Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Best touch - no bells and whistles

Well , I assume (just my thought) that Kawai is working on something like a true masterkeyboard controller, with:

- high quality keybed ( would aftertouch be at all possible with RH II ?)
- medium lightweight (<20kg) , preferably more around 15
- no bells and whistle in offered sounds, but enought sliders, knobs and pedal inputs for control
- my wish: integrated usb audio interface, so you can connect your laptop to the piano and use its hight quality audio outputs (don't have to carry an extra audio interface).
- some other welcome innovations (embedded qwerty keyboard , or at least room to setup your laptop / tablet ? )

Or...he means a true portable piano without additional sounds and bells and whisles like an arranger , speakers etc. That would be spartanic , but pure and saves weight and cost for stuff most people don't use anyway. That would mean:

- Best (portable) keybed,
- best piano sound technology available, perhaps AP and EP and nothing more.
- no additional stuff that eats up memory and CPU, or adds weight.

I know; be patient my friend ;-) But a hint in which of those two directions were aiming would be welcome.

No need to apologize, quite the contrary. Your contribution is very welcome. In fact it is great that you are taking the time to respond to our questions and provide us with some early informations. So thanks for that



Now that's truly something I'm waiting for!

Don't knobs and sliders count as 'bells and whistles' though?

In that case I expect option 2 :

very HQ spartanic portable; best keybed / best AP sound / no frills. But hopefully not only with the heavy wooden keybed like on the MP10; it's very good, but not so portable ( unless you have you're own personal roadies available 24/7).

An RH II would be good if fitted in a lighter frame. The ES 7 is still 22 kg due to material used for the casing, the added speakers and amps etc. I don't know how much the RH keybed itself weighs , but if the casing is made of a sturdy but lightweight material, perhaps 15 - 20 kg is possible ? For a start throw out the wooden bottom and wooden side panels ( wood is heavy compared to some of the alternatives on the market). Just my thought...

@James , I will disregard your comments as long as you keep making them ;-)

I don't think we need Kawai James to predict that the MP10 will be improved along the lines of the upgrade of the CA93 to CA95.

What we need is hands-on experience of the new Grand Feel keyboard and a listen to the HI-XL sounds.

What I'm really looking for would be a masterkeyboard with good touch (like in a dp) but without the sounds. Seems to me no such device exists. The most expensive masterkeyboards (Numa Nero, Doepfer LMK4+ etc) are nowhere near a good dp in quality of the keyboard action imo. So it seems I have to pay for the sounds eventhough I don't need them when wanting a good action.

+1

A few thoughts about various topics within this thread...

In general, the consensus seems to be that Yamaha, Roland, and Kawai make the best keyboard mechanisms. All these companies keep their designs to themselves, they don't make them available to other companies. Yamaha and Roland have long ago stopped making soundless controllers (and I don't think Kawai ever did). So unless some new player comes to the market, I don't expect to see a quality piano-action soundless controller on the market.

So many people want high quality but light weight, but if your standards for "high quality" are the current 50+ pound boards, there's no evidence that such a thing can exist. These mechanisms themselves are probably pretty heavy, and a box to hold them needs a certain amount of structural strength in order to support a heavy component without flexing, etc. But even assuming they could put the keybed into a lighter enclosure, it is likely that the same keybed in a less substantial enclosure will actually not feel as good to play, too, so there would still be a compromise.

All that said, a lot of people have found the Infinite Response VAX77 to be a very satisfying and expressive instrument to play piano on, even though it does not feel the same as a real piano, and it only has 76 keys. It's relatively light (under 40 lbs). This may be a good option to consider. One of the things that makes the VAX77 interesting is that it is capable of far more than the 127 standard MIDI velocities, so that provides a unique advantage when paired with a software piano that is capable of recognizing the finer gradations in veloicty. I know PIanoteq does, I don't know what else.

Lastly a number of people have said their ideal piano-only board would lack bells and whistles "like speakers." In my experience, the boards that feel best to play are the ones with speakers, because the resulting vibrations provide an illusion that the keys are actually connected to something making sound, you can feel it in your fingers. All speaker-less keybeds feel somewhat "dead" in this respect, compared to models with speakers, IMO. Though as long as we're talking about wishing someone would build something that isn't likely to exist, I suppose they could come out with some other haptic vibration mechanism other than speakers that would produce the same effect.

Along those lines, in a lightweight board, although certainly not top-of-line, I happen to like the feel of the Casio PX-310 (better than their new models). It has a line input that feeds signal to its internal speakers. I have used that board with its own sound turned off, feeding the sound of some other device I am triggering back into its speakers, and have found that to be quite enjoyable to play.

A good quality , sturdy keybed certainly has it weight. Point taken.

On the other hand many very , very strong and (!) lightweight materials have come onto the market in decades due to developments in space and aviation technology. If someone could combine the design of the best keybeds with the use of those strong, light high-tech materials and use similar material for the casing as well (instead of metal & wood, what you still see right now) , then you wouldn't have to compromise on quality and still have a light-weight board.

The only thing you'll probably have to compromise on is price. I guess these lighweight composites are still more expensive per square inch than old fashioned metal, wood and other well known materials. But how much more expensive (if at all) , is unknown to me. I'm not an expert on that. Perhaps someone who is, can estimate the influence on price if these modern materials are used.

So either the manufactures know these materials exist, but calculated it would be too expensive. Or they are ignorant and keep on using what they always did. Or it's not even that much more expensive, but they just don't care and are reluctant to change. I don't know - pick your answer...

Perhaps carbon fibre would be that material. In which case, its own raw material cost would be very high compared with conventional materials.

Add to that the extra costs of RD, admin, retooling and small scale production and, yes, you would probably have a beautiful keyboard, but the price would be very much more significantly high than the big series instruments (CP5, FP7f, MP10 and so on). Maybe at least double the price.

Wow, stumbled upon the VAX77 by Infinite Response. It gets rave reviews. Might be an interesting option. Does anybody know if it is possible to try one in europe? I'm so not gonna buy a dp for 3k without testing it before! Especially when it doesn't have a hammeraction. Nonetheless, most reviews mentioned that it was great for playing piano too, so it would be interesting to get one under my hands

Crossed my mind too: problem is they don't and probably won't make an 88 version :-(

I'm aware of that. The logic behind is the size limitation for airplane luggage. When folded, the 77 key version just fits into this limit. It's not a dealbreaker for me. Not being able to try it first definitely is, though.

Well the reviews are all very upbeat ! But they also mention that its a very responsive keybed, but not a AP-like keybed (weighted / graded hammer action that mimics an acoustic) ; more something in between synth and weighted I assume, which is actually best for gigs with many different sounds (AP. EP. Synth. Organ. Pads. Leads, etc).

I that is OK with you, I think the VX might be just for you. If the QC is done well and after sales support also good, then it might be worth the risk to order blindly. Personally, I will never order a keybed blindly anymore unless I have been able to try it in a shop or elsewhere. Its so much a matter of taste, that even good keybeds might not be to your liking...

Same here. I wouldn't blind buy any keyboard since touch is such a personal matter. Maybe I'll contact Infinite Response to enquire about the possibility to test one

Infinite Response has a money back guarantee, so you can evaluate it without commitment to purchase. But depending on where you are, the shipping cost could be significant.

Finally headed over to the stores and played some keys. Soon found out that I personally don't like the Yamahas, so they're ruled out. I most liked the Rolands RD 300NX, the FP 7F and the Kawai MP10. The last one's a huge beast, so again, not for me.

It slightly irritated me that I wasn't able to detect a big difference between the RD 300NX and the FP 7F keys. I even read somewhere that the 300NX has the same keybed as the FP 4F, which can't be true. I completely hated the FP 4F's touch.
The biggest difference I found between the 300NX and the FP 7F is that the keys are coming up slightly slower in the 300NX. So what's your opinion on the 300NX keys?

As for the VAX77: there's no unit anywhere near, so no opportunity to test it. Of course I could use the money back guarantee, but I'm not willing to risk paying probably 300$ shipping fee just to try an instrument. Pity though, since I tried some synthactions as well and found some of them quite playable...

The FP-4F's keyboard action is indeed the same as the RD-300NX.

Cheers,
James
x

I almost can't believe it. The FP 4F I tried must have been defective, it felt definitively totally different to the 300NX I tried.
Strange enough. I will have another session to decide between the 300NX and the FP 7F. Probably things'll clear up then

I'm surprised that your favorites included the FP-7F and the MP10. Both fine boards, but with such different kinds of actions that I think people who really like one tend not to be very fond of the other!

I'm also not sure you should dismiss Yamaha out of hand, unless you're sure you played all their different actions. Some Yamaha actions feel very different from others. Even within a line. The CP5 and CP50 feel nothing alike. I'd say that the CP50 is more Kawai-like, the CP5 is more Roland-like (though yes, even Roland and Kawais actions vary within their own lines as well.)


I think that is the biggest knock on the FP-4F, the sluggish return.


It may be worth checking into that shipping cost instead of assuming $300. In the US -- where I am guessing you are, since you quoted dollars there -- it wouldn't cost nearly that much.

I have evaluated and returned numerous keyboards via UPS over the years. Living near NYC, it actually often doesn't cost much more than it would cost me to take the train or car into NYC to evaluate the gear in a store, and I get to use the board for 30 days in my own studio environment to decide if I want it. I often find it the preferable way to go. An MP10 would probably be cost prohibitive to ship back and forth for eval, but probably not a VAX77.