Yamaha U1 and U3 Players Club

EB5AGV

Hi all,

I have not called this thread "Owner's Club" as I want it open also to casual players or former owners of these common pianos, in all their long production run variants.

Yes, I know they are not the greatest uprights around, but for me, getting my 1976 U3H in February 2020 (yes, just before COVID struck here!) has been a piano-life changing experience 🤩

It has helped me also to appreciate how advanced some VSTs are (as VI Labs Modern U) and to be able to play, so far, on all the acoustics I have found over these last years (the U3H was my first acoustic)

For me, it is a really powerful learning tool and I hope and wish to keep it even if I eventually buy a grand. First love is always strong! 😍

Jose

David B

There are a few uprights (poorly maintained) in the various lower division school rooms in our church that I occasionally play. None of them are U3's, but I do like my Modern U virtual library and I would love to have a Modern U3 upright in my home.

God Bless,
David

Del Vento

David B In California it should be easy to get a relatively inexpensive so-call-gray-market [1] U3. If you don't crank the A/C too much in summer, it'll be fine (even though the stores selling the new ones will claim otherwise).

Before getting a grand I was indeed looking at those myself, but in Colorado the climate is too dry and it's not a good match, so there weren't any around to found. The new ones were too expensive for my budget at the time and the market of "locally used" ones was not here.

[1]: gray-market is a term invented by the detractor of the practice. What these instruments are, is simply second hand pianos from Japan (where cultural reasons prevent the existence of a local used market). The instruments are legally imported as such by the container-ship-load. They end up on the USA market cheaper than the ones in the "normal" used market, partly because Yamaha thinks that they reduces the sales of their new ones and hence aggressively advertize against them, by e.g. (dubiously) claim the wood was "seasoned for destination" (so the wood of Japan's piano should be different than the USA's one) and refuses to provide technical assistance. Of course independent technicians are happy to provide parts and service as needed. There is a small caveat and it's that the temperate/humid climate of Japan where these instrument "lived" made them more susceptible to the dryness of some parts of the USA and/or of the practice of cranking up heat and/or A/C (that we have here unlike other parts of the world where energy costs prevent people from doing so), so there could be some dryness-related problems if one is sloppy about that.

CyberGene

I dream of having a U3 some day. Next to a real grand of course 😀

TomLC

Del Vento This is interesting. I heard there was something wrong, bad, or illegal about these Yamaha pianos. I don’t remember hearing the same about Kawai’s. Can you expand on what the cultural reasons are?

EB5AGV

I forgot to put some pictures of my beloved Yamaha U3H

Here you have them. As you can see, the condition is pretty good:

TomLC

EB5AGV Looks beautiful.

Del Vento

EB5AGV I forgot to put some pictures of my beloved Yamaha U3H

Awesome! Congratulations! I can tell from the radiator, the power switch and the power plug that you are certainly in Europe and probably in Germany 😀

Make sure that radiator is off: otherwise the large thermal and humidity fluctuations which it will cause may damage the instrument, both cosmetically and functionally.

spanishbuddha

EB5AGV nice pics. My digital is also adjacent to a radiator that runs low heat, and it seems unperturbed. But in considering putting an acoustic there I would probably turn it off completely. My room has a door opening into the garden, does your piano room also have a window or door that opens to the outside?

Del Vento

TomLC delvento This is interesting. I heard there was something wrong, bad, or illegal about these Yamaha pianos. I don’t remember hearing the same about Kawai’s. Can you expand on what the cultural reasons are?

Let's bring the discussion elsewhere to avoid hijacking this thread and be banned 😆

EB5AGV

Del Vento Awesome! Congratulations! I can tell from the radiator, the power switch and the power plug that you are certainly in Europe and probably in Germany 😀

Make sure that radiator is off: otherwise the large thermal and humidity fluctuations which it will cause may damage the instrument, both cosmetically and functionally.

In Europe, yes, but in Spain. We use same type of power plugs than in Germany (Schuko are called)

About the radiator, it is usually not used or used at very low flow and so temperature is also low. It is an small one, not covering all the piano side. It was already there, and changing it to another place was not easy. All in all, I have a logging humidity sensor on that room and try to keep it as constant as possible. My area has usually high humidity, so in the piano room, all over the year, it changes from about 60 to 75%. The U3H seems to maintain tuning pretty well despite that.

Del Vento

EB5AGV it changes from about 60 to 75%. The U3H seems to maintain tuning pretty well despite that.

Being constant is much better than being "on average" at the right level (well, as long as you are not constantly at 99% 🤣). So being between 60 and 75 is better than being between 30 and 60 with an "ideal" average of 45%.

Perhaps one of these days [1] we should start a separate thread about relative humidity and how to measure it (teaser: no, set-and-forget hygrometer is not enough)

[1]: time does not allow me to do it today

dore_m

@EB5AGV finish sampling your U3 and we'll share it!

EB5AGV

dore_m I will have my first time-spot for that on next weekend. I will try to use it to sample at least 3 layers (will try 4 but am not confident to be able to do it properly)

spanishbuddha

Del Vento that would be a useful thread for piano owners or those considering it. I'm in the southern UK and have several cheaper humidity monitoring devices scattered around my home. They rarely if ever go below 60, at any time of year, and spend most of their time showing 70-80. So dry hot summer days, maybe 65, typical weeks of endless rain in winter 75. Heating indoors does not really make a big difference, (although my fingers split in winter), but showers, boiling on hob, and similar stuff affects the devices in bathrooms and kitchens and the measurement goes up high.

EB5AGV

spanishbuddha It has a window to the outside, which is a terrace directly onto the garden. Luckily the terrace roof prevents any direct sun into that window. And being on the the lower floor, the piano room is less influenced by temperature changes than the upper floor ones.