Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards ISSUES WITH NEW KAWAI CS6 - KAWAI JAMES

Dear all,

After a couple of weeks of having my new Kawai CS6 the sustain pedal has started to make some noises... sounds like a loose spring or something similar. It does not affect my playing but it is not very nice to hear it.

You cant really hear the noise whilst your are playing, but you certainly can when playing at night with headphones. This is very disappointing.

Have any of you, owners of Kawai DPs, experience anything similar? I used to have a Clavinova CLP240 and never had a single noise in my entire experience with it. I also own a Yamaha P140 with two pedasl ( Yamaha FC3 and FC4) and never heard a noise coming from any of them - they work just fine.


One more thing... I tried the recording functions last night for the first time. It works correctly, and it records directly into a usb device in .mp3 format. However, you can not play during the recording process. It just does not make any sound. If you press any key whilst recording it doesnt sound, but you will get the sound after the recording process...
If you press the sustain pedal after recording you can hear some string resonance... even if you have not played any key.

I wonder if this is a software fault or it is normal...

I would very much appreciate your comments, specially from KAWAI JAMES or Kawia CA 63m, CA 93, CS6 or CS9.

A Kawai Tech is coming tonight to check the sustain pedal but I doubt he will be able to give me a response on my second point.
I will let you know the outcome. I just wanted to share my disappointment and see if this happens to any of you too.

Thank you very much.


Kind regards,

Luis

don't worry about the problem to the pedal, it is just a banality.

it can happen

regards

Hello Luis,

A squeaky pedal should be relatively easy for the technician to fix. I expect a reapplication of lubricant is all that's required to make it silent again.

I'm a little more concerned about the USB Recorder issue. Obviously you should be able to hear your playing while the MP3 is being recorded. Does the same thing happen when recording to a WAV file? Some suggestions:

- Try formatting the USB stick on the CS6, or trying a different USB stick altogether.
- Try updating the firmware to the latest version (available from the Kawai Japan 'Worldwide' site) - even if the firmware is already up-to-date, it may be worth running the updater again, just in case.

If the recorder problem persists, please contact the store from where the instrument was purchased and report the issue formally.

Kind regards,
James
x

Hello James / Imol

A Kawai tech came around and fixed the problem pedal with some lubricant. I wonder why pedals and other parts are not lubricated at the factory to avoid these kind of issues right from scratch. He used some sort of vaseline.

He also explained how to properly record mp3 files and other features which was very helpful. James, I will be doing some testing regarding this over the weekend and I will let you know how it goes.

Thanks for your help!


Regards,
Luis

Hello Luis,

Thank you for the update Luis - I'm glad to hear that the pedal squeaking was a simple fix for the technician.



That's good to know, although I'm still curious as to why you were unable to record MP3 files previously - were you following the correct procedure?

Kind regards,
James
x

Hi James,

The pedal just needed some lubricant The tech mentioned that this is very common in digital pianos...

Yes, I could record mp3 files previously. Perhaps I didn’t explain myself correctly.

With the USB device IN, press "record" and start playing. At the end of my performance I press "stop" and get the message on screen to rename the file and save.

When pressing "save" it starts recording what you have played. During this process you cannot hear the music you have played or play. If you play any key you don’t get any sound (the piano enters in a “mute” mode) however, when the recoding process is complete the piano reproduces the last 3-4 notes that you have played during this process. It is like it memorizes the notes you have played and plays them when it finishes recording. Once these notes have been reproduced and the sound is completely off, if you press the sustain pedal (without touching any key!) you can hear the resonance of those notes that are now gone and are not supposed to sound anymore… This kind of delay worries me. Is this because the internal process or memory is too slow and generates a delay? Is this supposed to sound all together?

The tech recommended me not to play any key while recording, as the piano is doing an internal recording process and it is not on the natural reproduction mode...
I will not press any key next time but I wonder if this is normal. I would also like to know if it is normal that the piano takes so long to record songs into the usb devide. When recording directly into the internal memory music is recorded immediately as you play.

By the way, I’m very impressed with the KAWAI service. Very good A+++
Thanks James!

Okay, so far so good.



No, I don't believe this is correct. When selecting 'Save' I believe the instrument either renames the temporary recording file to the name you specify, or copies this temporary recording file to a new file with the name you specify (then deletes the temporary recording file). To clarify, the recording part of the process happens in real time - it's the final saving/renaming part that appears to be taking too long.



True, the keyboard is muted, however this should only take a couple of seconds, possibly even less. It's been a while since I tried the USB recorder/player features of the CA93/CA63 - perhaps another owner can confirm the typical time taken to save MP3/WAV recordings?

I wonder if there's perhaps a compatibility with your USB device?
Do you have another device (different brand/capacity) you can try?

Kind regards,
James
x

Yes, this sounds like a drive beeing too slow. How long time does it take to write to the USB drive (and how long was the song)? Some old USB drives are notoriously slow. If you don't have other drives to test as James suggested, then reformat the drive and try again. You can also test the write time to the drive with your computer to get a reference point.

Thanks James,

It is a brand new 16GB device that I bought exclusively for the piano, but I will format it again and will also try with a different one.

Regarding the recording time... It does not take seconds, but minutes, depending on the length of the piece you are recording, approx 3-4 minutes for a 2 minutes song.


Cheers
Luis

Please try a smaller capacity device.

James
x

ok! will do and will let you know

I get some pretty huge delays when working with 8 GB flash (one of the quickest SanDisk devices currently on the market) so I can imagine how slow it would be with 16 GB flash drive, especially if it isn't of high grade...

You should take the Kawai USB-functionality more as a bonus rather than something serious since the recordings are very quiet and noisy and may thus be used only for demo purposes. These are not professional instruments but rather home pianos for personal enjoyment.

Guys, I never thought bigger capacity = slower functionality… Why is that? I will def try with a smaller one later.

I agree with you CyberGene, it is really a bonus. It is great to have that option in the piano, but it doesn’t necessarily be so slow just because is for home use and I cannot just put up with it just because it is a home piano. It should work just fine, whether it is a home piano or a stage professional one.

I am not sure what you mean by “very quiet and noisy”. Other than the recording speed, the recordings I got from the CS6 are, in my opinion, of excellent quality, no noises at all.

Cheers
Luis

If the recordings from CS6 are of high quality, with a reasonable sound volume and noise-free, then this means they have fixed it in contrast to CA63. James, can you confirm this?

I will be uploading some files so that you can hear them soon. I have not noticed any noise and the volume is good

I believe the recording levels should be the same on both instruments.

James
x

By the way, I have never tried to record MP3 on my CA63. Maybe it's the WAV files which is very quiet and the subsequent normalization makes them noisy (by raising the noise floor). I'll have to check this tonight.

Luis,
I ran a test recording on my Roland RD-700NX and I got the following:

Song length: 3 minutes
USB drive: 4 GB no-name drive that is over 6 years old.
Time for saving the song (wav format) to the USB drive after it was recorded by the DP: 2.5 seconds.

I then copied the song (32 MB WAV file) to my computer, renamed it, and saved the copy back to the same USB drive from my computer. That save process also took 2.5 seconds (~10 MB/s).

This is the only drive I can test for now.

Perhaps some Kawai owners can chime in with some numbers to give us an idea of what to expect on Luis DP.

However, we should also keep in mind that if the DP performs a wav to mp3 file conversion during the save process that will slow things down, especially if the CPU is on the weak side.

I hope this helps.

Hi guys,
I bought a smaller capacity (4GB) Sony memory stick and tried again. It took about 2 seconds to record a 4 minute long song in .mp3 format.
Amaruk, you are right, the volume is slightly lower but no noises at all :))
Regards,
Luis

Good to hear - thanks for the update.

Just to clarify though, the recording/saving (i.e. writing to the USB device) is happening in real time. The 2 seconds is just the renaming and confirmation part.

Cheers,
James
x