Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Digital Pianos - Electronic Pianos - Synths & Keyboards Kawai Millennium III Carbon ABS Action

Seems like a significant advancement to piano actions. Here’s a link showing it.

https://youtu.be/1O7_MtFbnWI

Note, though, that this news is nearly twenty years old.
Also note that some of the claims are exaggerated.
After all, that's an advert, not a scholarly dissertation.

Kawai should have a good handle on the ABS composites after decades of experience.

Frankly carbon fibre in most consumer goods is for marketing and decoration purposes.

Yes, it is just an ad, but it's a great one.

It's a great action, but so are the best wooden ones.

Ship it to Cybergene and see if he'll make it into one of his hybrid controllers for you

Judging by how my miserable 85-key keyboard feels so good and how I seem to experience a renewed Gartitan CFX appreciation, I can only imagine what would have happened if I had a quality keyboard like this one!

It's in your head now.

i watched that video the other day, nice promotion, kinda exagerated too, i mean if the same company tells you they are the best its always like "yeah sure" even if in some cases its the truth, thats why these days they prefer to use awards or reviews "10/10 amazing" (even fake ones) for marketing. Even when Kawai is big, i tend to think here in south america is a lot less famous than yamaha or other brands. Personally, i didnt knew about it until i started to get into piano.

A shame that the action in the NV10 did not withstand the pounding of one user on this forum, but I think it was only one report of breakage.

computerpro3 had some issues with cracking hammers. Maybe a problem with the plastics, the mold, the adhesive/prep, assembly etc. I don't remember others having that problem. I don't see widespread reporting of this Kawai issue based on posts here and elsewhere. Can't get everything perfect all the time. He wrote that the Kawai service was good.

We saw problems with plastics in the ski industry, particularly bindings. The causes were all over the place. Some failures were one-off, small batches, large runs.

https://forum.pianoworld.com/ubbthre...wai-novus-nv10-hands-on.html#Post2812627

https://forum.pianoworld.com/ubbthre...wai-novus-nv10-hands-on.html#Post2822041

Also, *technically* I don't believe the hammerheads are part of the action I don't think we would call what happened to computerpro3 a "Millennium 3 issue". An "NV-10 issue" is fair, but as mentioned, so far it's only happened to a single person. We've had someone post about a spit action part from a N2 before, but that doesn't automatically make all AvantGrands glass-actions.

I think stopping the hammers with a rail on the shanks is not good. It creates a shock in the head/shank joint. It's not how acoustic piano hammers were designed. A heavy playing by a virtuoso can easily exploit that weakness (computerpro3 is a conservatory trained pianist who participated in piano competitions and plays pretty advanced reportoire).

How do I know about the not-so-optimal decision of stopping the hammers with a rail on the shanks? Because I've had a few loose hammer heads (it's easy to spot since they start to click, although they seem solid, it's not like they spin around the shank or somethng) on my DIY action that appeared within the course of calibrating it (which requires repeated heavy blows). It's a common problem with old pianos and really easy to fix: just put a drop of CA glue at the hammer/shank joint and in 5 minutes it's rock solid. Speaking with the piano technician confirms it's not really unexpected and happens to many old pianos, especially with old animal hide glue used. And the CA-fix should last long because it's a really strong glue. So, I'm not scared. But I still think prolonged heavy playing on Novus, AG-s (and a Cybrid) is prone to hammer head/shank joint problems.

Why is stopping the hammers with a rail on the shanks necessary? Why can't there just be a rail on the hammers? Or well, something that stops the hammers, instead of strings.

Not sure about Yamaha and Kawai reasons. Maybe because they replace the felt heads with metal weights? In my case it was the easiest way to have a single straight rail since the strings in the piano are at two levels, crossed diagonally and I had to come up with a way to recreate this, but it seemed difficult and I gave up. But it’s not late. When I start making a cabinet, I’ll probably switch to a cabinet mounted rail to stop the heads and being in two levels, a higher one for the bass hammers.

Do the bass hammer shanks actually travel farther/higher? I always assumed they just had thicker felts on the hammer heads to reach the overstrung strings, so the shanks all stopped in the same place (which is why Yamaha/Kawai use a shank rail). If true, then if you split the rail you also have to have it contact the hammerhead instead of the shank?

Btw, have you checked out the foam of the hammer stop rail on your N1X? On the NV-10, it's an incredibly soft/supple microfoam thing, very thick and with varying depth across the keybed (but the same height).

The shanks all rest at a straight line. And when there, the top of the bass hammer heads is above the rest of the hammers. So they strike strings that are on another plane above the other strings but ultimately they travel the same distance. Which is exactly why I use a shank rail. Not sure about Yamaha and Kawai thigh. They can have equally high hammer weights and put a single straight rail to stop them and not the shanks. Mechanically it’s the least stressful for the hammers.

As to the soft cushion. Well, the strings are certainly very stiff and a soft cushion is not very realistic. Maybe that’s there for durability. Or has something to do with slowing down the hammers to give the CPU time to detect the hammers.

More the first than the second. On the NV10, iirc the last sensor triggers just before the hammer hits the rail, not after it. My guess is the it's there for 1) sound deadening and 2) to lessen that shock you describe when a shank hits a rail.

Btw, I think the rail on the shanks is probably a carryover from silent pianos, that needed a way to stop the hammers from hitting the strings without taking up much space or getting in the way. Hybrid makers probably just figured it works, so why reinvent the wheel...

Ohh, right! Very plausible reason. Taking in mind they used the same ES7 pedal unit with the actual pedals cut off as we analyzed from the pictures It’s a rapid release manufacturing, no time to reinvent the wheel, just use what you have.