Yamaha CP-70
A real acoustic grand in a road case - piezo pickups and a reputation that outlasted the decade that made it famous.
Overview
The dealer ads were blunt: "True acoustic highs and lows from a very portable grand piano." That's the whole idea. The CP-70 is not a synthesizer that imitates a piano, and it's not an electric piano in the Rhodes sense. It's a real grand piano action and string assembly in a semi acoustic case, amplified through an independent piezoelectric pickup system instead of a soundboard.
The pickup is the key part. A piezo element under the strings captures the string directly, which is why the CP-70 has a reputation for cutting through a band in a way that miked acoustic pianos rarely manage on a loud stage. The keyboard is extremely responsive. The action is the real thing, not a weighted approximation, and players who came up on uprights and grands tend to describe the transition as immediate rather than a compromise.
The trade-off is that direct string capture also captures everything else about the instrument's character. The CP-70 has a bright, slightly hard edge, and it doesn't have the bloom of a soundboard-driven grand. Whether that's a flaw or the entire point depends on what you're doing with it. In a dense mix with guitars and a loud drummer, the edge is the feature.
Yamaha's own advertising positioned the instrument as a genuine grand piano first and a portable one second, and the dealer network treated it that way. The same ads that pushed the CP-70 also listed the CP-30 electric piano and the CS-50, CS-60, and CS-80 synthesizers alongside it. It wasn't the budget option or the synth alternative. It was the piano.
The instrument's second life came from the studio. A period review in Modern Recording (May 1981, p.49) found the CP-70 in use as the working piano for touring and recording artists, and it turns up in session credits throughout the early '80s. It was the piano you could actually get into a control room and on a stage without a moving crew.
Key Features
Independent Piezoelectric Pickup System
Rather than a soundboard and a microphone, the CP-70 uses piezo elements to sense the strings directly. Yamaha's advertising led with this as a headline feature, and it's the single design decision that defines how the instrument sounds and behaves. The signal is already isolated from the room and already free of the feedback problems that plague miked pianos on loud stages. The cost is a slightly clinical character. The pickup doesn't hear the body of the instrument, so it doesn't reproduce it either.
Genuine Grand Piano Action and Keyboard
The keyboard is described in period documentation as extremely responsive. It's not a synth action with a piano patch. It's a piano action, and the physical feedback loop between player and instrument is the same one you'd get from an acoustic grand.
Portability as an Engineering Goal
"Very portable grand piano" is a contradiction on its face, and the CP-70 exists to resolve it. The instrument was built to be moved, and the dealer advertising of the period treated it as a stage instrument first. The same ads that sold the CP-70 also sold the CP-30, the CS-50, the CS-60, and the CS-80. The CP-70 was the top of that particular stack.
MIDI Retrofit Capability
By the mid-1980s, third-party installers had worked out how to retrofit the CP-70 for MIDI. A period report in Recording Engineer noted that Forte Music had developed a MIDI installation for the CP-70/80 (alongside the Fender Rhodes and Wurlitzer) that was described as relatively quick and left the acoustic qualities of the instrument essentially unchanged. The retrofit transmitted note-on/note-off information and velocity, and even made the sustain pedal MIDI-capable. That meant a CP-70 could drive a rack of synths while still being played as a piano. The same report framed this as a genuine breakthrough for players who wanted the feel of a real keyboard controlling digital sound sources.
Historical Context
The CP-70 dates to the early 1970s. A 2006 Sound on Sound advertisement (August 2006, p.11) looking back on the instrument described the CP-70 as having launched 30 years earlier and credited it as the first stage piano that actually played and sounded like an acoustic grand. That claim comes from Yamaha's own marketing, so treat it as positioning rather than independent verdict.
Period sources make clear that the CP-70 found its audience fast. By the late '70s it was a standard piece of touring and studio gear. A 1978 Sound Arts feature (October 1978, p.50) on the Miami music retail scene shows the CP-70 was part of that market, sold through dealers who stocked full service departments and catered to working musicians. A 1987 DB Magazine studio equipment listing (January 1987, p.24) shows Yamaha's digital gear - the QX-1 sequencer, TX-816 synthesizer rack, and RX-11 drum machine - in active use.
By the early '90s, the CP-70 was being described in past tense. A 1993 EQ Magazine piece (February 1993, p.61) features a player recounting his musical coming-up, including his early days learning keyboards alongside a friend. The CP-70 was portable relative to a grand piano, not relative to a digital stage piano.
Collectibility & Value
Used CP-70s were changing hands for $2,400 in dealer listings of the period, which gives a baseline for what the instrument cost on the secondhand market during its working life. That figure comes from a dealer ad listing a used CP-70 at $2,400, sold.
The practical problem for anyone buying one now is size and weight. A 1993 account from a working player describes the CP-70 as "too big" and having to be replaced, and that's from someone who loved the instrument enough to keep using it into the '90s. It needs space, it needs two people to move, and it needs a technician who understands a real piano action if anything goes wrong.
The 2006 Yamaha ad looking back on the CP-70's legacy treats it as legendary, and the market for well-kept examples reflects that. Buyers should inspect the action and the pickup system carefully. Those two systems decide whether a CP-70 is a working instrument or a project.
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