It's not harsh at all. Marketing people don't care at all whether the product is any good or not. Their job is make it look good and increase the sales. If someone is confused in to buying something that don't want or can afford, it's job done for them.

That's the main reason I want a genuine sales person selling me something, if I have to put up with one at all. I want honest advice, good information of the type i'd expect or nothing at all..

Back to my "ziff noise" issue ;-) I thought I should compare the sound demo's from Ca63/93 back and forth with the MP10 demo's. First thing I noticed is that the MP10 sounded better to my ears ! A more full and rounded piano sound, when the CA63 could be quite 'thin' in some passages. I liked the overall sound better of the MP10, although there are probably not such huge technical differences, the changes that Kawai made have worked out very well.

But....I didn't notice this 'ziff' sound on the mid-ff tone on the CA series. When I switched back to the MP10 demo, I immediately heard these annoying noises at the transients again. Please let it not be part of the new sound, but a recording artifact. Any HQ direct recorded examples would prove if it are these particular demo's or....

Anyone ? (James any ideas about this issue ?)

I agree with regard to the very pleasing sound of the MP10. I also like the sound of the CA63/93 - I think they actually sound a little more "organic" than the equivalent SN Rolands, although the Roland has a slightly more defined and clear sound to my ears. I haven't had enough exposure to hear whether the looping of the Kawai samples will be noticeable in normal playing.

There seems to be quite a jump from CA13 to CA63/93 in terms of sound detail and dynamic range, but I've only had youtube quality to go on.

You are talking of the CA63/93 in single voice mode with the standard factory piano settings, right? In that case your description may be quite accurate (using high-end headphones).

So, does anyone know of a store that is/will carry these? I know Sam Ash used to with the MP5/MP8II but they don't have the MP6 or MP10 currently listed.

Aaron

http://www.sweetwater.com/store/manufacturer/Kawai

They do have a store, but Indiana is a little far-off for me.

You might contact your local Kawai piano store and ask; they would probably at least know, if they don't carry the line themselves (although my local store did).

You can also probably find out through the http://kawaius.com/ website.

Meanwhile, I can still bask for a few final moments of owning 'today's technology today.' Once the first few units are delivered and the reports start coming in, well, that's that.

Indiana's a bit too far for me as well.

Once they start showing up in stores I'll have to check with my local (well, hour and a half away) dealer; last time I was there they didn't have any of the previous stage pianos but wouldn't hurt to check.

I've also emailed Sam Ash to see if they do intend to carry these in stores, I'll post here when I get a response.

Aaron

JFP, with regards to your damper pedal query, I can tell you that all the MPs respond to 24 levels/steps.

By the way, there is additional MP10/MP6 content at the KawaiUS.com site.

Cheers,
James
x

I really enjoyed the audio samples of the MP10 on the KawaiUS website and am looking forward to the reviews we will get on it in the coming months.

Geeze that's a awful website that Kawaius ....whoever did that has no idea.

All

I just got an MP6 delivered by UPS. As soon as I get off work I will hook it up.

Kinda Feels like Christmas.

BTW I paid $1499.00 at Musicians Friend.com.

Awesome, looking forward to your impressions. Also, any audio or video clips you can post would be greatly appreciated.

Aaron

Merry Christmas, FrankDaddy! I hope it turns out to be a really memorable one.

Please post your thoughts as soon as you can. I'm so hoping that my reservations about the MP6's sound engine are misplaced. Please could you comment specifically on the following?
1. Dynamic range and timbre variation both in APs and EPs.
2. Phasing of AP bass chords/octaves (that issue has been raised in respect of another Kawai model, and I think you can hear it on the German MP6 demo video when the bass octaves are sustained).
3. Length and realism of AP attack/decay samples.
4. "Realism" of AP sounds in general
5. Looping, and whether it sounds static or natural.
6. Action feel, and its connection with the sound engine.
7. EP "bark" and "bite".
8. Tonewheel organ authenticity.
9. Overall playability and sense of satisfaction when playing.

I hope you've plenty of time to play with your new toy!!!

Just heard back confirming that Sam Ash will be carrying the MP6 and MP10 (they are apparently on order).

Aaron

Sweetwater and Kraft are also stocking up. However, Sweetwater has removed "free shipping" from the MP6 for some reason. Pay an extra dollar ninety-nine and Kraft will include shipping and a bundle of accessories with their Key Essentials package.

I'm down to my final three choices for lightweight stage piano:
Kawai MP6
Korg SV-1
Nord NP88

I reluctantly removed the FP-7f from consideration as it tips the 50lbs barrier. No RD-300NX yet - darn!

The Kawai is the heaviest of the bunch but does include more programmability. I'm waiting for feedback from new owners before deciding whether to keep it in contention. The SV-1 is raw (in a good way) but a little difficult to reign in on the fly, apparently. There have been reports of key noise problems with the SV-1. The Nord is more expensive but sounds more authentic in certain respects. Not sure about the Nord's action, and no organs means adding another box or board.

I'm sick of going round and round in the limbo of indecision!

.

Thanks for your thoughts, Dave. I don't think I can be any more confused, so it helps!

I've already downloaded Soundpack 2, just in case I pull the trigger on the Korg! The lack of true splits on the Korg is a small negative, but I like the fact that they're listening to players and bringing out meaningful updates. There are a few good deals to be had on the board at the moment.

Even without playing the NP, I'm feeling myself holding back. Initially, I found the V5 pianos on the Electro 3 quite compelling, but I felt no regret at selling the NE3. Admittedly, a lot had to do with the fact that the Electro's action was not good enough for its vastly improved APs, but also that I never really warmed to its overall sound spectrum. In the end I'm wondering whether merely being a faithful clone is enough, and that maybe an instrument should have its own clearly defined character. I sense that the SV-1 may have that...

The MP6 seems to be more of a "traditional" stage piano/controller with its GM-type soundpack plus some well defined APs and EPs. Nothing wrong with that, but it will have to impress me with its implementation. For example, are the tonewheel organs and rotary sim better than the Korg's rather lackluster offering in that department? Is the lack of UPHI a noticeable hindrance or more of a theoretical distraction? We shall see. The real attraction is the possibility that the MP6's action is the best in a lightweight stage piano yet.

With gigs lined up, I'm chomping at the bit here. My trusty GEM is fine, but I'd like a faster action, even better APs, and usable organs without having to add-on.

Are you sure to rule out the FP7F ? It hasn't been delivered yet, so it would be a shame if it gets rave reviews when available and you just dumped it because of 1 or 2 KG...(I also think it's very compact ; looks smaller in real life than the impression you get from the websites).

Just a thought.

I have a feeling the FP-7f's APs will knock everything else in the price range into a cocked hat (strange expression, that ). However, I have never been sold on Roland's EPs (SN or not). I almost viscerally disliked the ones in the RD-300SX and I'm not convinced that the FP-7f's are going to be any better. EPs are a big part of what I do (equal with APs), so they have to be good and likable! I very much enjoy the EPs in my GEM, and want to be inspired by the sounds in my new rig, too. I listened carefully to the MP6, and it's difficult to tell from the demos whether the EPs will be truly inspiring, but so far they sound OK.

I have considered the FP-7f just for home, but that's a significant added cost!!!

OK, didn't know you we're primarily looking for good EP's as well; thought it was all about the acoustic piano ;-)

Hi guys

I have spent about 2 hours with the MP6 and I feel that I have not even scratch the surface.

Here is what I needed.

Only use one keyboard for gigging
A good AP
A good Clone Wheel Organ
A good Rhodes, Wurly, and Clavinet
Splits/Layering
Good MIDI worstation/Controller
Do not have to hook it up to a computer to tweak
Strong keyboard ( Not Necessary that be wood.)
Portable.
88 keys

Be able to use for small clubs and background keyboard work.

Here is what I can say about the MP6

Excellent Pianos. I can play Chopin, Bach to Jim Brickman and it sounds excellent.
Rhodes. I have a 1973 Rhodes 88 key. So the bar is set high. I am pleased with the sound of the Rhodes out of the box. I started tweaking it and have it sounding like my Rhodes run through a Fender Twin Rev. It barks nicely.
Clavinet - pretty strong and I have yet to tweak it.
Clone Wheel - The drawbars work great on the sound. I will setup my favorites as setups. It is not something you do on the fly. I have yet to run it through the amp or overdrive it.
Pads - More Pads than you could possible use. Some Excellent some ok.
Splits/Layering - Easy to do
Tweaking is very easy. No computer needed.
The keyboard feel is wonderfull. The Ivory Touch does fell great under my fingers.
The Weighting is nice. It feels like an acoustic piano.
the countrols work well on the fly except the organ.
It has a built in music stand. Some DPs do not.

What I do not like

The setup to adjust the drawbars. It works but you better setup your registratons in advance. doing it on the fly does not work well.

The Rotary effect has only one horn. Still it sounds great.

The usb plug for the thumbdrive is in the back. I would have preferred it on the front.

You cannot save the rythym tracks with your setup. so you have to setup your sound, meter and tempo each time.

So far I like what I see. I have 45 days to make up my mind. I like it better than the Korg SV1 feature set. The Korg SV-1 is a nice instrument but this is about $700 US cheaper than the KORG and there is a bigger feature set on the Kawai. I am going back to compare the sound to a Yamaha CP1, 5 and 50 this weekend. The Roland pianos, to me, sounds fine, I just prefer the piano sound on the Kawai DPs. The keyboard is better on the Kawai also IMHO.

I do see a difference between UPHI and PHI. Althought I do see a difference between my ES4 and the MP6. So the differences are there. But the MP6 meets my requieremnts and the sound is fantastic. I cannot justify (or my wife will not let me ) spend the $1000 US dollars for the incremental increase in sound quality and lose some of the sounds that I need to gig with.

So the keyboards I have been looking at were:

Yamaha CP1,5 and 50
Roland
Korg SV1
Kawai MP6 and MP10

they are all fine instruments. It jsut depends on what is important to you. You really cannot go wrong with any of them

So what I see is a keyboard that fits the bill so far... more to come...

.

Hi. Thanks for the review so far. You know you're going to get asked a lot about the Mp6 as there are many here that are interested in the machine. I'll start.. !!

What do you mean by the above quote from your message? I think you may have got your do's and don'ts mixed up..

If there is any chance you can do an audio demo of it, that would be great!!! There is so little on the internet, other than Kawai's own efforts, so it would be fantastic to hear something recorded by a user.. I'm especially interested in the pianos but i'm also very interested in the general sound set as well.

Regards. Rimmer

Very good to hear that Sam Ash will be carrying these Kawai pianos.

Looking forward to the more detailed review of the acoustic pianos.

Yes, the lack of real-time organ control is a shame, and as has been mentioned, you can't even get around it by adding a BCF2000 or other fader-based MIDI control surface. Something else I just realized is that, not only can you not adjust drawbars on the fly, you also can't even easily turn percussion on and off, even that is menu based.

It's nice that you can set up any organ registrations you want as presets, it's certainly a great feature that most stage pianos don't let you do with their organ patches, but it's a little frustrating to get 95% of the way toward having a completely functional clonewheel in there, and then just fall a little short. I can understand they had certain limitations in what they could do in terms of front panel control capability without a much bigger redesign from the MP5 base, but not even allowing those parameters to be accessed via MIDI seems like a real oversight.

As for the rotary effect, I don't think you mean one horn (Leslies only have one horn), but rather that the horn and bass driver don't speed up and slow down independently. At least that can be solved with an external box (certainly a Ventilator, but cheaper rotary simulators have this effect as well), and it looks like you can pan sounds, so you could pan all your organs to Left and all your other sounds to Right so, with some effort, you could run organ sounds through an external Leslie processor separately from all your other sounds even when you're combining organ and other sounds in splits/layers. Though again, in terms of getting the organ 95% toward what it could be, it's a shame that that much more of the Leslie effect wasn't programmed in... I don't think there's been anything with any kind of drawbar functionality that lacked this part of the characteristic sound since the 1970s. But maybe it just required more DSP than the unit has.

Thanks for taking the time out from playing your new MP6 to let us have your initial thoughts, FrankDaddy.

Trying to read between the lines a little, I get the impression that you're pleased with the MP6 but not bowled over - it wasn't quite enough for you to throw away the other brochures. Would you think it's fair to class the MP6 as a good workhorse but not a thoroughbred filly?

VoxPops

thanks for the question. I can say it is definitly at least an excellent workhorse. But there may be a little thoroughbred filly there too. I hope my response will clarify my initial thoughts.

I have played several great pianos in my life. The DPs are trying to imitate something that is still elusive; the very complex sound of a piano. Also I am very conservative when I give my opinion. I do not want to accidently mislead someone. I am going to upgrade my headphones and my speaker system on my way home. Part of the problem is that my headphones were having trouble with the complex piano signal. they are older Bose sound isolating headphones. They are not "Flat". So i am picking up some "flat" response headphones and picking up a 200W Klipsch 2.1 speaker system. that will give me a better feel for how they sound. For gigging I use a Peavey KB 4 and it sounds less than Ideal. That is going to be upgraded. So to be fair I am running my tests back through newer speakers and headphones. By the way the sound difference between the ES4 and the MP6 is highly substantial. And I really like the ES4. The MP6 is built rather well and it looks great. I forgot to mention that the controls work well live with the exception of the drawbars. For $1500 US this keyboard is a bargain.

And again I have not spent the time tweaking the system. There is a lot to tweak.

More to Come....

That is what happens when you try to post after a long day! I do see a difference between my es4 (harmonic imaging) versus my MP6 (Prgressive Harmonic Imaging.) I did listen to a Kawai Console with UPHI which is what the MP10 has. The sound is a little more complex on the MP10/CA93. I will do a demo in the next few days and post them online. I am still trying to get my hands around the nuances of the keyboard.

I hope this helps!

You are correct. What I was saying that in a Leslie 145/147 (which I owned years ago) there is a horn rotary speaker and a woofer rotary (really a baffle over a stationary woofer) when the speed changes the two accelerate/deccelerate at different speeds and give a nice "wobble" to the sound. I liked your Idea about the pan feature. the Organ sounds are really good. I just like to play with the drawbars while I am playing. But this is a Swiss Army knife kind of instrument. It does a lot of things very well but not as well as a dedicated Clonewheel organ. But it does not cost a lot either. I was surprised how well the keyboard works for an organ. Although I am tempted to try an unweighted keyboard and MIDI it witht he MP6. It did glissandos quite well. And it does have a good percussion effect. again I do not like that you have to go through the menus.

So far a lot of keyboard for the money