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anyone have it ? Thoughts ?

Good question. I love the sound of the demos, that's for sure. There was someone quite some time ago in here that either did buy it, or said that they were about to buy it.....

Greg.

In case you didn't know it requires an iLok however currently 30% off is tempting.

When I looked at this before I was a bit turned off by the tech specs (not that tech specs are everything).

For example, 5 sampled layers for the sustain doesn't sound like very many. That's more or less what we observe in hardware pianos. On the other hand 15 velocities for the release sounds like a lot. I wonder what the sampler knows that I don't.

The other thing that used to be troubling was the pedaling functionality. Since it has switched to a new player, perhaps they have updated the scripting. Last I heard it didn't support rededaling. In fact, more importantly, I don't see anything unambiguously saying it supports partial pedal. Generally VST's will list that in their features just so we know they don't belong to the older generation that had great samples but everyone complained about playability because they had so few scripting niceties.

Looking around the site they are treating this like an uprgrade from the older, Kontakt version (you have to pay for the upgrade, in fact). Probably it has a reasonable set of new features, but they don't seem well-advertised so it's hard for us to know.

I do have one additional thought, which I hope isn't too negative--I'm just going to be frank. I see a lot of Shigeru worship around. They've done some great marketing on it. I have played on an EX and it didn't seem very special to me. Really, the difference between the Shigeru and K Kawai lines is quite overblown in my opinion--a lot of hot air about how the trees used to make the Shigeru line had achieved nirvana and how the piano strings were wound by a little old man instead of a machine. Those things don't make much difference in the sound based on my experience. I like Kawai acoustics overall (and their digitals) but when I was demoing the two lines side by side they sounded pretty similar to me. I wouldn't pay much extra for a Shigeru over the RX line--master voicing in my home notwithstanding. To my ears, a Kawai is a Kawai. Having said that, variety in your VST portfolio is a good thing and this is the only way I know of to get a Kawai in there.

A side note: do you think they could have found a more wobbly stand for the piano featured in the demo video? I'd go crazy playing on that thing.

There was a layer blending option back in the Kontakt version, but I don't see that listed now.....


Greg.

Hopefully someone who has actual experience with the product will contribute to the thread so we have more than talk to go by.

There was once a Lite version that shared some of the current Pro version specs.

Original release (italicized) according to this Rekkerg.org blog announcement from 2009...it is quoted from AS official announcements posted on various websites and forums. (I edited out pricing info.)

Kawai-EX Pro features:

• 17.49Gb sample bank, no loops Recorded at 24Bits/48Khz.
• 5 “pedal up” layers, 5 “pedal down” layers, and 15 release samples per note.
• Multiple mic position and mixing from the interface.
• Multiple releases depending on time. They have been carefully picked up for each note to really reproduce the real mechanical behaviour of a note.
• Sympathetic resonance (pedal down samples).
• Thumps samples and Automatic Pedal noises samples.
• Custom KONTAKT interface that lets you modify the response of the piano as well as its tone and the volume of the releases and the pedal.
• Ability to save polyphony by enabling / disabling each position.
• KONTAKT 3 (optimized for Kontakt 3.5). Easy to use KONTAKT interface.

A Lite version is also available. This 5.8Gb library has 4 “pedal up” layers, 4 “pedal down” layers, and 4 release samples per note, and only one microphone position, the player one.

________

After a revision in 2010

Changes in Kawai-EX Pro

• Numerous voicing improvements that make releases more accurate and consistent.
• New release samples for some keys.
• Improved dynamic range.
• Improved pedal behavior.
• More consistency when using custom controls.
• New formats (SFZ, HALION 3, EXS24, Mach5).
• Added compatibility to Kontakt 2.
• Whole new version for Kontakt 4 and the new scripting capabilities.
• New GUI for the Kontakt 4 version.

________


Current Pro features: (taken from the AS webpage)

• 10,9Gb, 4932 samples.
• 3 microphone positions that you can mix from the interface.
• 5 Velocity layers for the sustain (4 on pedal up and 4 on pedal down).
• 15 Velocities for the release.
• Different release samples corresponding to different sustain length.
• Pedal down resonance.
• Key noises samples.
• Sustain pedal noises (up and down), triggered automatically.
• Advanced UVI scripting giving you access to a simple yet powerful interface and advanced features.

And, here is Lance Herring, the guy behind the "Kawai EX" sounds:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7smGXooc4iQ

Start at the 3:30 mark in the video as that is where he demonstrates the Kawai EX, as the first part is about "Steinway D" samples.

Note at 4:34 where he says... "and, the bass, it's just huge!"

After muffing a loud bass note at 4:38, he then says:

"I can play, right?"

Maybe not...

Listen again, he says "If I could play it right" - he's being self-deprecating because he missed the key initially.

I don't blame him though - that wobbly stand looks an absolute nightmare!

James
x

It appears as if Lance Herring's improvisational meanderings at the keyboard gets a little better, here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tl0WAiXhSko

Pretty decent Kawai "EX" samples, also.

Bless you, mitzysman, for raising this topic.

I got the Kawai EX long ago, did not initially like it (for several reasons), abandoned it, and forgot about it. But since you raised the issue today, I decided to try it again. And I'm delighted. This is a very responsive piano with excellent tone, and I think I'll now use it regularly.

So, why did I not like it long ago?

1. I load other pianos into Kontakt (ex: Vintage D and the Galaxy series) by simply dragging a library into the main Kontakt instrument-rack window. The pianos become almost immediately playable. But the Kawai EX does not come as a "library" in an "Instruments" folder. So to load the Kawai I have to use the file/folder navigator to find the samples folder. This is annoying.

And then I must wait a long time for the billions of files to load. They occupy more than 700 MB, so this is a slow process.

Now that I understand a bit more about Kontakt, I'm able to save the loaded pianos (Kawai and Vintage D) as a "multi". I save it in the Vintage D instruments folder. So, to load it, all I must do is drag that item into the main window. It's still slow loading, but it's much easier.

2. The Kawai EX does not have half-pedaling. This is a bit annoying. But what's worse is that the pedal trigger point is quite low, lower than the Galaxy/Vintage pianos. So I suffered many pedal "misses".

But now I have Bome's MIDI Translator, so I've configured it to shift the pedal values upward a bit, making the damper pedal respond earlier. The Kawai still lacks half-pedaling, but at least the "whole-pedaling" is more responsive.

And the sound is superb.

If it doesn't support half-pedaling, then it is only responding to Pedal Up and Pedal Down. The pedal sends one command when it is depressed and one when it is released, It is a physical mechanism. How can the SOFTWARE have a low pedal trigger point? It is either getting a pedal down command, or it is not (and responding accordingly), and that is determined entirely by the physical mechanism. Now, if it were half-pedaling, I would understand it, because then the pedal is sending a range of values that have to be mapped by the software to different behaviors, so the software can introduce a variable. But with a simple ON/OFF I can't understand how the software could affect the pedal trigger point at all. What am I missing here?


From the demos, it sounds like one of the best I've heard.

I first saw Lance Herring's Academic Grand, a 1960s Steinway D that to my ears also sounds fantastic, a couple of years ago via the YouTube videos and that led me on to listen to the EX demos too. He gives me the impression that his commitment and dedication to obtaining something special from these pianos might transcend the bare technical specs, which I agree are very ordinary (Academic Grand is just four layers for instance).

If I could get my head around what I need to do to run software I'd take the plunge with the Kawai EX and the Academic Grand - I think they both sound brilliant. The Academic grand played softly really hits the spot for me.

My piano produces six non-zero pedal increments. It sends a pedal command each time the pedal changes from one level to another. So from top to bottom it sends 24, 40, 56, 72, 88, 104, and 127 ... and the reverse set on the return, ending at 0.

I presume the Kawai behavior is that it (or the Kontakt software in front of it) only responds to pedal value 127? Or to pedal values above some threshold? If so, then it wouldn't respond at all at smaller pedal values, and I'd have to adjust my technique to suit.

Instead I adjust my pedal curve with Bomes so that lower pedal values are translated to higher values. And it works.

Ah, I understand now, thanks.

The basic MIDI spec for sustain (from the pre-half-pedaling days) is 0-63=0ff, 64-127=On. So then the issue is that, in your particular pedal, you have to press it farther than you'd like in order to generate a number above 63. So it is not a software issue. And you would have that issue using that pedal with any piano sound source that did not support half-pedaling. They all need to see something above 63 for the sustain to kick in, and the place where that number is generated--in this case, too low in the travel for your tastes--is dependent on the design of the pedal itself. Good that you found a fix, though!

There are two explanations. Forst, the 5 velocity layers are "blended" as one of you suggested in an answer. We use a lot of filtering to make the velocity transitions almost unnoticeable.
Then the 15 releases are actually 3 sets of 5 velocity layers. We use the different sets of releases depending on time. The first is for stacato, the second for around 500ms and the last for longer notes. This makes the response of the strings when you release a key more accurate and allows for realistic staccato playing.


No, the Kawai EX PRO does not support Half pedal or repedal (for now ;), an update is in the works).


The main update is that it now comes with its own player, UVI Workstation (and it did not before, you had to buy Kontakt). We also revoiced it A LOT to make it more accurate and precise, and by voicing i mean adjusting the velocity blending as well as the volume of all notes compared to the others, each release sample is matched precisely to its corresponding sustain sample.
We also added the midi controls, you can shape the velocity response as well as the dynamics and the velocity curve.
There is also the sostenuto that was not there before.


I promise to get a better one for our next piano library

I just corrected a few things in the specs and will add the few other that i described here. When we changed our engine, we had to rewrite all of the descriptions and we missed a few things.

Now if you want a little more demos, one of our users made a few videos:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJdUV1ttxLE
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-7w66R3mYU

if you search youtube, there are other videos of people playing it.

Let me know if you need any other answer, i will try to answer the best i can

EDIT: we never said anywhere that it supports half pedal and yes, the center for every midi pedal is 64 so this explain the issue.

It is actually not that complex. All you need is a decent computer and a way to connect your keyboard to it to transmit the MIDI data.

Is there a way to adjust the velocity curve with the Kawai EX? It does not appear in the UI. Perhaps there's a Kontakt-ish way to do that? If not I'll have to do yet another Bomes kludge. Dread!

The reason I ask is that even the faintest key-press produces more sound than it should. And that's with the sensitivity turned to near max. At lower settings it's even louder.

I heard the video a few years ago when he was building it and i thought it sounded great - but at the time it wasn't done.

seems really nice ! And it's on sale right now, so that is a plus

been thinking of adding a sound and looking at this Kawai EX Pro, Synthogy American D, and Galaxy Giant. Maybe revisiting the Galaxy Vienna as well.

I'd buy them all if I had the budget, but I have to pick one.

Their Wurlie sounds really nice too. I've been thinking about that one, wondering how it compares to Scarbee or Soniccouture's Broken.