Chip shortages hit hard at Yamaha's musical instrument business

A television interview on Thursday revealed an unexpected victim of the global semiconductor shortage: musical instrument-maker Yamaha. The Japanese company makes both acoustic and electronic instruments, as well as headphones, audio mixers and car speaker systems. Speaking on Nikkei CNBC television, company president Takuya …

[tiggity]

Do like Yamaha pianos

We used to have an old "proper piano" - looked very nice, but fairly frequent (not cheap) visits by piano tuner to keep it sounding good & key responsiveness was not great (just moving a proper piano around the house a bit can be enough to knock the tuning off and sometimes temperature & humidity combination would make it sound "off" until the weather changed ).

When we moved house & space was an issue we freecycled it and replaced it with a Yamaha electric - it was great to always have something always in tune, plenty of options to adjust tone, key sensitivity was far better than on our old piano - & that's ignoring all the other advantages such as being able to record yourself and play it back, so e.g. there's a piece and you can do the right hand great but struggling on the left you could record your right hand, play it back as accompaniment and play one handed focusing purely on fixing your left hand faults. Other advantages were being able to link it to PC or whatever kit you wanted you wanted (be it via midi or sound out) & ability to have non piano sounds (good for keeping kids engaged).

Our Yamaha now probably about 20 years old, so been worth the cost many times over, only drawback is it does not look as nice as the real thing.

[elsergiovolador]

Re: Do like Yamaha pianos

I hope you have a cat that is continuously working out the piano keys, so they work well and don't put a strain on player's fingers.

[Drew Scriver]

Re: Do like Yamaha pianos

I used to really like Yamaha digital pianos, until the keys on our Clavinova started sticking.

Replacing them is expensive and Yamaha has steadfastly refused to stand by its product from the very beginning when owners started having this issue.

It's possible that the problem has since been corrected, but I have lost faith in Yamaha's digital line-up.

[Warm Braw]

Re: Do like Yamaha pianos

I've got one that's more than 35 years old and although the keys don't stick they can now be a bit sluggish to return. In this model they keys are actually wooden and the case comes apart with the aid of a screwdriver so it should be eminently repairable - once I summon up the effort to lift it onto a bench: fully weighted keyboards are rather heavy!

[Binraider]

Re: Do like Yamaha pianos

I have a 30-year old one with the XG synth in there. Lovely sounding machine considering it's a wavetable.

I haven't noticed mechanical problems *yet* though now you've drawn them to my attention I'm paranoid all of a sudden.

[Rob Daglish]

Re: Do like Yamaha pianos

We bought a brand new Yamaha B3 (an acoustic upright) with a silent touch system, and the guys in the shop were saying they were having lots of issues getting digital pianos, and they'd waited 6 months for the one we bought, with no idea when they'd get another. It seems that most major brands were suffering chip shortages or labour slow downs due to covid. Apparently Kawai have stopped building some models to try and get caught up!

[elsergiovolador]

Big fish

If big fish has problems, imagine what kind of problems small businesses suffer with chip shortages.

For instance, imagine you no longer can buy 100 chips at a time, so you can't use a small volume of product to fund subsequent purchases.

Then if you fork out money for 1000 or 10000 chips so that you will have a supply for extended period of time, you don't know a) when they are going to arrive b) if they arrive at all and order won't be cancelled after a few months

Also you deprive your business of a huge chunk of money, so you can't pay for your workshop / office and your workers.

Taking a loan is not an option either, because you don't know when the chips are going to show up, so you don't know if and when you could pay it back.

[Danny 2]

A Tale of Two Ex's

Two relationships I failed.

Dutch girl, well woman older than me, upright pub piano, she would belt out songs joyfully and had a decent recording history with cool bands. If you hum it, she'll play it. Plus, stuff that would just chill your soul and make you cry.

Finnish girl, far younger than me, slightly depressive, very posh piano if not grand, never played it once in front of me. I asked her why she wouldn't play it for me. She had been rated, I don't even know how pianists are rated, but she decided she wasn't good enough and retired as a teenager. She kept the piano but only played it when alone. It was heartbreaking! I could only play the first line of "Oh Flower of Scotland", I would have been impressed by anything, but no, in her head, "I should have been..."

Help desks use the put down, "The problem lies between the keyboard and the chair."

True, but too casual a dismissal.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: A Tale of Two Ex's

I got a week of free piano lessons as a kid (10ish?) which was pre-home-computer.

Once I wrapped my head around the notation, I absolutely loved it.

So no piano lessons for me! Yet my cousins got a year of lessons (which they hated) and a rental piano for a year as well.

That was part of a long line of "hahaha, no, kiddo!"

I think that's when I started disrupting everything my mother did, for the lulz. If she was cooking, I'd steal the necessary knife/potholder/spatula/bowl/whatever or mess with the oven temperature setting. I would reduce pressure in a tire, disconnect a spark plug. I would take money out of her purse and put it somewhere else, like her nightstand. I'd randomly flip breakers. Then one of my classmates introduced me to the concept of "gaslighting"

[BenDwire]

Re: A Tale of Two Ex's

And now you're in IT. That figures....