NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – Days before his death, Prince tweeted a photo of a custom-made purple piano intended to be a centerpiece of his scheduled tour.
The piano, which was delivered to Prince’s home at Paisley Park in Minnesota a few weeks ago, was a rush job that had to be completed in about three months, said Chris Gero, vice president of Yamaha Entertainment Group, based in Franklin, Tennessee.
“We were on the top end of the idea, but it accelerated so fast,” Gero said Friday, revealing the behind-the-scenes work that went into its manufacture.
The acoustics of the piano were fine-tuned to Prince’s specifications. The artist, 57, who was found dead in his suburban Minneapolis home Thursday, had intended it for his Prince, Piano and a Microphone tour.
“So the piano is an acoustical piano, but it also has a tone generation system internally that can go out to a secondary audio source that all the sounds internally are highly modified just for him,” Gero said. “They are EQed (equalized) a certain way. There were certain sounds that were made just specifically for him.”