Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Kawai CA95 has arrived

@rimorob,

The replies by the other poster(s) above are in fact correct, as the "Touch Curve" settings in the CA95 do not affect the physical resistance of the keys.

For DPs, it´s pretty straightforward, and I wonder why more people here don´t use it - just play on them switched off. DPs are straightforward - their key action never changes (no matter what you do with the controls or switches), and cannot easily be tampered with . You can also get a good idea of how noisy their actions are that way, if that aspect matters to you.

But for real pianos, probably the best way is to get a collection of coins of different weights, and an accurate pair of scales. And don´t forget to measure also the ´upweight´ as well as downweight. (The upweight is measured by first depressing the key, then measuring the weight that just allows the key to lift back up). The difference is a measure of the key resistance.

There are no user adjustable settings on any DP (AFAIK) that adjust the actual key action, so those guys are just blowing smoke.

Caveats:

By adjusting the velocity curve / sensitivity you can adjust the amount of work you have to do to get the same loudness & timbre. But then controllability changes as well.

If you have an Avant Grande, a piano technician could adjust the touch by removing and working on the key assembly.

Most DPs could probably have the individual fake hammer weights adjusted if you paid someone to do it and had a plan.

Well, I got suspicious when he said they could do it *in software*. I've seen the key assembly for this DP, and I could believe that the action might be adjustable *in hardware* instead - e.g., by adjusting the lever point for the key. There IS a chance that the salesman misunderstood me, however, as most salespeople assume that a question they don't understand is indicative of the customer being confused, and answer the next-most-similar question that they think the customer means. Could be....

Also, it's possible that the keyboard wouldn't feel too 'light' if I were to adjust key sensitivity slightly - my perception may be driven not by the physical effort of pressing the key but by the frequency of mishits of the neighboring keys vs the same frequency on a high-end grand (those tend to have softer action than uprights). I wonder if anybody here has noticed this issue on digital pianos? I usually notice that I play "sloppier" on the digitals.

Good salespeople should fully understand the question they are answering, and they should assist the customer in fully understanding their answer. It's kind of telling how they always seem to err on the side of benefiting the sale and screwing you when it comes to the dissemination of misinformation. I tend to avoid places where they try to sell me a line, as I never know where the lying stops, and life is complicated enough.

Good point. But good luck finding a salesperson who has information you need and the honesty to answer truthfully. If I were to stay away from any place where the salesmen lie, I'd have nowhere to shop! So I think it's incumbent on me to find information on my own, and not depend upon the salesman for ANY information. It's safer that way.

To expand on @bennevis' excellent suggestion of testing key resistance with a stack of coins, is there a CA95/CA65 owner here who also has an acoustic (or even just the CA*5) who could do this? E.g., place quarters at the very end of a white key until the key tips. For comparison's sake, say, the middle C. If you report an acoustic result, could you please specify make and model? I would be especially interested in kawai grands.... Maybe the 'light' touch is in fact due to touch sensitivity and not to key resistance.

I will provide some insight later tonight for you.

Hello, I have one question, regarding this question of "light touch" on the Kawai:
Would it be also the "way" the mechanism simulating the hammer behind the key behave that influence this feeling ?
I mean: I previously had a CA93, and now I own a NU1.
At the beginning I found the key touch of the NU1 harder than the the Kawai, that is true, but now that I get used to it, and I can feel much more precisely its action, I have the feeling that is not so much the key weight that make the keyboard harder, but the fact that there is a real hammer behind the key that you must "launch", once it is launched, the key is really "light"
This was just an idea that "light touch" is perhaps not only a matter of weight but a matter of "dynamics".
Cheers,

@enzo, that's an excellent possibility. I did look for the change in dynamics and thought I saw a fairly realistic behavior, but there might still be a difference in actual play.

Any luck?

I've never played a Kawai digital piano. Since some of you guys have, what are they like? How do they compare to Roland and Yamaha?

Finally

Yes ...

On Middle C, nine quarters will just move the key downward a hair. Add a nickel, and it goes just a bit further. Another nickel and it descends.

That is my $2.35 worth ...

Thanks, that the first part of the information. The next would be to see what is the momentum to be transfered by the fingers to get a ton. No idea how to manage to protect the keys from damage, but the test could be to drop the nickel from 1 cm to see what happens. At this point the mass of the hammer to be released could be better fixed. Nevertheless I don't like ask anyone to do this test, because it will become more and more complicated to characterize the action.

56.03 grams... That's nice Jon. My Steinway "A" which has an action made out of butter is 54 grams that I weighed using my weight set. It plays so nicely. Right there as compared to a Faz.

I went back and weighed the coins. 60.1 grams moved the key to the LetOff point.

Oook, so that means that HwyStar's Steinway A has a lighter action than the CA*5?

That's good news for me.

I remember a thread with a lady not liking the ca65 action and wanting a ca63, pretty much slating the ca65(therefore same action on ca95) ... as completely different to the grand piano she will be doing her grade 8 on... i would compare the ca95 action to a steinway i have played... whereas a bechstein grand i used to do gradings on was incredibly heavy and difficult. I prefer the weight of the ca95 to anything i have owned. Best dp action by far. Similar to all my acoustics but more refined and personnaly i feel its capable of being with me through to the top grades. (Decided to go back to a fine teacher to get some structure with my kwarnibg as a mature student...)

By kwarnibg i mean learning.... note to predictive text , kwarnibg isnt even a word!

@Paul,

If you happen to like the CA95 as I do, then there is no doubt you would probably like the Roland V-Piano as well, as it is still my favored digital above the rest. Nothing can match it when it comes to handling the dynamic range in one's playing, along with the incredible sustain and harmonic resonance.

I am fortunate enough to now own both of them...

The CA95 has better piano sounds, overall.