Controlling My Yamaha Mark IV Disklavier from My iPhone with Free Yamaha Disklavier Controller App

I noticed that the guys on the Yamaha Disklavier forum over on Yahoo had sent a message to the group that the latest system software for my piano was available, as well as a nice app via iTunes that could now control the piano.  So I quickly updated the piano software, downloaded the Disklavier Controller app from iTunes and started playing a song from my midi library on the piano, controlling it from my iPhone.

So I thought I would share some of the screens that this slick app offers for those that have iPhones and a Mark IV Disklavier.   {NOTE:  When you connect this app to your piano for the first time, the following screens appear, searching for the piano.  If you have connected successfully then subsequent connections occur automatically.}   So here goes:

The first screen let's the user know that System 4.0 is needed and the 'PianoSearch' button at the bottom of the screen allows the user to search for all pianos on the wireless network.   The name of the piano is displayed and the user can select the piano.  Once the piano connects the user can select from 3 sub menus on the bottom row of the app screen:  'Select', 'Balance' and 'More'.

The 'Select' menus allow the user to select the Source, Album and Song or Playlists.

The 'Source' Menu illustrated below offers access to Playlist, Pianosoft, CD and User Libraries, as well as other Media Sources: CD, USB Media and Floppy Disk (FD).

In addition, the user can access Other Sources such as:  From/To PC folder, Download Library (which houses those songs purchased from the Yamaha Store), and the Yamaha Disklavier Radio Stations.

Here are some of the screens that appear when selecting an album and song from the source:

Once the song is selected the screen displays the name of the song, the controls for volume, next and play.
 

The volume is controlled by moving the slider bar at the bottom.  There is also an icon of a piano to the left of the slider bar and this allows the user to cycle through the AUDIO/QUIET/HEADPHONE MODES with one touch of this piano icon (illustrated below).

To the right of the slider bar is another icon which upon touching changes to various options.  The straight arrow icon is an indicator that songs are played in order from the album or playlist with NO REPETITION  The next icon which is illustrated below, indicates that the current song will be REPEAT.

When the icon changes to the repeat icon but has an 'A' as illustrated below, this seems to indicate that ALL the songs in the album will be repeated in order for the album.

When this icon appears as below, this seems to indicate that the songs will be RANDOMLY REPEATED.

The 'Balance' option or submeu at the bottom of the app screen is illustrated below.  This option allows the user to control the balance for the Voice (adjusts volume of piano part), TG (Adjusts the volume of the ensemble part from the internal tone generator), Audio (Adjusts the volume of software (audio CD, etc) and Mic (Adjusts the microphone level).

 The 'More' option or submenu at the bottom of the app screen is illustrated below.   The 'Piano Search' button, allows the user to scan the network for pianos.  (Sorry, guys not a 'Search' for songs that some of us might like to have).  The 'Short Cut' button allows the user to SELECT short cuts which I haven't explored yet ( this is a new option of System 4.0 for the piano that I guess may allow us to setup some shortcut keystrokes for various options using the PRC remote only).   'Standby' button allows the user to place the piano in standby mode from iphone app.   Not sure about the 'record' button, but assume that if we have some famous person playing our piano, and a floppy in our piano's floppy drive we might be able to start recording them secretly from our iPhone.  The play function offers the most options:  controlling TEMPO (adjusts the tempo over a range from -50% to +20%), TRANSPOSE (adjusts the pitch in half steps, 24 half-steps lower or higher (i.e. 2 octaves in either direction) and OFF/ON of the right and left channels as illustrated in the second screen below.

The 'Demo Mode' option seemed to merely play the demo songs that came from the demo midis preloaded with the piano.  I tried running a karaoke midi, hoping secretly the lyrics would be displayed on my iphone app screen ... but no luck on that.  Also was hoping the graphics demos would be displayed magically on the iPhone screen, but not happening.  Overall, I would say that Yamaha has a pretty slick app for us to use with our Mark IV pianos.  I like it.

Note:  There is a Set Password Option on your PRC remote, that allows the user to set/edit a password to keep others from using their iphone apps to control your disklavier.