Just make something like the Nord Piano, but with at least 10x the Flash ROM space (would add $5 max to the price) or USB3 drive port. Then either support it really well like Nord is doing, or (preferably) let the open source programmers at it. One could easily be satisfied with that for decades.

Dewster: Never were truer words spoken! When buying instruments, keyboard players are compelled to pay dear money for incremental upgrades in both storage space, ROM memory or, indeed, in most other signifcant features. I'm positive absolute killer axes already exist in labratories only to be released years from now 'in due course'. An electronic musician,alas, cannot fall back on a vintage rig like guitarists can. At least not for his DP department. There's too much business thinking standing in the way of real progress in,say, digital pianos.

I agree. Unfortunately, since Harold Rhodes, there has not been anyone interested in developing an electric piano to its full potential simply because of a passionate interest in the subject and its challenges. That field has been ceded to the corporate giants who have a different agenda.

I suppose what Bob Moog and David Smith did for the world of synthesis is now being done by piano-software gurus in the form of modeling etc. It's just that there hasn't been a true marriage between their work and hardware implementation. (GEM came close to this kind of union, developing instruments based on the research that was done at the University of Padova). I suppose Nord is the nearest present-day equivalent, but they are still astute businessmen, and in order to survive I expect they need to be.

Unfortunately, the last sentence guarantees that what you ask for won't happen - at least not from a company with shareholders to satisfy. They would like you to replace your DP every couple of years, if not sooner.

What I don't quite understand, though, is why, as a DP manufacturer, you wouldn't want all your products to sound as good as they possibly can. And with software on small circuit boards, there is no real cost-saving to the manufacturer in not putting their best wares in every model. The price differential should surely come from different actions, better amps and speakers, more buttons and sliders etc. This dumbing-down annoys the hell out of me (as James knows), and puts me off buying certain products. Casio doesn't do it, and they work on much slimmer margins, so why should Kawai and Yamaha? (I reserve judgment on Roland - they have done that in the past - I'll wait and see what the full new range looks like.)

I had a bit of a go on the MP10 this morning ....
A few observations would be that its ...well massive 30kgs at least.
Looks VERY solid and well built and would no doubt be tough enough to withstand heavy use and gigging. Its also very attractive , not grey at all but black. The interface seems easy to use and intuitive but you cannot layer 2 pianos which is odd. The action is excellent and VERY similar to the RD700NX action. Close your eyes and your playing a grand ...its that good. From what I was able to make out in a very noisy enviroment the sound stands up very well. Its far richer then a Yamaha but nothing like the RD700NX. I'd have to spend time with decent headphones to get further impressions but on first listen it sounded quite good indeed.

Dr Popper, I had a chance to play a Kawai CP209 (same RM3 action as the MP10) and a Roland RD-700GX side-by-side. I found the actions quite different. I think they are both fantastic, but prefer the Kawai action.

Do you think the RD-700NX action is closer to the MP10 or closer to the older RD-700GX?

Yes the NX is a different action then the GX. I found the NX and MP10 to be both very good but similar rather then different. I think a classical player would prefer the MP10 and a jazz/rock player the NX. Jury's out on sound comparisons. I couldn't pretend to offer a informed opinion in the noisy atmosphere I was in. Sounded ok I think but I'd need more time.

That's very interesting - I have been assuming that the NX would be mechanically equivalent to the GX, but with the third sensor for improved repetition. I had no evidence whatsoever to support this assumption though.

Greg.

Thanks Dr Popper. I was ready to pull the trigger on an MP10 as soon as it was available, but now I'm thinking I'll have to find an RD-700NX to try out.

Actually, judging by the unscientific responses so far on this board of those who actually pull the trigger on and actually buy either a PHA-III based dp from Roland versus one with the RM3 keyboard from Kawai after having performed side-by-side auditions, the classical pianists seem to prefer the Roland.

This may have to do with faster repetition and realistic escapement simulation available on the Roland or with the very direct and organic feeling of the coupling between the keyboard and the actual sound produced. Particularly on the VPiano and to a lesser extent on the HP-307, it is possible to articulate just about anything you want.

Of course, it is very difficult to completely separate the feel of the keyboard from the actual sound produced and pretend to be able to judge them independently. For those playing classical repertoire, the dependable polyphony algorithms, the natural sounding decay, the fatter Steinway like sound and the overall realism of the SuperNatural Piano engine from Roland seems to show better than the drier, more sterile, less life like UPHI from Kawai.

That's a really subjective thing ... for me personally neither is the best action for my type of music ... I much prefer the CP1's action but I do play a LOT of house style piano and a lot of EP's. If I had to pick a action for my style I'd pick the Roland, if I had to pick a sound ...I'd pick the Kawai.

I agree it is subjective and therefore important for people to really audition the instruments side by side, which for many is very difficult if not impossible.

If I play with my eyes closed and the sound off not knowing which keyboard is in front of me, I marginally prefer the RM3. As soon as I play music with headphones, I prefer the PHA-III. Go figure.

That's a huge assumption, "with software on small circuit boards, there is no real cost-saving to the manufacturer in not putting their best wares in every model." What does size have to do with it? By that logic, a 32 gb SD card should cost no more than a 2 gb SD card. I would certainly allow for the possibility that the better sound engine requires more memory, a more powerful processor, possible additional circuitry, and of course, there are development costs as well, and you can't build additional high-end R&D costs into lower priced models (unless you want to raise their price and make them less competitive).

As to the fact that Casio doesn't do it, there are two ways of looking at that. Your perspective is that they put their best piano sound in even their basic model; you can just as easily say they put their worst piano sound in their best model. That's the result of the slimmer margins. If you only have the budget to develop one new piano sound, that's what goes into all your models. And it's not the world's greatest piano sound. I'm sure Kawai could have saved money by similarly putting the MP6 piano sound into the MP10.

One other thing is clear from this thread though:

* There are people who want the best possible built-in sound for gigs, who bemoan the fact that they have to buy a very expensive and--worse--very heavy MP10 to get the sound they want.

* There are people who want the best possible keybed and don't care about the sound engine, figuring they can always get the sound they want via computer, and can easily upgrade the sound that way at any time, whereas the keybed is not upgradeable. These people would benefit from an MP10 with minimal or no sounds at all.

Kawai--or someone--should come out with a modular series of pianos, where you pick the keyboard and sound engine separately. Imagine three keyboards... one with the MP10 action, one with the MP6 action, and one that is really light weight, each with an opening into which you slide the separately purchased sound engine (or none at all). So you could pick and choose what you need... get the best keybed without necessarily having to pay the cost of premium sounds; or get the lightest weight portable without having to sacrifice sound quality; or whatever combination of action/weight, sound, and price that fits you best, without their having to actually manufacture that many different models.I could also imagine someone buying a single sound module, which they could move between their big, heavy, great feeling keyboard in their studio and the light portable board they gig with.

This modular design already exists; this is basically what MIDI controllers and MIDI-controlled sound modules are for.

(And yes, one can use the same sound module for a bunch of different keyboards.)

Unfortunately, big manufacturers do not seem to consider this a good deal lately; I am afraid the reason of this is _exactly_ that this would be a good deal for us, the customers; it seems to me that they actually _want_ to force us into buying their expensive sound engines, despite the fact they know we don't need it.

(I don't think this reasining is valid, even from a business-oriented point of view, though.)

(I would be glad to be proven wrong about this, for example my Roland releasing a PHA-III MIDI controller, or Kawai releasing an RM3 midi controller.)

How much would you propose that such an product should cost, relative to the MP10?

Cheers,
James
x

I know you are only using the SD card size as an example, but we would all run screaming to the nearest Guitar Center for the first DP to have even 2 GB sample capacity. Something that sells for $5 retail, which means the parts cost is around $1-$2.

And I think we're over the bigger processor / extra circuitry hump - even DPs dangerously skirting the toy category seem to have adequate polyphony.


Casio puts a fairly adequate piano sound in all of their products - and when considering the price and the competition, the sound is pretty fantastic. I think Casio's marketing department is rather quaintly old fashioned. They don't seem to have fully grasped the modern artificial product tiering process that manufacturers of almost everything imaginable foist on us.


I wouldn't be surprised if Kawai could actually come out ahead (by saving on R&D / inventory / tracking / etc.) if they put the same MP10 guts and sounds in the MP6. But then their MSRPs would look stupid. I not trying to single Kawai out here, they all do it to one extent or another.


They heyday of controllers and sound modules seems to be coming to a close. I partially blame manufacturers for not getting together and updating the creaky old MIDI standard.

I would be very happy to pay half the price of the MP10.

I would probably seriously consider buying it even if the price went up to 70% of the price of the MP10. (But the sweet spot would definitly be around 50%.)

(The same goes for an RH midi controller, compared to the MP6.)

Best wishes:

Csillag

I was simplifying to make a point, but what I was having a go at is the ridiculous notion that the smaller, lighter product HAS to be the least capable. Manufacturers (apart from Nord) have failed to grasp the differing requirements of gigging musicians when it comes to their stage boards. A few years ago I bought a Roland RD-300SX. I wanted the sound of the 700 but I needed to keep weight and bulk down, so I had to buy a board with less capability and poorer sound. Why?


This is exactly the solution that's needed, IMO! Kudos and thanks, anotherscott

Not just an RM3 midi controller but, as anotherscott has suggested, an RM3 controller AND an MP6-like controller, both with the option to slot in Kawai's different sound engines. Use Audio and CME got together to allow the Plugiator synth to slot into a CME controller - simple and effective!

50% would be a great price. I'm in it for the action. The sound for me is secondary. My primary use is a MIDI controller.

Considering that the new CA13 will retail at about 75% of the MP10 price, I think 70% is about the upper end of the reasonable price range. Really, a bare bones CA13 without sounds, stripped of speakers, amplifier, etc, and without all that wood should be in the 50-60% range compared to an MP10 and still give Kawai the same margin.

Considering that a CME VX80 goes for about $1000 USD, this would still be a premium product. Perhaps Kawai doesn't think it could profit at a low enough price point to make it an attractive alternative to cheaper controllers.

I think that even if Kawai could not directly profit much (which I am not sure about; I mean who know what is the cost of producing a keyboard?), it could still be a wise move, because (if the pricing is right) this model would _own_ the controller market, and thus elevate the visibility of the whole Kawai brand. (A lot of people only know about Roland and Yamaha.) If everybody knew how great the Kawai action was, I think the sales of the higher-end products would go up, too.

Yes and no. True, you can buy soundless keyboard controllers and connect them to (typically rack-mounted) modules, though more so in the past than today. The limitation, compared to what I'm talking about, is that the rack modules are not very performance-friendly. I like the idea of something that can be made integral to the keyboard units so that the knobs and displays are all where you want them to be, designed so that it still looks like a single piece, moves in one piece, doesn't require extra cabling, etc.

Taking this off in another tangent, while in general I'd like to see this kind of approach, it doesn't actually completely address the MP6/MP10 dichotomy, because the MP6 actually does a bunch of things the MP10 doesn't. It's not as simple as looking at the MP10 as having a better action and better piano sound than the MP6. The MP6 also has a bunch of advantages over the MP10, as a MIDI controller and in the additional sounds available. Even if you can deal with the price and the weight, you actually can't get it all in one keyboard. In other words, even if they offered an MP6 or an MP10 drop-in module that could be mated to either the MP6 or MP10 keyboard, you still wouldn't necessarily be able to get everything you want. People may want all the features of the MP6, but with the best piano sound possible, and no such combination even exists.

Nord has the same problem. You can look at the Electro 3 and decide you want to upgrade to the Stage EX for all its extra features (multitimbral, zoning/MIDI controller functions, VA synth section, 88 weighted keys, aftertouch, pitch bend and mod wheel, better piano implementations with string resonance)... but then you discover that you're also giving some things up, since the Stage does not have the sample playback engine that's in the E3, and its organ engine is one generation behind. It's frustrating when you're ready and willing to spend money for an upgraded model and then find that you're also going to have to give up features that were in the lower priced model!

I don't think MIDI is the bottleneck. What can a "regular" keyboard do, that a controller keyboard combined with a module would be unable to do due to a MIDI limitation? The fact that most keyboards can indeed function as "oversized sound modules" by driving them from another keyboard via MIDI makes me think MIDI is no limitation at all.

The MIDI BAUD rate is 31.25kHz. Since it takes 10 bits to transmit a byte, the byte rate is 3.125kHz. Note-on takes 3 bytes (command, note, velocity) so we're down to around 1kHz, which is 1 ms.

Call me crazy, but that kind of delay is starting to become significant. And this is to just play a single note, if you play a bunch at once along with a continuous damper pedal and maybe a mod or pitch wheel change, I can imagine there will be scenarios where the delay becomes noticeable to the player.

I'd favor an interface that was faster and bidirectional, and able to support stereo audio as well, while still electrically isolating the things being connected from each other. It could still use a five pin connector (balanced RX & TX, ground) though perhaps not standard MIDI DIN or cabling.

None of this is rocket science, and should have been addressed at least a decade ago. I believe the aging MIDI standard is one of the main reasons controllers and sound modules are disappearing.

This has been the case for 30 years. MIDI delay is no worse now than it was then, milliseconds aren't longer now. Most people didn't find it to be an issue, I don't think it's the reason modules have fallen out of favor, I don't think today's equipment is "over taxing" MIDI compared to 10 or 20 years ago.

MIDI is fairly limited in the way it describes how you're playing. 127 velocity levels with note on and note off is only one part of the equation. 127 levels certainly could be improved, but I don't know that there's much perceptible difference between 64 and 64.5. I think there are multiple parameters that escape MIDI (and sensors in modern actions), such as how fast the upstroke is (eg staccato vs legato). Exactly how far the key was released before restriking is another example. Basically, MIDI doesn't have the capacity to describe all the parameters that define the sound. Bösendorfer CEUS is a good example of something more precise than MIDI in describing what was played.

I think a better standard that can be used to communicate info between devices would be needed for something like CEUS. Something like EuCon from Euphonix, but not proprietary.

All that said, I'm quite content with MIDI. Where I think the biggest opportunity for improvement is in the making things more modular, as you suggest. If Kawai built a controller that had expandability options in the form of add-on cards, I probably wouldn't buy the add-ons. But if it made it attractive enough to bring to market, I'd be content paying $100 more for that unused functionality rather than $1000 more for everything else that comes standard today.

I think that a controller from Kawai would be a premium product, and would justify a slightly higher price point than the competition. Considering how many people buy an MP series or RD-700 series stage piano, just to use it as a controller, I think there's a pretty big sweet spot in pricing. Cheaper enough compared to these stage pianos, but better enough in terms of action that it justifies paying a little more than a typical controller.

I agree, Dewster. I think MIDI just isn't the right language to describe the nuance of playing. It already is bordering on inadequate in terms of latency for the amount of data that can be described in MIDI. If you threw in additional data with more resolution, there would be a latency nightmare.

I think there's a bit of a chicken an egg problem. No one makes modules that can reflect all the nuance of playing (V-piano may be the closest exception, but it's certainly no module). And no one makes a controller that can communicate all that info.

We seem to be quite a bit off the original topic. Is there a way to move this discussion to a new thread?

Or, here is an other product idea I would love:

- Take a CA63 (costs around the same as an MP10)
- Remove any sound generation
- Keep the cabinet, the speakers and the amp (and keys, of course)
- Sell at 75% of the original price.

The resulting product would be (in both appearance and price) very similary to the CA-13, only much better, because this would have a line-in, which the CA13 is lacking. (Thus anchoring the amp & speakers to the outdated PHI sound generation, without any possibility of de-coupling.)

Interesting suggestion, but how many instruments do you honestly think we would sell compared to the regular CA63?

I'm not doubting that there is demand for such a product - it would be the ideal solution for yourself, and perhaps a handful of other, more technically-oriented consumers who are familiar with MIDI and Pianoteq, Ivory, etc. However, for the mass-market of digital piano consumers - those who simply wish to sit down at an instrument, turn it on, and start playing - a tone generator-less digital piano would be almost impossible to market.

Kind regards,
James
x

Release velocity is a standard MIDI parameter.

To clarify, I'm not saying that MIDI cannot be improved; I'm just saying that I don't think its limitations are a factor in why more companies aren't marketing more modules.