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Hi everyone,

I recently purchased a Kawai NV10 and in general I'm very happy with it.

HOWEVER, for the amount of money I spent, I am a bit displeased that already, within a month of owning it, the keys on the lower quarter of the piano have begun to make a fairly loud clicking sound that interferes with the recording projects I'm working on. I'm hoping there's some easy fix to this sort of thing on a hybrid instrument.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Step 1 - Call the dealer.

By all means, get it taken care of if it's under warranty.
Otherwise, I remember something my friend, the keyboardist for Santana told me when I told him my FP4 black keys had started clicking, he said "they all do that"... he also had an FP4 at that time has probably had many different models as I have. Last I checked he was using a CP4 because he has a roadie and he is a strong dude, unlike me. I am relegated to the less than 27 pound class for gigging because I don't want to be tired by the time I am finally all set up. I have owned around 20 different dp models since 1985 and started noticing clacking keys creep up to some degree on every digital piano I have owned since the P120 days (2002). I had four different Yamaha P120s and each one sounded and clacked differently, the speakers and enclosures really varied! I have learned to accept it, unless it's really loud and under warranty. I even went so far as to learn how to open them and lube the posts myself. No more of that though, there are more fun things to do.

If some it's are closing and others aren't, it could be a regulation issue; agreed with the others you should call your dealer and arrange for a warranty eval.

Hello Pianostrich,

Yes, as others have noted, if you have any concerns with your piano, the first step should be to consult with the dealer.


Would you be willing to share any details about these projects, please?
Also, when you say that the clicking interferes with recording, does this mean that you are recording the NV10's speaker sound using a microphone?

Kind regards,
James
x

Can you record the clicking? An acoustic piano action shouldn’t be clicking. Very old actions start clicking when the hammers heads are loose around the shanks and that’s fixed by putting a few drops of CA-glue. I had this problem with my very old piano action on 7-8 hammers. But yours is a brand new piano. Although one member had a loose and then shattered hammer on his NV10. Hopefully it’s not that.

If it's an acoustic click, then my guess is, that the rail where the hammers rest (rest rail? don't recall the name right now) is a bit loose. That would be an easy fix.

Ahh, yes, indeed, it’s actually the most probable case. You seem to had that problem? A very simple fix of just tightening the hammer rest rail screws so that the rail sits a few mm below the hammer shanks at rest.

Thank you all for your replies!

Here is the video that I took of the clicking keys:

Keys Clicking

Seems odd for a brand new instrument to already have this issue. I don't know if I feel comfortable going in and tampering with it - I'm not even sure how to take the key cover off, I see nothing in the manual about that. I will probably contact the dealer today or tomorrow.

To answer your question, I'm not recording the speaker sound with a mic - I only meant that it is distracting to record while the keys are clicking so much.

The click appears to be happening on release which most probably means it's the problem described by JoBert, only a pair of screws needs to be tightened.

That does indeed sound very similar to the clicking I had. If it is indeed the same problem, then if I were you, I wouldn't be worried about the whole "but this is a brand new instrument, it shouldn't have that" thing. What you have here is a threaded screw with two nuts on it. The nuts hold a wood strip between them, i.e. one nut is screwed on (say to 1/3rd the length of the screw), then the wood strip is put on the screw (it has holes for this, obviously) then a second nut is screwed on and tightened against the strip, which is in turn held tight by the nut below. The height of the strip can be regulated (which is desirable) by raising or lowering the lower nut. As you can imagine, if either the lower or upper nut is either not fully fastened or becomes loose e.g. during transport, the wood strip can rattle between the two. Nothing to worry about. Just a normal part of that authentic acoustic action that you paid extra for. Issues like this are common with acoustic instruments too (which is why you usually have a tech go over the acoustic piano after it has acclimatized to its new home). This will be easy to sort out by a tech.

I'm glad that the solution will be simple, thanks everyone for your input.

I just remembered that I have a pic:

The screw is right in the middle of the pic, holding the wood strip with the green felt. You can only see the upper of the two nuts (round, brass):



It's perfectly OK if you don't want to open the piano and fix this yourself. Your dealer should take care of it.

Hey, thanks for the photo - we're having trouble telling exactly what we're looking at - what angle did you take this from?

Here's our perspective:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1su10zM8pwRpveUMc1NUwu_ojp8jWw0wG/view?usp=sharing

Pianostrich, the rail in question is in the rear part of the piano. Your picture is from the front. It's a rail on which the hammers rest, easy to spot. If you're gonna do it yourself, make sure you fix the rail so that the hammers won't actually rest on it but will be a few mm above it. Or hammers can touch the felt only very slightly. But if it's fixed too high and the hammers rest on it fully, then it will introduce play in the initial touch of the keys and the keys will feel loose.

Okay - I don't think I'm savvy enough to disassemble the piano to the extent to get to the back like that, so I'll need to enlist help. Thanks again!

I concur. I left it loose fitting on my acoustic for a while and it sounded like that. Try just tightening the upper bolts.

Yes, as Gene said, the pic is from the backside looking in.

I'm sure your dealer can help you, so don't feel pressured into trying to fix this yourself if you don't fell like it, but opening up the back is actually very easy:

There's the big panel with the big Kawai logo on it. It has 13 normal screws (standard PH2 screwdriver). Remove the screws and take out the panel and that's it (the panel usually sits a bit tightly, but with a bit of teasing it can be taken off easily once the screws are removed). Just in case you are curious how your piano looks from the inside...

Why disassemble? This is basically an acoustic piano without strings.
The action is that of an acoustic. And new acoustics always need some adjustment after delivery. It's expected.

So let Kawai send someone out to fix things to your satisfaction.

For big bucks you should expect big service.