Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Kawai announces ES110 ultra-portable digital piano

yes - bit confusing of Roland to not have a more distinct name for the fully modelled engine eh -_-
And sampling has more realistic timbre - tonally, the modelling wins hands down ;P

Nice! Good thing I bought my ES-100 last month, vaccinating me against immediate purchase... :-d

Missing USB is a bit shame, that and the bad speakers were my main annoyances with the ES100, they fixed the other and maybe the touch has improved as well. I know what I'll be buying for my travel piano if the ES100 breaks down.

Anyone know how much of a lag the bluetooth MIDI adds? I think the ES100 is amazing with external speakers and Pianoteq running the sounds, wonderful light action. If BT adds 10ms delay, it would greatly impact playability.

With MIDI sockets, you just need a 30€ MIDI/USB adapter.

Kraft just posted a ES110 demo.

Thanks Marko!

Here's the main product demo:



Nice, clear presentation from Adam as always, and some tasty some playing too - love the boogie woogie!

Cheers,
James
x

Waiting with bated breath, mine is supposed to arrive tomorrow. I'll probably be lame and do some unboxing pics. I'm very newb so I don't know if I'll embarrass myself with a video of me plinking out notes.

No such thing as lame unboxing pics - we love them. ... And never be embarrassed on Piano World. We are all in it together from beginners to pros. Mostly, congrats on your new ES110. Looks like a real winner!

Sounds great, but as usual I am frustrated by the player not doing a mini-DPBSD - just play and hold a few notes, changing the velocity gradually. It sounds very expressive in that I hear a large variation in timbre between pp & ff, but it's hard to tell what the graduations in between are like, short of examining the performances with a microscope.

The Wurly nails the bright metallic Supertramp sound!

Greg.

Hello folks,

Just to respond to some of the queries raised in this thread so far:



As voxpops notes, the ES110 features standard MIDI IN/OUT connectors, but no USB to Host.
However, this functionality can be added using a MIDI to USB adaptors ($10~$30 depending on brand), while for smartphone/tablet connection, I believe Bluetooth MIDI will satisfy most customers.



You're mostly correct, however the action is not the same as RH(I) but based on the same 'Responsive Hammer' mechanism design.



I believe the structural material and stability of the case should be the same as the ES100, if not better. The overall weight reduction is largely due to the new 'RH Compact' action, which is 70% lighter than the AHA IV-F action utilised by the ES100.



I touched on USB above. The split point is fixed between F#3/G3 and cannot be changed.



Yes, absolutely - that's the main purpose of this feature. The effect-less sounds can be stored to a Registration memory if necessary.



All good points. It's obviously too late to change anything hardware-related on the ES110, however I'll certainly pass-on this feedback to the product planning folks.



That's a great point - I don't believe any instruments in this price range include a half-damper pedal in the box. I've added this point to the feature explanation on the product page at Kawai-Global.com. Thank you for the suggestion.



The ES110 (and CN27/CN37) conform to the Bluetooth LE specification, so will provided the device's hardware and software support this standard, it should be able to connect to the instrument and utilise Bluetooth MIDI. iOS and OSX/macOS support this natively.

Android added Bluetooth MIDI support in v6.0 (Marshmallow), however this does not guarantee that the device manufacturer supports the feature in their implementation of the OS. We have tested a variety of different Android 6.0+ devices, however it may be difficult for us to specify which devices will/will not function due to the massive number of Android phones/tablets out there. Currently, MIDI/music creation apps developed for Android are relatively rare (compared to iOS), however I'm hopeful that this will improve in the future.

Regarding Windows, I believe Microsoft added Bluetooth LE MIDI support in the Windows 10 Anniversary Update. However, please note that Kawai does not officially support connecting instruments via Bluetooth MIDI under Windows 10 at this time.

I'm afraid I do not know if legacy (i.e. pre-Android) Blackberry phones support Bluetooth MIDI, nor do I know the situation under Linux, however I expect that if a Bluetooth LE driver exists for the OS and it conforms to the necessary specifications, it may work.



Congrats! And wow, that was quick - just one week after the product was announced!

I hope this helps!

Cheers,
James
x

Hello, great video! But have you noticed the static noise on the sound of the piano? It seems like either the recording or the outputs of the es110 have this problem with the static noise. Is there a general problem or was just a bad recording? I didn't noticed the same problem with other pianos they've reviewed on youtube...

Nope - I didn't notice any "static" but I'll take another listen later...

Greg.

Earing this video, the sound from the played ES-110 is a direct to usb recording - no possible source of static there.
The parts where he comments are recorded by microphone, some hiss is audible there on higher volume levels..

Remember if you are listening to these things on a PC, its DAC and amplifier usually have less than 80db channel separation and usually less than 95db signal to noise ratio, often much lower..

ES110 doesn't have any features, connected with USB, including USB Audio Recorder feature.

I use my headphones to hear it and believe me, you can hear anything including static noise and not only on the voice part. This is whay I was wondering if there might be a problem with the outputs sockets or with the recording of the samples from ES110. If you use your headphones, here is an example of video on youtube without any static noise:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JuhpXgFsDqs

Yes - I can hear some noise - I'd describe it as "background hiss", although it seems to change levels a bit depending on what is being played. I hear it in the quieter passages. (there is more hiss when the mic is on - I'm not referring to that)

Greg.

Yes, I can hear a small amount of noise in quieter parts of the Kraft video also. I expect this may have been introduced during the recording process, rather than being captured from the ES110 itself.

Here is Kawai Europe's ES110 product video (German language, English version to follow shortly) - I cannot hear any such noise in the audio, so am quite confident that the instrument's Line Out sound is clean.



Cheers,
James
x

James-

Can you discuss the changes made to the action?

Also, can you confirm the sounds and sensors remain the same?

Thanks.

I am also interested in this.

i'm still deciding if i should buy an ES100, which price will probably decrease a little, or just go straight to the ES110.

The key action will be the defining factor and for that i'm just hopping to see some ES100 vs ES110 comparison.

It arrived today as promised! Thanks Kraft Music and UPS for speedy prep and delivery. So, you all said you wanted unboxing, here it is. I love the keyboard so far, it really delivers on the feel promise. I am having a slight technical issue which I'm hoping the Kawai James can answer. I'm posting that in another reply so it doesn't get lost in here. If anyone has kind of test they'd like me to try, I'll do my best to get a video.

The quick story on why I bought this. I started as an "Adult Beginner" (hi other forum) in May. As I wasn't sure I'd be able to commit time to it, I cheaped out and bought a Williams Legato. Honestly, for $200 it's not as terrible as I expected, and it served me well as I learned the real keyboard basics. My teacher, however, has a Steinway. As I've started to actually play real music with some rapid triplets and fast position changes, I found that I was really suffering when I played at my teachers as the keyboard felt so different and the amount of force I needed to use was so different, I sounded terrible. I'd miss notes as I didn't press hard enough and my timing would be off as my fingers muddled through. We also have a very old, very out of tune, not serviced since my wife was a child upright, so I clanked on that for a while. It's awful, it is like playing hammers connected to tin cans, but at least the keyboard had some resistance. I finally got someone out to look at the piano and they basically said it wasn't worth repairing (it's a 75 year old no name from Canada.) So I took the money I was going to spend on repairs and went shopping for a digital. This forum pointed me to the ES100, which I checked out at a nearby store, and really liked, and was literally about to buy when I saw this thread and decided I needed the new hotness sight unseen.

I digress, on to the unboxing! I apologize for some of the sideways pictures. When I uploaded them to the forum they lost their rotation key. To see them all correct (and in higher resolution) I have them in an album here: https://www.amazon.com/photos/share/ujU396JjUt22reqQZx8KUGk51yCzpn1odretGBpU4HF


Who is that at the door? Why it's Kawai ES110!



Come on in out of the rain! (I live near Seattle so yeah, it rains.)



The box, laid out and ready to cut in to.



In 6 inch high letters it instructs the shipper not to stand the box on its end. As you can see from the first photo it was stood on its end when it was delivered. Fortunately I heard him and got it in right away, so not much time was spent on the illicit side.



This was a nice touch, I've never seen a box before with a guide to the contents on the flap. Kudos the the Kawai box designers.



First glimpse of the beautiful board



Proof it's what I say it is



On to the stand.



The bodacious backside



Speakers are still downward facing on the bottom. I can understand peoples complaints about this. I'm primarily going to be using headphones though so it doesn't bother me.



Slight technical difficulty, the safety straps on my stand don't reach the appropriate holes by about six inches. Ah well, it's pretty sturdy on there.



What's under the keyboard? This stuff.



Music rest is easy to attach!



Cord and manuals. Kudos to Kawai engineers for not making the power supply a wall wart. Much easier to plug in when there's a separate power cord. And having the transformer for the power supply away from the instrument is probably a wise thing too.



A small box in the big box! It's quite heavy, what could it be?



The warranty, in case you are wondering.



My gift from Kawai. It's better than my birthday.



I always suspected playing the piano was going to hurt me some how.



OK, whoever puts the tape on the bag the user manual comes in needs to relax a bit. The handy function chart got all wrecked as I tried to get the tape off and finally had to tear the bag apart.



Seriously, I'm bitter about this.



Ah there's a foot pedal in there!



All the plug-inny things laid out. As mentioned, the pedal has a really nice weight to it, it's surprisingly nice.



The not too thin, not too thick, just right owners manual.



Do not punch the instrument in anger when messing up the coda.



So the profile of this keyboard is much taller than the Williams, so the stand setting I had was too high. I lowered it (which spread the arms) and thought maybe the safety bolts would reach this time. No dice



Set up and ready to play!

[img]http://www.pianoworld.com/forum/gallery/42/medium/7998.jpg[/img]

Another angle.

[img]http://www.pianoworld.com/forum/gallery/42/medium/7999.jpg[/img]

A couple of videos so you can see and hear it in action! Apologies again. I don't have a tripod so I'm holding the phone in my left hand and trying to play with my right hand, and I've only been playing for like 6 months. The results are about as terrible as you'd expect. Towards the end of the video I find something is awry. See my next post for info on this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WdxyhiIUEcI

One surprising thing was that the keyboard isn't "instant on", in this video you can see it takes about 4 seconds from pressing power for sound to come out. Not really a big deal, it was just kind of a surprise as other keyboards I've used are ready instantly. I guess it has a boot process of some sort.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEec_o2nn7U

Kawai James, so here's the problem I'm encountering. For the most part, when I press the keys, they are quiet and all I hear is the key thump, which is what I expect. However, the A2 key as well as the E3, E4 and E5 all emit a slight rattle or buzz when pressed. If you watch this video, it's most obvious at around 19 seconds in. Is this normal and some keys are just going to make a little extra noise or is it something I need to engage the warranty on? Thanks!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bM9QW64Lfpo