Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Kawai MP11. Can't get sound right

Ando. Most of the people admiring and asking about acquiring one are English and German Tourists.
They are not going to buy any Piano from me. I perform for a Hotel chain here . I'll eventually get the sound I'm looking for. I emphasized various times in my post that I really love the Piano. It is a classy piece of work. The action is phenomenal. I have never had a DP with such action. I've looked at the CP4 and RD800 pictures and videos before settling on the Kawais. The cheap plastic of the others didn't appeal much to me. I'll get this thing right sooner or later. I have so far been doing battle only with the Concert Grand. I'll shift my attention to the others now.

BTW. I followed Piano Mike's advice and set lid opening to 1 and the touch to heavy. Seems to help somewhat.

Abby Pianoman,

IMHO you should try to have another word with your dealer. You seem to be a good customer, whom he is risking to loose. Otherwise you could try a specialized Yamaha dealer for an exchange to an CP4 or something similar.
One of those dealers actually might take their job seriously and care for the customer's needs and do find another customer for that MP11.

I have my own gripes with the Concert Grand sound in my MP7, IMO it does not sound good in a mono setup and does need a proper stereo setup. Playing around with the EQ and the virtual technician didn't help me either, to the extent I wanted. To me, it was turning off all effects, cutting off high frequencies in the EQ and mellowing the hammers. And still I am not completely happy. Sorry, I know, that this is not helpful to you. But IMO there is "something", which might disturb some people. Hopefully Kawai is offering an alternative CG sample with the next FW update?

I've also cut down on the Hi-Gain, added a bit more mids, as proposed by Morodienne and Piano Mike, set the lid opening to 2, and the touch to heavy. Things are slowly improving.

And Hammer delay to 3

Mind you, I am doing all this on high quality Headphones. The truth in the soup will probably be more evident when I hook it up to my PA System tomorrow. Will keep you all posted and maybe have another chat with my dealer. I won't go into the booming on F3 today. Have lowered damper resonance to 2. My post today is more about getting the global sound right.

You're not alone in your aversion toward the sound of the Kawai piano samples.

I love Kawai acoustic pianos but digitals-not so much.

In spite of all the other huge positives that go with their DPs- action, build quality and price point- the core sound of their piano samples, I'm simply not crazy about. I find them generally harsh on the top end.

I went through the same thing you're going through with the Roland RD-700GX. I was doing edits on my own and as well as getting tips to improve the sound via editing from other 700GX owners. I changed speakers. I used it on gigs. I played it for hours trying to like it, all the while, futzing and doing tweaks to the sound. In the end I gave up on it. I traded it back in for the Yamaha CP300. I drove my sales guy nuts at W. LA Music , especially since he was giving me great pro pricing on it.

I hesitated on the CP-300 because of the obvious reason - the weight. But I remember pulling it out of the box in my studio, putting it on the stand and plugging into my Mackie VLZ mixer and EV SXA360 speakers that I was using at the time. I went to voice #2, the Mellow Grand, and it was an instantaneous - YES , this is right !

I think most of the long time buyers on this forum have bought something thinking it was going to be *it*. But after getting it home or playing a couple of gigs with it, it simply isn't working for them. Nothing to feel guilty about. You're listening, you care and you're picky.

There are trade offs with every brand and model. No matter what you get, it's never going to give you the real experience that an acoustic does. The main goal is to have something you personally can live with and feel good about playing for a few years.

Abbypianoman, I,m using my mp 11 for practice only so I,m running through a couple of cm 30 cube speakers from roland. It actually sounds a lot cleaner and more piano like than on my EV 360 sxa speakers.I also have a roland gx with the super natural piano chip in it and it also sounds better on the roland speakers. That being said the Kawai sounds better than the Roland on those speakers. I think if I daisie chained a bunch of cubed speakers together it would sound awesome.What type P.A. speakers are you running the kawai through? Excuse the lines ,don,t know where they came from.

Pianomike. I'm using 2 JBL EON 1500 passive Speakers
Connected to a Yamaha EMX 5000 Powered mixer. I took your advice and lowered the Topboard to 1. I also raised
Low EQ to 10, Hi Eq to -3, MID 1 to +3, Mid 2 also +3.
Touch: Heavy, Voicing: Dynamic, Hammer delay:2, String Resonance:8, Damper Resonance:3, Damper noise:5, Reverb : Concert Hall. Depth 32, Time 3010ms.
EFX: Autopan, Type: Classic, Depth:24, Speed 0.79 Hz.
EFX Low Eq 0, High Eq 5.
Key off eff: 5, Fallback Noise 5. The rest are the normal factory settings.
Playing around with Hammer delay brings out positively surprising results.

I think it is slowly getting better. I will probably have to raise or lower Reverb, Fallback noise etc tomorrow on my Pa System. I will be doing a Sound check for at least a couple of hours tomorrow Will post the results.

Dave Ferris. I had the predecessor of the CP-300 for almost 20 years. A Yamaha Clavinova PF 100E. It had 10 Sounds. 4 Pianos and some other silly Sounds. It was truly a Plug-n-Play instrument. It had 3 EQ Sliders, One good AP ( Piano 1),
One good EP ( EP 1). The other Pianos as well as the 6 other sounds were crap. But that's all a Pianist needs. ONE good AP sound and ONE good EP sound.

The velocity sensors started acting funny. You touch a note and BOOM. I donated it to a School and promised to try and repair it when I have the time. I'm gigging 6 nights a week for the next 6 months and only come home to eat, sleep,a few hours of Family time and then it's time to get ready for the next gig. I WILL make this MP11 sound good. Even if it's the last thing I do.

I will make this Instrument sound good even if it the last thing I do. Cheers

I will make this Instrument sound good even if it the last thing I do. Cheers

BTW. My powered Amp has Stereo inputs and outputs the sound in Stereo

I own the Kawai MP7, I find myself using the "mellow grand" most if the time.

I find it works better for most of my repertoire than the "concert grand" voice.

Listen, man! Who are you playing for, yourself or your cutomers? Do they complain about the grand piano sound? No, far from it . . . give it a bit of time, and you`ll love it like everybody else seems to. You`ll never get another piano sounding like that old Yamaha . . .but does it matter that nuch? The job`s a good `un and you`re still there . . .

Who wouldn`t like to swap shoes with you for a week or two . . . Nearest I got was a lodge park restaurant in Windermere . .I had an ole Yamaha too. Have fun . .

Heaven, lad. Heaven.

Don't forget that after you've done the last thing you do, you then have to fix the Yamaha.

LOL

I've read enough times at this site and at KC that both instruments use same sound engine. Isn't this the dealer's fault for not explaining this before special ordering the MP11?

I would set touch to heavy, voicing to dark.
The Eon 1500s'are probably exerting a very strong sonic signature. Forward bass and treble, no midrange.
A-lot of the peculiarities of the kawai sample set fall away with a nice pair of speakers and the Mellow Grand setting.