How to Calibrate Your Disklavier using PRC remote

How to Calibrate Your Piano using PRC remote (Notes from my husband)


- Quit the interface on the PRC remote and instead run the Service program, which can be found in the main set of PRC remote program icons along the bottom of the PRC screen.

- You'll see a white screen with 3 text options, none of which are particularly exciting.

- Slide down the keyboard cover on your PRC remote, and hold the D, M, and P keys down together (they don't need to be pressed at the same time, just held down together).

For our Disklavier Mark IV purchased September 2005 (Yamaha DC7M4t) there is a definite sequence required for the D, M and P keys. 

After selecting the Service Center from the main menu you will see three menu items [1. Post delivery check, 2. Program Versions, 3. Pedal Calibration]. Then depress and hold each of the 3 keys (i.e. D, then M, then P) in that order and very rapidly.


Mark, a technician at Yamaha, suggested the following technique for rapidly depressing and holding these three keys:
         1. Position two fingers on your left hand over the the D and M keys.
         2. Position one finger on your right hand over the the P key.
         3. Then in very rapid succession press and hold the D key, then the M key, then the P key. It has to be rapid enough so that “repeat key” beeps are not heard after pressing the “D" and “M" keys. It is tricky to get the timing right. It took me at least 20 or 30 attempts (perhaps more) before I was successful. But when you do get the sequence timing fast enough you will immediately see the menu change. 

- You should see the Service options expand greatly into a maintenance mode-like menu.

• After successfully getting the D,M, and P sequence correct, select “Disklavier Piano System”

• Then Select “Piano Calibration-Full” 

• Then Select “Calibr. in Series w/ GS check”  which will begin the full self-calibration process. 

Note (1): This self calibration process will take about 14 minutes total with some very loud piano notes played.  

Note (2): GS meaning the gray-scale sensors.

- Your Mark IV will undergo a large number of self-calibrations, which include how much voltage is needed to depress the pedals to various extents, how much voltage is needed to make each key play at a certain volume, etc. The calibration process makes a lot of (very cool) sounds... so don't start it unless your housemates don't mind a lot of increasingly loud piano playing.

- If your Mark IV passes each set of calibrations, it will play a single C-Major chord; if it fails, it will play a c-minor chord. You'll get text messages throughout the roughly 15 minute process as well.

- At the end, the Disklavier writes all of the newly-derived parameters to a file that is used to optimize playback.

My husband found this process to be very helpful in getting the Mark IV optimized; although, the last time the piano tuner was here he went through a procedure to calibrate the piano.

Aug 9, 2019 We tried to calibrate our Mark IV using the method above, but the PRC remote  that came with the piano did not seem to respond when we held down the D, M, P keys together.  So we rebooted the PRC device and also turned the Disklavier piano off and back on.  The keys worked fine and our calibration was performed.  Not sure which helped -  reboot of PRC or turning Disklavier piano off and on again.  It is easy to do both.  In any case,  performing the calibration was successful. Tweet