's performance, perhaps in real time, remotely, consider that all reproducing pianos engage the keys from the bottom in the back and are not capable of reproducing the finger/key noises that a live player generates (noises when the finger meets the key and when the key hits the punching/keybed). Although the performance can be quite accurate in terms of timing and hammer velocity, these systems tend to sterilize performances in terms of touch. Conventional well-recorded audio can capture greater nuances of these keyboard noises and just the overall "presence" of the player, though of course, the sound of piano itself and possible action issues may mar the experience. Having a well-maintained piano on which to reproduce performances is a strong argument in favor of going that route. A well-regulated and calibrated Spirio or Disklavier (well-regulated being the operative word) can produce an amazing musical experience, but you need to be aware of its limitations.

The first thing, though, is defining the uses because those will determine where the piano should be placed. For example, if remote teaching is the main motivation, you will need a fast, low-latency internet connection. You will need to be able to run the video (high bandwidth) in parallel with the piano (low bandwidth, but requiring fast response). You need to commit to more frequent action cleaning, regulation and calibration, which requires technician training and that takes more time. Faculty and students also will need training to know how to turn on the equipment and operate the Spirio. We had an issue with the camera and microphone stands constantly being moved or disconnected because the room was used for other classes.

Finally, while the piano itself will retain value and utility the way any acoustic piano does, be prepared for the electronics to become obsolete fairly quickly. We have older Disklaviers that just sit in a corner because the 1.44 MB disk drive (remember those?) stopped working, the controller is obsolete, the software got incompatible, or they can't be securely (if at all) connected to the network. How long will the mechanical components like the solenoids and actuators last?

Just a few things to consider. 

We are considering purchasing a Spirio with an endowment dispursement and I have been tasked with finding out what other Colleges/Universities have any. 

Please let me know if you do and share any thoughts you have about having Spirio.

Thank you!

Dave

Your faculty should identify the ways in which a Spirio (or any other recording/reproducing piano) would benefit the students. Would they want to do remote teaching, are composers interested, is creatively editing performances the goal, would pianists want to do technique drills (for example, playing one hand against a recording of the other), or is this about playing back historical recordings? At Juilliard we invested in an elaborate remote teaching setup with state-of-the art high-speed connectivity for a Disklavier, and that is how remote studio and class teaching was done for a few years, but the interest dwindled and now the piano is used as a conventional piano. 

If the idea is to most faithfully reproduce someone's performance, perhaps in real time, remotely, consider that all reproducing pianos engage the keys from the bottom in the back and are not capable of reproducing the finger/key noises that a live player generates (noises when the finger meets the key and when the key hits the punching/keybed). Although the performance can be quite accurate in terms of timing and hammer velocity, these systems tend to sterilize performances in terms of touch. Conventional well-recorded audio can capture greater nuances of these keyboard noises and just the overall "presence" of the player, though of course, the sound of piano itself and possible action issues may mar the experience. Having a well-maintained piano on which to reproduce performances is a strong argument in favor of going that route. A well-regulated and calibrated Spirio or Disklavier (well-regulated being the operative word) can produce an amazing musical experience, but you need to be aware of its limitations.

The first thing, though, is defining the uses because those will determine where the piano should be placed. For example, if remote teaching is the main motivation, you will need a fast, low-latency internet connection. You will need to be able to run the video (high bandwidth) in parallel with the piano (low bandwidth, but requiring fast response). You need to commit to more frequent action cleaning, regulation and calibration, which requires technician training and that takes more time. Faculty and students also will need training to know how to turn on the equipment and operate the Spirio. We had an issue with the camera and microphone stands constantly being moved or disconnected because the room was used for other classes.

Finally, while the piano itself will retain value and utility the way any acoustic piano does, be prepared for the electronics to become obsolete fairly quickly. We have older Disklaviers that just sit in a corner because the 1.44 MB disk drive (remember those?) stopped working, the controller is obsolete, the software got incompatible, or they can't be securely (if at all) connected to the network. How long will the mechanical components like the solenoids and actuators last?

Just a few things to consider. 

We are considering purchasing a Spirio with an endowment dispursement and I have been tasked with finding out what other Colleges/Universities have any. 

Please let me know if you do and share any thoughts you have about having Spirio.

Thank you!

Dave

We don't own a Spirio. We currently have one on loan for evaluation and performance. We had one on loan briefly earlier and got demos on it.

Your faculty should identify the ways in which a Spirio (or any other recording/reproducing piano) would benefit the students. Would they want to do remote teaching, are composers interested, is creatively editing performances the goal, would pianists want to do technique drills (for example, playing one hand against a recording of the other), or is this about playing back historical recordings? At Juilliard we invested in an elaborate remote teaching setup with state-of-the art high-speed connectivity for a Disklavier, and that is how remote studio and class teaching was done for a few years, but the interest dwindled and now the piano is used as a conventional piano. 

If the idea is to most faithfully reproduce someone's performance, perhaps in real time, remotely, consider that all reproducing pianos engage the keys from the bottom in the back and are not capable of reproducing the finger/key noises that a live player generates (noises when the finger meets the key and when the key hits the punching/keybed). Although the performance can be quite accurate in terms of timing and hammer velocity, these systems tend to sterilize performances in terms of touch. Conventional well-recorded audio can capture greater nuances of these keyboard noises and just the overall "presence" of the player, though of course, the sound of piano itself and possible action issues may mar the experience. Having a well-maintained piano on which to reproduce performances is a strong argument in favor of going that route. A well-regulated and calibrated Spirio or Disklavier (well-regulated being the operative word) can produce an amazing musical experience, but you need to be aware of its limitations.

The first thing, though, is defining the uses because those will determine where the piano should be placed. For example, if remote teaching is the main motivation, you will need a fast, low-latency internet connection. You will need to be able to run the video (high bandwidth) in parallel with the piano (low bandwidth, but requiring fast response). You need to commit to more frequent action cleaning, regulation and calibration, which requires technician training and that takes more time. Faculty and students also will need training to know how to turn on the equipment and operate the Spirio. We had an issue with the camera and microphone stands constantly being moved or disconnected because the room was used for other classes.

Finally, while the piano itself will retain value and utility the way any acoustic piano does, be prepared for the electronics to become obsolete fairly quickly. We have older Disklaviers that just sit in a corner because the 1.44 MB disk drive (remember those?) stopped working, the controller is obsolete, the software got incompatible, or they can't be securely (if at all) connected to the network. How long will the mechanical components like the solenoids and actuators last?

Just a few things to consider. 

We are considering purchasing a Spirio with an endowment dispursement and I have been tasked with finding out what other Colleges/Universities have any. 

Please let me know if you do and share any thoughts you have about having Spirio.

Thank you!

Dave

Your faculty should identify the ways in which a Spirio (or any other recording/reproducing piano) would benefit the students. Would they want to do remote teaching, are composers interested, is creatively editing performances the goal, would pianists want to do technique drills (for example, playing one hand against a recording of the other), or is this about playing back historical recordings? At Juilliard we invested in an elaborate remote teaching setup with state-of-the art high-speed connectivity for a Disklavier, and that is how remote studio and class teaching was done for a few years, but the interest dwindled and now the piano is used as a conventional piano. 

If the idea is to most faithfully reproduce someone's performance, perhaps in real time, remotely, consider that all reproducing pianos engage the keys from the bottom in the back and are not capable of reproducing the finger/key noises that a live player generates (noises when the finger meets the key and when the key hits the punching/keybed). Although the performance can be quite accurate in terms of timing and hammer velocity, these systems tend to sterilize performances in terms of touch. Conventional well-recorded audio can capture greater nuances of these keyboard noises and just the overall "presence" of the player, though of course, the sound of piano itself and possible action issues may mar the experience. Having a well-maintained piano on which to reproduce performances is a strong argument in favor of going that route. A well-regulated and calibrated Spirio or Disklavier (well-regulated being the operative word) can produce an amazing musical experience, but you need to be aware of its limitations.

The first thing, though, is defining the uses because those will determine where the piano should be placed. For example, if remote teaching is the main motivation, you will need a fast, low-latency internet connection. You will need to be able to run the video (high bandwidth) in parallel with the piano (low bandwidth, but requiring fast response). You need to commit to more frequent action cleaning, regulation and calibration, which requires technician training and that takes more time. Faculty and students also will need training to know how to turn on the equipment and operate the Spirio. We had an issue with the camera and microphone stands constantly being moved or disconnected because the room was used for other classes.

Finally, while the piano itself will retain value and utility the way any acoustic piano does, be prepared for the electronics to become obsolete fairly quickly. We have older Disklaviers that just sit in a corner because the 1.44 MB disk drive (remember those?) stopped working, the controller is obsolete, the software got incompatible, or they can't be securely (if at all) connected to the network. How long will the mechanical components like the solenoids and actuators last?

Just a few things to consider. 

We are considering purchasing a Spirio with an endowment dispursement and I have been tasked with finding out what other Colleges/Universities have any. 

Please let me know if you do and share any thoughts you have about having Spirio.

Thank you!

Dave

We are considering purchasing a Spirio with an endowment dispursement and I have been tasked with finding out what other Colleges/Universities have any. 

Please let me know if you do and share any thoughts you have about having Spirio.

Thank you!

Dave