Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Tuner-Technicians Forum Kawai GL-10 touch weight

Hi guys. I bought my first grand a year ago, a 5 foot Kawai GL-10 baby grand. I love the build and sound of this piano. However, the action is very heavy and fatiguing to play. I haven't measured it, but comparing it to almost any other brand of grand piano at the store (including older Kawais), mine feels noticeably heavier. It is also difficult to play softly on this piano.

Reviews of this piano laud its sensitive action due to extended keystick length and the Millenium III carbon fiber action, so I wonder if mine simply needs to be adjusted. I've been told that maybe it was never properly regulated, and new pianos all need to be properly regulated.

Is this true? Or are Kawais simply heavy in the action regardless?

Thanks for any suggestions.

After a year, the piano probably could stand regulation, and that would improve the touch. That would likely improve some of the issues you are experiencing, but I cannot assure you that it will be exactly what you want.

I have the same piano and would describe it as light and easy to play softly, but those things are subjective. Was yours heavy and fatiguing when you purchased it, or has it changed over the course of a year?

Hi Mark, glad to hear this about your GL10. I'd say my touchweight has not changed over a year of playing. Perhaps yours was prepared differently by your dealer than mine was? I have heard that playing on a heavy action is good for developing finger strength, and makes it easier to play other pianos. But, it is much more of a chore to play. So I'm still debating whether to lighten my action or not.

Did you buy yours new? Was it light from the beginning?

Thanks BDB. Is touchweight customizable on all pianos, or are some brands inherently heavy or light, such that regulation can't really change it? For example, I played a used Bluthner at the Steinway store that had a featherlight touch, and the dealer said that Bluthners are known for this. So I'm not sure how much of the touchweight is due to the brand, and how much is due to regulation.

Hi Emery,
I did buy mine new and it was light from the beginning. The shop where I purchased it is large so I had a chance to try many brands and models. Mine and the other Kawais with the Millenium action all felt similar to me, it was difficult to tell them apart. Have you discussed this with the shop where you bought it? I would think they'd like a chance to make things right if they're reputable.
You could go back to the place you bought it and try some other Kawais that have the same action (K300, K500, GL-xx) and see if you notice a difference. I have mine tuned by a technician from the shop where I bought it, he's been with them since 1987 so I feel like they must be reputable to keep people employed that long. He told me it takes a long time to set them up when they arrive at the store. I have no idea what's involved but he seemed honest and has no reason to shade the truth since I've already made the purchase. So you might be right that it was not setup properly when it was new. You live in a good sized metro area so you should be able to locate a reputable technician who is independent of the shop and have them come out for a look. They could also give you a better opinion on whether the touch seems normal to them for a kawai. It's very subjective to describe light vs heavy action.

You might consider measuring the touchweight with coins. Here's a video that shows you how to do it. The 1st 23 seconds measure down weight, the remainder measures upweight. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAYnD1CWwjA

I would measure C1, C4, and C7.
On a well regulated instrument (and I suppose there could be a difference of opinion on my next statement), the downweight is higher in the low bass and gets progressively lighter going up the keyboard.

There are heuristics about how heavy a downweight is reasonable; there are others about the difference between downweight and upweight and how those differences contribute to responsiveness of the action. I defer to the technicians reading this post to give us specifics.

As to feeling heavy, it COULD be that your action has a heavy downweight, but you won't know until you measure. There could be other factors, e.g., not enough upweight for the amount of downweight that you have - voicing that is too soft for the space in which your piano sits, etc.

I suggest you do the measurements and post them here for comment.
If you have a good relationship with the folks at the store where you bought your piano, you could ask to measure a similar instrument on the sales floor to check the differences.

Let us know how things go.

Touch weight is not easily changed. But it also cannot be accurately judged when the action is out of whack.

I measured the downweight on mine, it ranges between 49.8 for a few, 52.8g for most, and 54.4 for a few. The measurements vary a bit, probably due to my lack of finesse adding the final weight to the pile. This is the weight required to cause the key to just begin to move, and I have the damper depressed.

The piano needs to be regulated by a reputable technician before anything can be determined.
It has been a year. The felts are now "broken in" (packed), the regulation is bound to be out by now.
Also- at time of play a year ago, there is no saying that the piano had been properly regulated then either.
This could be simply a matter of carrying the weight of dampers too long (early lift), along with a combination of too much depth and a let-off that is not set close enough. Your repetition springs could also need to have the tension increased.
All of this is addressed in a piano regulation. Nothing can be determined before this is done. So that is the first step.
If Mark has the same piano and it is light and responsive- this should be enough for you to be convinced.

Mark-
If one were to wish to change the touch-weight of a piano, it should not be done before a regulation anyway {easing any "tight" keys and applying lubrications to friction points, etc). If the piano needs keys to be eased (one of the first steps to regulation) it would affect your touch-weight dramatically. Lube on the balance-rail can dramatically change friction in many cases.
Again, regulation is the first step for you.

To avoid confusion, the OP is Emery. I'm happy with my piano's touch.

Ricks comments are highly appropriate. I have also found often on Asian pianos that the balance rail holes can become excessively tight on the pins. This, in conjunction with tight key bushings can put an otherwise fine feeling action over the top (so to speak) friction wise. And, from experience I would say that this is not always immediately noticeable. You don't want them loose, but also not TOO tight. The factories (it seems) like to overdo this tolerance on the tight side, which can get worse overbthr first year depending on environmental conditions.

Pwg

Sorry, didn't mean to confuse--- was just trying to point out to you and the OP that touch-weight is not necessarily the first thing to jump to here.

I checked the Kawai grand regulation manual to see if it had optimal touchweights specified, and I couldn't find any. That said, Mark's measurements seem in the right range to me.

Mark - was the 54.4 in the bass? 49.8 up top? If it's the reverse, I'd be surprised, and I don't think it would feel as good. Can we get you to measure the upweight for those same keys?

To BDB's point - changing touch weight isn't easy. It's important for your technician to determine WHY tought weight is off, if it really is. I also can't disagree with Rick Parks. If Mark has the same (model) piano, and it feels light and responsive at the weights he reports, then adding just one thing to what Rick said, I'm in complete accord. That one thing is to ask you to go ahead and do the coins measurement of touch weight. If it's a lot heavier on down weight than his and the up weight is in the proper range, that leads the technician in one direction to remediate the problem.

It can also be the case, in my experience, that a piano on which I often play, goes through nothing that would change the weight, but is voiced, ... it can feel heavier to play even though the weight is unchanged.

Let us know how things go.

I'll do that later today. We had a blizzard here last night and if my wife sees me piling little weights on the piano keys instead of digging out the driveway, she might start thinking firewood when she looks at the piano.
Also I'm not sure how to do the upweight. Do I push the key down past the point where I can feel that tiny click for the escapement, and the key is now all the way down? Or do I go to the point just before that tiny click is going to happen and then take the weight off?

Heard about your weather from my son who lives in Chicago. It was still raining when we spoke last night around 8PM your time...

This video shows the process of weighing pretty well (I think). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HAYnD1CWwjA
Downweight is reached at about 23 seconds.
Upweight is reached at about 42 seconds.

David Stanwood defined dw and up in an article for ptg June 1996 thus:
"When the balance weight is placed on the front of the key it is balanced and motionless as if it were a balanced scale. Additional weight must be added to the balance weight to overcome friction and start the key moving down (DownWt) and weight subtracted from the balance weight to start the key moving up (UpWt)."
http://www.stanwoodpiano.com
/ptgjune96.htm

My reading of his article is that Stanwood makes the case that knowing DW and UW are necessary, but not sufficient to regulation. Those measurements are, however, in my opinion, easy enough to get, and can help provide a starting point to a more comprehensive analysis and remediation of the "this piano feels heavy to me" problem.

It seems to me that the above advice and discussion needs a caveat.

Since the key is a lever, the amount of weight needed to cause the key to start dropping will necessarily vary, depending on how far from the fulcrum said weight is placed. 52 grams may not cause the key to descend if placed 3/4" from the end of the key, while the same, or even lesser weight might cause the key to descend if placed at the very end of the key, due to the effects of increased leverage that results from that position.

I was troubled by the failure of the tech, whose video was included in Seeker's post above, to control the exact distance from the fulcrum at which he placed the weights. Indeed, it seemed his placements were inconsistent, diminishing the value of the results he was getting.

Also, even if a tech personally set the weights at the same distance each and every time he weighs, his results would not provide any useful comparisons between the measurements of one tech and piano to any other tech and different piano. A tech in California could not gain anything from comparing measurements to those of a tech in Ohio. It seems that comparisons of measured downweight are not that useful unless some standard distance is agreed upon by the conversation participants.

I followed instructions in above document, weights are 13mm from key edge. The only anomoly was C5, for some reason it's light compared to other keys. I measured the keys around it and they're all "normal". Apologies for the strange formatting but I couldn't find any way to make a table with the editor.

_____DW_____UW

C1___57.5____31.5
C2___57.5____30.0
C3___56.0____27.5
C4___55.0____31.5
C5___48.5____27.5
D5___55.0____26.5
C6___52.5____26.5
C7___51.0____32.5
C8___51.0____32.5

This is all well and fine, but has little to do with how a piano ‘feels’. That is a dynamic quality, consisting of a number of variables, not a static quality, though the static ‘weights’ contribute somewhat to the feel.