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Hello everyone,

I have received my Kawai CN35 digital piano from thomann.de . Nice sound and very distinctive. Still in the process of accommodating myself with the instrument (and the sound ). It seems to be suited for classical music, but not pop/rock.

However, I discovered something interesting regarding string resonance. It happens on two neighborhood keys. Lets say, middle C with C#. And is very pronounced. More pronounced than other harmonic string resonance documended in the manual. Is this normal behavior in an acoustic?

I just tested this on a small and old acoustic piano at the school and didn't notice something similar. Indeed some keys resonate, but never two neighborhood keys.

I do not have a piano education. I'm looking forward for your advice. Thanks.

You'll have to wait for someone more educated in string resonance, but I was just going to say you might try turning off all effects and then turning them on one by one to verify that it is indeed the string resonance causing this. If you find it to be annoying, you can always disable that effect - also I think some people find certain tones on a keyboard too loud or too soft so I know you can also adjust the volume of individual notes if that's the case.

My Kawai ES6 did that. I too tried to replicate it on an acoustic. I did not notice it when playing only testing.

Can you describe, _exactly_, what you do to make this "string resonance" happen?

You might just be hearing "beating", which is a different effect altogether. And it's normal, for both DP's and acoustic pianos.

Thanks --

Resonance gets triggered on depressed note half a step away

Here is a WAV recording you can download below. You should listen at high volume.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B_B69Ned3mTiTjMzSnpuc3JmSEE

Keys involved:

middle C - always pressed (this is the key that you hear resonate)
C#, next C up - alternatively hit

The string resonance is there, but more pronounced for C#. I'm wondering if a good acoustic behaves like this.

My piano settings is factory default (string resonance = 5). I have the last OS update (v1.07).

I tried an acoustic grand today. Held down middle C, struck C# . . .

. . . no resonance at all.

Thanks Charles for confirmation. So, is this phenomenon specific to Kawai grands (from where samples are recorded) or is a software bug in Kawai digitals? Can someone test this on other digital brands?

So I checked on my CN35 today and, yes, C# resonates significantly against silently-pressed C. That it does that is documented in the CN35 handbook. Other DP vendors do not document their string resonance like that at all.

I'd need to check an acoustic against this C/C# specifically, but in an acoustic there is always resonance. Of course with some notes it is more pronounced and with others less so, but there is always something. This is why I am so impressed by the new Rolands which also model the faint resonance you get with D against silent pressed C, where this is not implemented on the CN35 (see documentation or just listen).

I just tried this with Pianoteq 5. If there's resonance between C and C# then it must be very quiet and I can't really hear it. (Same for C and D)

Youd need to test this against the Kawai that it came from originally. That might not be so easy. . . !

I tried my teacher's upright acoustic. Hold downmiddle C, strike C#:

. . .C resonates (at its own pitch, not on C#).

So it depends on the piano.

EDIT: I just checked Pianoteq. The "U4" has a light resonance on C, when I strike C#. The "[Steinway] B" and "D4" have no resonance between C and C#.

I assume that the Pianoteq crew developed their models from testing real pianos. I'm inclined to agree with a comment above -- the piano Kawai sampled for the CN35 probably had the resonance, and they copied it more-or-less accurately.

In which case, it's certainly not a "bug", and not exactly a "feature"; maybe call it "character" ?

A "feature", "character" or build "artifact", whatever you call it, I think that it contributes to a less cleaner sound of the piano. I'm talking here strictly about resonances of two neighborhood strings. Is this a characteristic of Kawai acoustics?

I don't want to disable string resonance in my piano, since resonances associated with other harmonics are very nice indeed.

On my ca63 every flat note resonates to the related sharp one, not just c.

One complaint against DP's is that they're "too clean". It was something I noticed immediately when I got my PX-350.

So Kawai tried to duplicaate the sound of a acoustic piano, and did a nice job of it. I'm afraid that "less cleaner sound" is what they were aiming for.

I'm going to have to try a CN35 -- there may be one in town. It will be interesting . . .

There is this very simple "string resonance test", which they like to show on the new Rolands: you place your whole underarm on the lower keys, but slowly, so you silent-press them. Then you play a few notes on the middle or high keys and listen...

On the CN35 you get some string resonance. On other brands you get less, same or (only on the new Rolands afaik) more.

Then do that on an acoustic...

Given that CN25/CN35 are from 2014 and given their price point, I am fine. The next model needs to be on par with 2015 Roland, though.

Anyone can (re)play a clean note. Getting it right in resonances is the new frontier.

I agree "cleanness of sound" is not a target on dps, but rather a shortcoming.

Roland are not the only ones with that feature doing it well IMHO. Testing my arm on the left keys playing notes on my Casio as you mention and then play some notes, they all excite other strings quite clearly, some more than others, but even on default string resonance setting it is clearly there.

Anyway, I tried the following software just now

Ivory American D does it quite strongly and nicely sounding when I do with default preset with the arm down test. The effect can be turned up a lot more if you want.

Grandeur provided you turn on the overtones knob, they don't by default ( strange, anyway I have it always on). With out of box default setting you get nothing with that test, turn on the overtones and there it is, quite strong too if you turn it up enough, sounds okay to me. I preferred the behaviour of ivory in this test, but the grandeur wins with pedal down for me (perhaps not surprising as it uses directly pedal down recorded samples, AFAIK Ivory does not ( I could be wrong about that).

Latest pianoteq from what I heard so far is right there there in terms of pleasing my ears with the new Steinway model B in that test, even if its individual tone is not my favourite in the higher octaves in particular. That's always been one of my pros an cons of sampled versus modelled pianos anyway. To me it is worse in one way but better in another, it's something I detect in the roland tone as well when I hear the demos.

I would say I don't even care if it isn't a steinway or authentic tone of any known real piano, as long as it sounds nice/pleasing, but it just doesn't sound as pleasing in terms of outright timbre and tone .. again, to me that is.

Pianoteq with Steinway B is a good step up though I thought in the pianoteq world .. IMHO.

With pianoteq when it come to resonances in general as well as pedal down sounds it can be honed and tweaked to whatever level you want, I gather it's something you would not be able to do on the new rolands in the same way, from what I read about it and heard in the demos to date, but I've yet to try one one day, I look forward to that . I gather there are soundboard selections, but in pianoteq the parameters defining the physical soundboard properties can be changed, a step further.

I Hope the digital build in sound engines will follow suit one day with all that stuff.

As far as the Kawai sound engines when I tried the CA67 a while ago I wasn't that keen on the whole resonance characteristics and how the notes rang, not unpleasant but it didn't grab me in any way ( that said, I had limited play with VT at the time, but in any case, it sounded a bit static/synthetic and lifeless to me )

Now

pianoteq steinway B. I attach a short little demo of the arm down test, with sound board impedance at about 2/3, and the sympathetic resonance slider setting midway, and reverb off. Followed by a short dabble where you can hear the full pedal down resonance with the settings I mentioned above, sorry for the rather bad playing and mincing the tune, playing it by ear with cold hands, but, you get enough of an idea.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/az8ke9ycosql8v6/AADbrh_A-EEUkKpZ76CiI4yKa?dl=0

With the above I was after that sort of roughly Einaudi type sound as heard here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqZBY-oBNLg

and

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLEIkNUnEOk at 30:20


pianoteq manages that closest IMHO overall in terms of resonance characteristics, the way it swarms around and all, wonderful and playing softly at the end, notes still sound after 30 seconds of that clip. I expect all the sampled digitals on the market today with build in engines you would be in strong loopitis territory as well after about 10 secs.

I tried to create a similar sort of sound with the sampled grandeur which is also very resonant out of the box, but it is not as pleasing and lively sounding to me in that sense, BUT, the individual tones and timbre from about octave up from middle C sound are far more pleasing to me on the sampled piano of that instrument, the same notes on pianoteq in begin to sound rather tinny ... as it were, lacking body, shall I say ... not so wholesome and a bit more like a toy piano, so it gives up in one area but gains in another for me.

I doubt Kawai being as good as the roland the area of resonance modelling in the next update would be big ask, to date they have always mixed sampling with some modelling ... like most do.

The way I see it, there is a tradeoff with sampling versus modelling at this time, it is up to the person what they prefer. I enjoy both for different reasons, and so I use both on and off.

Out of the instrument I tried thus far, that feeling is stronger when I play them, but as a rough sort of generalisation

Modelling, pros, resonances, expressiveness, yeah, it's alive

Sampled, more accurate timbre and replication of authentic piano tone on the whole that I find more pleasing, but overall the instrument is more static sounding and less alive somehow. Pedalling behaviour is often a compromise in some way, better on some than others.

Solution, buy both, enjoy both, have fun