The Many Avenues to Controlling My Mark IV Disklavier

My Mark IV Disklavier,  a real, concert-quality piano that can also play itself is accessed by a physical Pocket Remote Controller (PRC-100), a wireless remote with dedicated buttons and a full-color LCD touch screen or by the Tablet Remote Controller.  Tablet Remote Controller (TRC-100), a 10.4-inch, portable, color, touch-screen control panel is the ultimate luxury item, the TRC provides song control features, play list management, and portable viewing of Karaoke song file lyrics, all with customizable visual environments and graphics.  Both remote controllers use the 802.11b wireless specification to communicate with the piano from anywhere in the home, whether or not there is any line of sight.

In addition to these physical devices, Yamaha introduced the Virtual PRC interface which allows total control from a networked computer.  The Virtual PRC interface was introduced in one of the latest versions of the system software for the Mark IV.   I use an Apple Airport Express connected via ethernet cable to the underside of the Mark IV to connect the Virtual PRC interface to my Mac home network.

I also use an excellent software package written by Kevin Goroway called dkvBrowser.    This software can be found at dkvBrowser Sourceforge.   DkvBrowser is an application that can be used instead of the PDA (PRC-100) or Tablet or Virtual PRC-100 that is normally supplied with a Yamaha Disklavier Mark IV.   It can be downloaded at sourceforge.net.  There are Mac and PC versions built and ready to run, but it can run on any platform that supports Java and can access the Disklavier either wired or wirelessly.  It is licensed under GNU General Public License and offered as donation ware.  DkvBrowser offers multiple features, too numerous to mention here, but outlined on the sourceforge site.   The biggest features are the ease of transferring midis to your piano via your computer, as well as ease of editing the names of albums and song titles.  

In addition to these physical and virtual devices to control my piano, there is also an app, Yamaha Disklavier Controller App, for iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad in the Apple App Store.

I have discussed many of the attributes of the Yamaha Disklavier Controller app and its operation on previous blogs.  I assisted Kevin Goroway in testing his software dkvBrowser with my Mac and Mark IV, as well as documenting his software and providing a downloadable manual in PDF form on the dkvBrowser Sourceforge site.   Yamaha has provided documentation for the Virtual PRC, PRC-100 and Tablet Controller on their site.   There are also two forums online that provide answers and discussions at the dkvBrowser Yahoo Group and Disklavier Yahoo Group forums.  If you own one of the Disklavier pianos, you will find it worthwhile to join these groups and participate with the members who add to discussions and help others with questions.  I will continue to post blogs on occasion, to offer detailed solutions or comments on the Disklavier and its many devices as related to Mac computers and apps.

 

UPDATE 2/19/2021:  The DKVBrowser discussion groups are now being conducted at Google Groups.  You can search by "DKVBrowser" to find a place to join for current information. 

The DKVBrowser software written by Kevin Goroway has been revised to meet the needs of users for their Disklavier Mark IV pianos recently.  The software had not worked on my latest Mac laptops due to system updates that were not supported by DKVBrowser.  The software had recently not worked on the latest Windows computers due to changes in system and other updates.  At some point the underlying architecture of DKVBrowser (Eclipse RCP) became unsupported/incompatible.

A new version is currently being tested by members who are part of the Google Group who post info about DKVBrowser and Disklavier.   

I was successful in loading the new DKVBrowser 3.0.2 onto a Mac laptop running High Sierra and one running Catalina.  I have been testing the Mac version of this software and find that it is running successfully for most functions.  It is nice to have the DKVBrowser to run playlists, play tunes at scheduled times and to have all the easy editing techniques and features that Kevin has shared with us.  I certainly hope many will consider the Donate button to show appreciation for his generosity and talents in keeping a means to play our beloved Disklavier Mark IV.

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