If you’re familiar with the sound of the classic Yamaha CFX concert grand piano, you’ll surely fall in love with the Arius YDP-184. In this Yamaha Arius YDP-184 Digital Piano review, I’ll list all of the specs and features so you can decide if it is the right piano for you.
The Yamaha Arius YDP-184 Digital Piano is the most advanced digital piano from the Yamaha Arius Series. It has several features such as piano sound customization and the Virtual Resonance Modeling (VRM) technology. Also, it impressively captures the brilliant sound of the flagship Yamaha CFX concert grand piano.
Read on to learn more about the Yamaha Arius YDP-184 Digital Piano, including its key specs and features.
About Yamaha Arius YDP-184 Digital Piano
The Yamaha Arius YDP-184 Digital Piano is the most advanced digital piano under the Yamaha Arius Series. Its features include piano sound customization and the Virtual Resonance Modeling technology. It also impressively captures the incredible sound of the flagship Yamaha CFX concert grand piano.
This digital piano has a Piano Room feature that allows you to adjust different parameters, including touch response, damper resonance, and string resonance.
It also features the Virtual Resonance Modeling (VRM) technology which impressively emulates how an acoustic piano resonates. Despite being a digital piano, the Arius YDP-184 gives pianists and their audience a full and rich sound of a real grand piano.
That authentic grand piano sound, its expressive keyboard, and all other features are the reasons why the Yamaha Arius YDP-184 Digital Piano is recognized as the flagship Arius digital piano.
Yamaha Arius YDP-184 Digital Piano Features
Let’s further talk about the Yamaha Arius YDP-184 Digital Piano features and determine what makes it stand out from other digital pianos.
These features include the following:
- Piano Sound Quality
- Virtual Resonance Modeling (VRM)
- Excellent Playability and Feel
- Half-damper Pedal Control
- Capability to Record Performances
- Stereophonic Optimizer
- Firmware 2.0
- Connect with the Piano
1. Piano Sound Quality
The Yamaha Arius YDP-184 flawlessly resonates with the sound of the Yamaha CFX concert grand piano. You would feel as if you are playing the Yamaha CFX instead of a digital piano.
The Yamaha CFX delivers sparkling highs as well as powerful resonant bass. It also excellently produces a sound that can reach even the furthest areas of any concert hall. This concert grand piano was used by the winner of the 2010 International Chopin Competition. Since then, the CFX has been recognized as one of the best concert grand pianos of modern times.
2. Virtual Resonance Modeling (VRM)
With the Virtual Resonance Modeling (VRM) technology, the Yamaha Arius YDP-184 successfully mimics that distinctive reverberation coming from the entire body of a concert grand piano.
In a concert grand piano, sound vibrates throughout its entire body. This then creates a rich reverberation that envelops the entire audience in sound. This experience is perfectly recreated in the Yamaha Arius YDP-184 through VRM technology.
3. Excellent Playability and Feel
The Yamaha Arius YDP-184 successfully mimics the touch of an acoustic piano with its Graded Hammer 3 (GH3) 88-key piano action featuring synthetic ebony and ivory keytops. Pianists will awe how the keys feel heavy in the lower register and lighter in the upper octaves.
The YDP-184 Yamaha Arius also features a three-sensor configuration. It flawlessly detects and interprets the keyboard’s behavior to deliver a concert grand piano style of response and feel.
This feature allows the occurrence of quick note repetition as well as genuine expressive control. The piano keyboard has synthetic ivory keytops and features a tactile surface to the white keys. This absorbs the moisture coming from the fingers, effectively preventing them from slipping.
4. Half-damper Pedal Control
The half-damper pedal control feature results in a more detailed nuance as well as subtlety when playing. This occurrence is the same as when the pianist pedals on a grand piano.
This pedaling feature increases the lengths of sustained notes, making them sound light in the beginning and then full later on. It is achieved when the sustain pedal is depressed.
Mellow reverberations are achieved through Stereo Sustain samples, particularly when the pianist depresses the damper pedal. At the same time, Damper Resonance delivers broad and deep resonance every time the pedal is used. This results in a realistic sound as if you’re listening to an acoustic piano.
5. Capability to Record Performances
The Arius YDP-184 Yamaha Digital Piano features a MIDI recording function, allowing pianists to record their performances. They are capable of recording up to 16 tracks, which you can simultaneously playback.
You can also record each hand separately and then play them back simultaneously. Also, you can create your compositions and even overdub different voices.
6. Stereophonic Optimizer
Ever notice that dispersed sound you hear when playing an acoustic piano? You can still experience that with the Stereophonic Optimizer technology. You can experience that even with your headphones on.
The Stereophonic Optimizer allows you to hear the Voices sampled from an acoustic piano. It will feel like the voices come from the body of the piano.
This feature makes pianists comfortable when performing with headphones.
7. Firmware 2.0
The Firmware 2.0 technology is incorporated in the Yamaha Arius YDP-184 Digital Piano. It converts the USB to HOST port into an audio and MIDI interface. To do this, you have to connect a USB cable for audio/MINI playback with a computer or an iOS device.
Doing so will allow you to record performances as audio or MIDI successfully. You don’t have to buy an audio/MIDI interface anymore.
The Firmware 2.0 technology ensures that the YDP-184 and your mobile device are compatible with the Smart Pianist app. The app enables your iOS device to become the touchscreen controller for the digital piano. This allows you to edit or adjust performances more conveniently, such as changing settings and selecting Voices.
8. Connect with the Piano
You can connect the YDP-184 to a computer or a mobile device by merely using a standard USB cable. For iOS devices, you can connect them to the digital piano using the Lightning-USB Camera adapter or the Yamaha UD-BT01 Bluetooth MIDI adapter.
The digital piano can be used to interact either as a controller or as a sound source. You will also be impressed by the wide array of music creation applications:
Summary of Yamaha Arius YDP-184 Digital Piano Features
| YDP-184 | Intelligent Acoustic Control (IAC) |
| Acoustic Optimizer | |
| Stereophonic Optimizer | |
| GHS (Graded Hammer Standard) Keyboard Action with Matte Black Key Tops | |
| Damper Resonance DSP | |
| String Resonance | |
| Key-off Samples | |
| CFX Premium Grand Piano Voice |
Again, what does the Yamaha Arius YDP-184 Digital Piano offer? The Yamaha Arius YDP-184 features piano sound customization and Virtual Resonance Modeling (VRM) technology. Plus, it successfully captures the Yamaha CFX concert grand piano’s sound. For these reasons and more, YDP-184 is considered the most advanced digital piano under this series.
Arius YDP-184 Yamaha Piano’s Smart Pianist App
If you have no idea what the chords to a song are, the Smart Pianist mobile app can assist you. This app analyzes the songs saved in your music library. It then displays the chord symbols so you can play them conveniently.
Here are three main features of the Smart Pianist app:
- Intuitive Controls
- Play Along with Your Favorite Song
- Chord Chart Feature
Let’s briefly talk about these features:
1. Intuitive Controls
With the Smart Pianist app, you get to select which piano voices you should include in a particular performance. But aside from that, you have the option to use the Layer function too. This function enables you to overlay voices or use the Split function so that the YDP-184 can play various voices using either the left or the right hand.
There are several functions to choose from which you can easily configure. These functions include:
- Pedal,
- Tuning,
- Transpose, and
- Acoustic settings.
2. Play Along with Your Favorite Song
The Smart Pianist app is capable of analyzing the songs stored in your music library. It can generate chord symbols which it will conveniently display on the screen. That way, you get to learn how to play your favorite songs.
3. Chord Chart Feature
The app has a Chord Chart feature which allows it to analyze thousands of songs amazingly. However, some songs are too complex to analyze, and the app might not generate accurate chords.
In most cases, the newer songs are more suited for the Chord Chart analysis. At the same time, the older songs seem to be a little too complex to analyze.
However, there are old songs that are also compatible with Chord Chart analysis. These include:
- Imagine by John Lennon,
- Unchained Melody by the Righteous Brothers,
- Fields of Gold by Sting, and
- Hotel California by the Eagles.
Conclusion – Yamaha Arius YDP-184 Digital Piano
The Yamaha Arius YDP-184 Digital Piano is the most advanced digital piano under the Yamaha Arius Series. It has many interesting features, which include piano sound customization and the Virtual Resonance Modeling technology.
But its best feature of all is that it impressively captures the incredible sound of the flagship Yamaha CFX concert grand piano.
It’s amazing how the Arius YDP-184 is packed with high-tech features. This digital piano doesn’t only make playing fun. But it also makes it fun and exciting to record and edit performances, which you can all do using your mobile device.
