What i would love to see is a users top ten favourites of all these custom settings. Is there any way this can be achieved in a 'poll' like fashion?

Regards

Bibster

I've updated the liste once again. Check the first posting for the URL.

That's a nice thought Bibster, but I have no clue how to implement that in this thread. Of course, many Kawai CA93/CA63 owners have already given their feedback, sometimes accompanied by a personal top ten. Anyhow, for now, I would advice you to work backwards, starting with checking out the latest (and greatest?) dual voice presets...

Thanks so much, ripe_md!
By the way, you beat me to the punch, as the Trilogy is not yet completed.

I have to keep pace with your Millenium Trilogy

Partly OT: are you interested in a Kontakt 4 optimised 17GB 48kHz/24-bit KAWAI EX sample library with three simultaneous mike positions for mixing?

Check out the Summer Sale at Acoustic Samples; it's only 77 USD / 62 Euro now!
http://www.acousticsamples.net/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=3&products_id=21

Finally, here's the last part of the trilogy.

Don't let the light touch setting fool you: this is a deep and emotional sound with great control (and the Room 1 reverb functions as a cabinet IR)! Just try the Schindler's List theme or something like that...


TRILOGY PART 3 - CLASSICAL R1.0

Dual Voice: Mellow Grand, volume 7 + Rock Piano, volume 3

1 Basic Settings
1 - 3 Tone control: low +6, mid +6, high -6

2 Virtual Technician
2 - 1 Voicing: mellow 2
2 - 2 Damper resonance: 9
2 - 3 String resonance: 10
2 - 4 Key off effect: 9
2 - 5 Touch: Light
2 - 8 Stretch tuning: Normal

3 Key Settings
3 - 4 Layer dynamics: 7

Reverb: Room 1

Effect: Delay 2, time 1, depth 2

Let's refer to this one as the Rock of Ages!


1795 SCHANTZ FORTEPIANO COPY R1.0

Dual Voice: Rock Piano, volume 5 + Harpsichord, volume 5

1 Basic Settings
1 - 3 Tone control: low -6, mid +6, high -3
1 - 7 Tuning: 427 Hz (pick your historical favorite below 440 Hz)

2 Virtual Technician
2 - 1 Voicing: mellow 2
2 - 2 Damper resonance: 7
2 - 3 String resonance: 10
2 - 4 Key off effect: 10
2 - 5 Touch: Heavy
2 - 8 Stretch tuning: Normal

3 Key Settings
3 - 3 Layer octave: -1
3 - 4 Layer dynamics: 9

Reverb: Hall 1

Effect: none

Just a little TEASER this time, showing some VSTi & Standalone work in progress:



By the way, who could supply me with high quality MP10/CS9 noise samples? (e.g. high-grade balanced XLR out recordings of pedal down/up and hammer strike/fallback)

The interface is looking good man! Nice tweaks! You "have" been busy...

Yes, that looks pretty sleek - nice job!

James
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TADutchman : I don't get it, what is the purpose of this VST exactly ? btw, thanks to you and the others for sharing your presets, I just received a Kawai CA 93, and will try thses (but there are so many !).
OT : I wanted to check if the firmware was up to date, and it is v1.08. But on Kawai's website, the latest downloadable firmware seems to be v1.07...Am I missing something ?

Hello Pierre,

The v1.08 software adds the 'Playing a note very softly no longer produces a sound' improvement (similar to the MP10), however this update was not made publicly available.

The latest software version for the CA93/CA63 is actually v1.09, and should be made available later this month.

Congratulations on your new CA93 by the way!

Cheers,
James
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Kawai James : thanks for the information, and it's indeed a nice piano, but a pain to carry it up to the 4th floor, the package said it's 115 kg (well, still lighter than an acoustic)!. I guess the updates included in the 1.09 firmware are confidential ?

Hello Pierre,

The fixes in the v1.09 are mostly related to the Temperament/User Temperament function. There is also a fix for MIDI under certain circumstances.

Nothing really spectacular, I'm afraid, however the 'silent key on' fix should please a number of owners.

Kind regards,
James
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Let me start with congratulating you on your CA93 purchase with silent keypress!

The purpose of the Standalone version is to add Realtime Acoustic Noise to your CA93/CA63's playing/recording in case you have a Midi and low-latency ASIO PC connection available (I have a convenient wireless set-up using M-Audio MidAir and AudioEngine W1 + Asio4All).

You could also record a song with your CA93's internal sequencer and save to USB in both Wave & Midi format. Then you can add subtle noises afterwards using the Realtime Acoustic Noise VSTi in a DAW for mixing and mastering (Reaper 4 being my weapon of choice). This way you don't need any connection between your CA93 and a PC.

Of course I want to improve upon the implementation of pedal and hammer noise and include other features so that MP10/CS9 owners and other Kawai DP owners also become interested in this tool...

After the above has been accomplished, I may be persuaded to turn Realtime Acoustic Noise into a universal tool to be used with any hardware or software instrument (probably adding load WAV functionality).

Hello. I just bought a CA-63 a couple of weeks ago, and i'm happy to find here some in-depht Q&A. I experienced a cruel dissapointment regarding the tone quality of my CA 63. I am going to try the different dual-voicing patches kindly published by TADutchman. My first (and not last question) is: do i need to enter the patches settings one by one (since i dont find the CA 63 interface user-friendly )or is there a workaround i didnt see (a PC based patch interface ?). Congratulations also for your VST effect of acoustic noise, it seems to be a great tool! There a many of these tools around to improve guitar sounds but i didnt see any for piano.

Congratulations on your CA63 purchase, Lblues.
Before going into detail: have you already played your CA63 with a pair of high-end headphones? In this thread you can find an example of CyberGene who clearly loves to play his CA63 with Sennheiser HD595 headphones, as opposed to using the built-in speaker system...

By the way, I clearly prefer to play my CA93 live, i.e. with active soundboard and 6-speaker system at acoustic grand volume, getting a satisfying immersive experience. I often even forget to switch on my CA93, being surprised there is no sound when I start to play.

TADutchman,
Does the CA93 have a parameter to adjust hammer noise?

Reason i'm asking, i see a "Hammer" control under the Noise section in your plugin, however i can't find a parameter for hammer noise on the MP10... Now, if the CA93/CA63 has one, it would be interesting to see if Kawai could add it to the MP10 in an future software upgrade...

No it doesn't, except that smart dual piano voice layering can indirectly also yield some more percussive piano timbres, but I am indeed working on a creative way to integrate both Hammer Strike and Hammer Fallback into Realtime Acoustic Noise...

Wow, that would be awesome... will it be compatible with the MP10?

Yes, i did. I use AKG K171MkII Headphones, and it is not supposed to be the worst sounding on the market. I also tried to use MAUDIO AV40 Studio monitors but in both cases i'm not pleased with the sound i get.

I tried a few of you dual voices piano patches and i must say that it improves a lot the standard single-voice piano patches. So perhaps i won't throw my CA63 through my window (too heavy anyway!).
By the way, i wonder why KAWAI does not use dual-voice for the main Piano patch ? -Concert Grand- It is supposed to deliver the best sound the instrument can play).

I have got a few questions:

- since i did not find my dream one (but until now i only tried five of your patches over 150+) does one of your patches give something close to the MP10 "Concert Grand 1" or "Pop piano 1" thant can be heard from the demo at http://kawai.de/mp10_de.htm ?

- is there a way of storing more than 8 patches ? (i suppose there is not)

- If you have got a "process" in creating your patches (i suppose you don't tweak the parameters randomly but who knows)i would be pleased to read about it. I read some posts here where you gave some tips about it.

Thanks a lot for your work and sharing it, anyway.

Just a compact reply this time (my daughter of almost 7 weeks old needs attention): I don't know what your dream patch would be like exactly, but you could for example try:

Kawai Concert Artist
Red Piano
Take the Ex To The Max
The Way It Is
Classical Piano Collection Direct
Clavinova Home Improvement
Trilogy Part 1 - Jazz
Trilogy Part 2 - Pop

And here's a simple improvisation of mine, using the more mellow but percussive sounding
Trilogy Part 3 - Classical preset:


Romantic Phantasy

Enjoy!

P.S. Please note that compared to e.g. normalised USB recordings, live playing my CA93 sounds warmer and more acoustic (I may do a multi-mike recording some time to prove it).

Hear hear, my point exactly.

I find it difficult to compare using PC speakers. Next to the above given examples, you could check out the comments that go with almost all presets in this thread, the reviews of other CA93/CA63 owners and some of the sample recordings.

Or what about this brandnew preset, mixing the essence of Concert Grand and Pop Piano for a contemporary sound:

POP GRAND IN CONCERT R1.0

Dual Voice: Concert Grand/Studio Grand, volume 6 + Pop Piano, volume 4

1 Basic Settings
1 - 3 Tone control: low +1, mid +4, high +5

2 Virtual Technician
2 - 1 Voicing: mellow 1
2 - 2 Damper resonance: 8
2 - 3 String resonance: 10
2 - 4 Key off effect: 8
2 - 5 Touch: Normal
2 - 8 Stretch tuning: Normal

3 Key Settings
3 - 4 Layer dynamics: 9

Reverb: Room 2 / Stage

Effect: Delay 2, time 1, depth 1


Well, there is one more, the user memory, so that brings the total to only 9

Well, a CA93/CA63 random preset generator by Pinipon can be found somewhere in this thread.
I work with timbre matching by ear, so the settings are just parameters that follow in a fuzzy logic kind of way. Here's a PDF reference paper:
Enhancing the default settings of Kawai CA63 and CA93 digital piano

You're welcome!

One more for the Hints & Tips category: if you like a preset but feel there's a slight something missing, try adjusting the volume slider typically in the range 4 - 5.5

I.m.h.o. not only the volume is adjusted, but according to my ears, there's a hidden multiband compressor and/or dynamic equalizer that enters the equation as well and can change the timbre and dynamics of especially dual voice layered presets quite dramatically.

Please note that volume adjustments have no effect on USB recordings at all and that the effects are quite different when you compare playing with speakers (+soundboard in case of CA93) and using headphones.

Who the .... is misusing my CA93 photograph for commercial purposes? I did not give permission for that!

http://www.kaboodle.com/reviews/kawai-ca93-digital-piano--ca93-digital-piano-by-kawai

Clicking on the picture even leads directly to the Kawai US website: stop it or pay for the photo to acquire copyrights! (no right to copy)

For reference, here's the original post containing the picture, following upon a request by Kawai James:
http://www.pianoworld.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/1475998.html#Post1475998

Ah that's the Internet for you. Gave me a laugh, sorry. Guess you can start with Kaboodle if you're seriously annoyed.

Actually I'm curious now, how did you find it? Hidden watermark or easter egg thingy or just stumbled over it.

Sixth sense

Okay, therefore I changed my strategy today: I first downloaded the MP3 demo onto my USB stick and used my CA93 for playback and comparison in order to come up with this resembling patch (comments are welcome):


CONCERT GRAND 1 FLY BY R1.0

Dual Voice: Concert Grand, volume 6 + Studio Grand, volume 4

1 Basic Settings
1 - 3 Tone control: low -1, mid +4, high -1

2 Virtual Technician
2 - 1 Voicing: bright 1 / bright 2
2 - 2 Damper resonance: 5
2 - 3 String resonance: 7
2 - 4 Key off effect: 7
2 - 5 Touch: Normal
2 - 8 Stretch tuning: Normal

3 Key Settings
3 - 4 Layer dynamics: 8

Reverb: Stage

Effect: none

TADutchman, I don't believe Kawai America has any involvement in that page or Kaboodle.com. I expect 'brettmacdonald' set up the entry in order to receive affiliate/sponsor clicks-thrus. That's just the way the internet is these days, unfortunately.

Kind regards,
James
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