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Hi,

I wonder if anybody with the Kawai NV5 uses the sounds which are called "Program Change Number List" in the manual. For example my daughter would like to hear the "Horse Gallop." I have asked the dealer and they do not know - is this sound feature part of something else that I have to rig up ?

Thanks for any help.

Those are MIDI tones. Probably you cannot select those tones. They are there just for reproducing MIDI files, and according the manual it looks the NV5 cannot reproduce all of them:


After all, the NV5 was designed mainly for pianistic usage...

OK, many thanks. That makes sense. And yes, as you say it is for piano playing after all.

If you want to rig something up, you can connect the NV5 to a computer with MIDI (DIN or USB). Using some special MIDI software, the computer can activate these MIDI sounds according to the keys you press. Effectively you can then play the piano with these sounds, as requested. Probably you'll be disappointed by the sound quality (compared to the normal piano voices), but your daughter might love it.

Search for midi-loopback or midi rewrite or so to find which software exactly to use (or ask here). You also need to disable "MIDI local control" in the NV5 user interface, otherwise you will hear the horses and the normal piano sound simultanously.

Do midi tones vary between instruments and implementations?

I just checked the "GM Tones" list for my Casio AP-650 and while I have a bird, a helicopter and a gunshot I don't see any horses there. I was under the impression (maybe mistaken?) that midi tones were a standard list of tones in a standard order.

Hello John,


As others have noted, the sounds listed in the Program Change Number List in the back of the owner's manual are intended for General MIDI playback (either loading a file via USB, or sending MIDI data to the instrument), and cannot be selected directly from the panel.

However, it should be possible to transmit the correct program change number to the instrument in order to select the sound, and then play it from the instrument's keyboard. This can be achieved by using MIDI tools running on a PC or Mac, or even an app running on your phone or tablet. The NV5 features Bluetooth MIDI, so the mobile route might be the most convenient. I haven't tried it myself, but the MidiPad app for iOS should be able to do this.

Whether or not the "Horse Gallop" sound will be enjoyable enough to make this a worthwhile exercise, is perhaps another topic,however...

I hope this helps.

Kind regards,
James
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