Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards A little review of a very efficient DP: Kawai CL36

Hello there!

The two first weeks have passed since my Kawai CL36 arrived, and after many hours by the instrument, I'm ready with my personal verdict: The Kawai CL36 is a terrific digital piano with a lot of pros and only a very few cons.


Let's begin with the clear pros:

- Amazing ivory touch keyboard with the RH Action taken directly from the more expensive CN series and the MP6

- 15 wonderful and rich sounds, 96-note polyphony and Kawai's second best sound source, Progressive Harmonic Imaging (PHI). I really like every single sound

- Nice and easy-to-use 1 track/3 song recorder function

- Harmonious and powerful built-in speaker system with a total output power of 30 watts

- Very nice and space-saving furniture cabinet design

- Reasonable price



And then the few cons:

- Limited selection of sounds

- An a little annoying sound when pressing down a key and then letting go

- The lack of connection possibilities (No Line Out and no USB etc)


I don't hope that I've forgot anything essential in my little review :-)


All in all: I'm exceedingly happy about my CL36, and I'd highly recommend this model to everyone who wants a simple but extremely playable, efficient and space-saving digital piano!


Kind regards
Sumsar

Congrats on your new piano Sumsar!

I think that's a pretty fair mini-review.

A year or so ago I remember being called into play-test a CL36 prototype during a product development meeting.
"James, try playing that prototype a little...what do you notice?".
I sat down and began playing some funk/soul chords, keeping an ear out for anything strange...but there was nothing.
"Maybe I'm missing something, but there's nothing I can really fault" I said.
"Exactly!" he said "...It's a great sound, huh? It's almost too good for that price!"

Cheers,
James
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I like my CL36 too, particularly the very nice and solid keyboard action at a reasonable price.

James, if you happen to read this could you let me know whether there are visual representations of the CL36's touch settings available? I think (from memory) the MP6's more extensive velocity curve options are shown in its manual but there's no similar section in the CL36 manual. I tend to use the 'normal' option but it would be handy to have a clear understanding of the built-in velocity curves when matching the keyboard to velocity maps in software pianos.

Wayside,

The touch curve illustrations in the MP6 owner's manual (and other owner's manuals) are relatively general representations of each touch curve. I don't believe they are intended to provide an accurate portrayal of how each touch curve responds.

Regarding software pianos, I believe some packages (such as Ivory) allow you to define the maximum and minimum velocities, and then adjust the 'roundness' of the curve. When trying this, I would stick with the default (Normal) touch curve on the CL36, in order to maintain one constant variable, and to avoid having to set the velocity curve each time you turn on your CL36 (no memory store function, unfortunately...)

Cheers,
James
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Hey, nice review and nice DP. Could you elaborate exactly what sounds are in the CL36? I would be interested too...

Thanks James for getting back to me so promptly on a Sunday!

As you note, the software pianos usually give good control over velocity mapping and I have all the adjustments I need so it's not an issue.

I was mainly wondering about the general nature of the CL36's curves as I've found the velocity curve modificatons needed between the middling/normal touch response options on it and a Casio Privia PX130 to be quite large (but then again, the Privia's action is significantly lighter as well).

Hello,
Thanks for the nice review.
I have my Kawai CL 36 for some ten days now. I like the key action, but I am not quite content with the sound. Several keys make a strange, muffled sound, different from the others.
And there is a serious problem: even after releasing, some keys continue to produce sound (decay for 10-20 seconds) just as if they were still pressed!
The key-noise that you mention (pressing and releasing, returning) often annoys me. I suppose this is not an issue that could be solved, it is common to all DPs. (However I do not understand why this should be so.)
The dealer was very helpful, came to my place, noticed and acknowledged the problem with the decay immediately. He promised to replace the DP with either another CL 36, or with any other model of Kawai or Yamaha. I have not made my decision yet.
I will test play the CN23 (again) and maybe the CN33 in the store, but currently I think of sticking with the CL 36. Hopefully, I will not discover new problems with the new one when I get it.

As I'll be using headphones almost exclusively, I also bought a pair of AKG 601s. When I connected them to the DP (together with my old Sennheisers, in order to compare them), in three seconds the right channel of the AKGs stopped working. I returned them. It seemed that the DP was to blame for the breakdown. BTW: the AKG 601s were wrong choice anyway: I turned the volume up, but the sound was still not loud enough (120 ohms, very hard to drive).

We've been reading on the board a large number of distinct complaints about the quality of Kawai pianos, even concerning the high-priced models. These complaints are not for trivial or cosmetic issues. They concern major functional failures.

With Rolands, we've read about the "dandruff" problem, but little else.
With Yamahas, not many complaints.

So what's up with Kawai? The frequency of serious quality problems is enough to put me off Kawai completely.

I'm assuming you guys have tried resetting the piano's settings to factory default? The symptom you are describing sounds quite bizarre

The sustain problem sounds a bit like maybe the middle pedal is sticking.

I don't know of any piano keyboard, digital or acoustic, that doesn't make some noise, except perhaps a synth/keyboard waterfall keyboard. The RH action on my CN33, which I think is the same as on your CL36, makes almost no noise with power off so when playing there's nothing at all (unlike some Roland's I could mention) so maybe yours has a defect?

I was thinking the same thing just before i've read your post. I was seriously thinking about CL36 for a while now and drooling about CA63 in the future but im just scared of the myriad of issues reported around here and the fact that my "local" kawai dealer is far away. I guess i'll stick with yamaha.

I agree that there have been more 'problem' reports about Kawai digital pianos recently than I would like to see. However, I would argue that around half the topics posted to this forum are related to subjective complaints - i.e. the piano not behaving quite to the individual's expectations, for whatever reason - rather than specific problems.

And on those occasions where a problem clearly does exist, the dealer should be able to efficiently resolve the issue or provide a replacement instrument.

I honestly don't believe Kawai instruments have any more problems than Roland, Yamaha, Casio, Korg, etc. - regardless of what posts on this forum might suggest.

Kind regards,
James
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I think that's right. If anything it shows how many people are liking them if they are purchasing them and getting a chance to complain about them. Given the obvious deficiencies in Kawai's distribution network compared to Roland and Yamaha, the level of representation of Kawai products is very high on this forum. Kawai certainly have a reputation for supporting their products too.

I recently bought my CL36. I'm quite happy with it but I have two issues to mention. First on ConcertGrand1 the overtones with the sustain pedal on are overwhelming, there's just too much sound and that's with the reverb set to room setting if it is set to hall or studio you can barely make out the tone with the sustain pedal on. Second is the times the keys don't make sounds - for example when you attack the key really slowly at the beginning and just before it hits the floor you try to accelerate sometimes it doesn't make a sound. I don't know if this is normal, I'm quite new to digital piano's touch technology. Also I think the best sound is the harpischord with room reverb.

Have you tried adjusting the keyboard Touch and also the Damper Effect settings?

Yes, I use the heaviest touch possible - which has the greatest dynamic range. It's even worse on a lighter touch. I haven't messed around with the damper settings but I'm pretty much that it isn't going to affect the attack problem.

This problem of decay with released key starts all of a sudden as of g’’’ (key 77), everything below it is normal, including f ’’’. The other reason why I suppose it has nothing to do with the pedal is that the pedal gives a totally different sound. The decay I hear with released key is definitely the same that I hear when I hold down the same key and its duration is also the same. (If it were a PC, I would say this is a software problem.)

There is another unpleasant thing: some frequently used keys in the middle of the keyboard have a different, muffled sound that I do not like.

As regards key noise, my CL36 makes a knocking noise when pressing a key and another one when releasing it, the first one I hear even with headphones on my ears.
I will try the CN33 if possible, thank you, and also seriously consider buying a Yamaha (P155 ?).

It seems no need resetting the piano's settings to factory default in this case.
When one turns the Cl 36 off, all settings are lost and next time factory settings come back.

This is normal behavior. On real pianos, the higher keys have no dampers, and thus sound as if you had the pedal down. It adds presence and harmonics through sympathetic resonance :-)

Indeed, this is often referred to as 'treble break'. It is intentional, and should be considered a good thing. However, you are not the first person to mistakenly believe this characteristic to be a software bug, so I will add a note to future DP owner's manuals explaining this 'problem'.



With which sounds? Note that not all instrument sounds in the CL36 utilise full 88-key sampling.

Kind regards,
James
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