Roland LX-9

Khuja Wangtishvili

@Pete14
Indeed, in their time Kurzweils (and Alesis) were state of the art pianos. Unfortunately Alesis is now cheap Chinese brand, and Kurzweil is still selling their 20 year old machines.
Few years ago there was lot of hype on Artis model, buy since then I didn't heard anything new...

Jordan Rudess and all of the stars played on of those two brands.

kawafanboi

Also, why make digital upright pianos this giant bulbous thing on top. It's completely unnecessary, takes up space, and is visually claustrophobic from the perspective of the player, it's a big black box all up in his face. 😅

Pete14

kawafanboi

Exactly!

It’s like they took the weakest design-point inherent to “tall” uprights, which are made tall out of necessity (to accommodate longer strings), but not because it’s aesthetically pleasing (quite the opposite), and decided “why don’t we take the ugliest part of an upright and make it even uglier (taller).”

I maintain that whoever is at the helm should be fired immediately, that is, if Roland stands a chance at redemption; which at this point seems unlikely.

Conversely, look/listen to this beauty:

https://youtu.be/W_u74YVOJX4?feature=shared

No, KFB, I don’t work for Yamaha!😁

CyberGene

Pete14 That “other” forum is paid for/by Kawai (James) to say otherwise!🤠

I’ve been contacted by James (AKA Kawai James) and I agree with him that that statement might mislead people who are unaware about Pete’s typical humor and might take it for truth. I’m sure James is not paying PianoWorld and I’ve seen him recommending other brands and models too, he generally has a very nice and calm tone and I’ve never seen him to be overly protective of Kawai or saying even a single bad word about other brands.

QuasiUnaFantasia

CyberGene Kawai James states unabashedly in his PW signature that he uses Nord equipment himself.

Pete14

CyberGene

OMG, James is lurking ‘round our forum!

Surely, I was kidding, James, and I hope this didn’t hurt our chances of seeing you ‘round here.

I assure you a warm welcome, but I can’t guarantee keeping KFB in line (that I will leave to CG).😉

P.S.

KFB, would it be too much to ask (nicely) to maintain a certain level of decorum if James decides to join us?

It’s either this (the nice way), or I’ll have CG beat you down with his stick!😆

_sem_

CyberGene

I think Kawai was advertising on PW, and that PW did have a bit of special treatment for their paying customers.

In particular, posts quoting accurate leaks a couple of days before the announcement were deleted, and posters sent to detention for a month 🙂 an I'm sure that KJ was Kawai's acting agent. I was pissed off just enough to repost on three other sites where Kawai couldn't twist arms 🙂 🙂 🙂
I mean, a company may police their incompetent reps, but not the internet.

QuasiUnaFantasia

_sem_ If posts are deleted, then that is the responsibility of PW's owners, not their customers.

Khuja Wangtishvili

Yes, James is looking as nice guy, but his behind scenes work is not showing him in good light, and there are several topics of him trying to make pressure on admins

kawafanboi

CyberGene

there's nothing wrong with kawai james,

there are some serious engineering problems with kawai's wooden line actions.

i don't even know why kawai james is worried about the forum perception, we've got very few young people on here, and fewer still going into pianism as a profession.

the piano corporations are not doing enough to foster the next generation, brand perception makes no difference if you run out of customers. it's probably too late to compete with the other entertainment devices as the ship has sailed.

we on this forum and everyone still in this game are basically historians at this point,

HZPiano

Khuja Wangtishvili

If you're making statements like these, you do have to come up with hard, firm, confirmed evidence of what you're saying.

Otherwise you're just slandering which isn't too nice to say the least.

Cheers and happy integrity,

kawafanboi

Khuja Wangtishvili

i don't know that james is evil, but he's got a very clear loyalty/agenda, and it's unfortunately not aligned with solving the engineering problems of kawai wood actions in a-timely-manner.

we don't need to speculate if james is a good person, he probably is, but his salary depends on denying certain facts, that all kawai wood actions should be updated with hard plastic spine, hard bearing joints and hall effect sensors. the critically important thing is improved piano actions, not the forum drama.

hall effect is more stable than optical in the long run.

HZPiano

Hello,

I would love to buy one of those "deeply flawed" wooden Kawai actions, in particular RM3 Grand II and GF"1". They play sooo nice compared to everything else I have recent hands-on experiences with -- that is within the digital realm and not counting the hybrids.

I'm less enthused by GF Compact and slightly less by GF III, and most certainly not by touchscreens.

An almost-neighbor has/had a Roland HP-704 for sale, really in a superb as-new condition and at a really friendly, realistic price. With the alleged MIDI perfection of PHA-50 (which I do find reflected in my FP-10) and the ergonomics of the cabinet, controls etc. I considered it a super option.

So as a final double-check I went to a (candy-)store where I can try all the usual suspects. And there… I experienced that PHA-50, while certainly not too shabby, doesn't make my heart and/or fingers sing as much as I'd like. Same with TP-400W, same with the new P525, same with everything else plastic and folded. Even the LXs, although those didn't get as much time as the others because time was up for the day.

So, I'm now (once again) seriously debating one out of two "deeply flawed" Kawais: either the MP11SE or the venerable VPC1.

Before, I didn't think too much of the MP11SE's action, but during this and another recent store visit (elsewhere), the joy I had playing it really surprised me.

So.

Cheers and happy deep flaws,

Drew-r

CyberGene I’d hate it to be the hater but

I’d hate it to be characterized as a bonafide DEI advocate * but ….. first, a word ( or two 😘) about Pete14’s 3-step program to Yamaha happiness from another thread.

My experience may have started out as a simple 3-stepper but has ended up being more of a 12-step program trying to get off GAS addiction. Step 1 began with being an adult beginner who purchased a Kawai ES7; having relied on nothing more in the way of guidance than a computer with an Internet connection; and weeks spent surfing the somewhat deep & occasionally murky DP waters before deciding to purchase from/through Tim Praskins at AZP. I soon reached step 3 happiness; i liked the piano ( and other) sounds and progressed with lessons; enough that after about 15 months of daily practicing, i learned about wearing out the under-keys contacts which is where the rubber in some DP designs literally meets the voice-sound-road. Step 4 - purchasing a Roland HP508 as a backup/spare DP while still learning the ropes of resolving worn contacts(which resulted in step 7 - trading ES7 for MP7). Step 6 was learning about Roland’s ethic for lack of (human-provided) customer support. Roland did not fully develop the included wireless App / GUI that allowed some control of the 508 & extra features; upon releasing the then new (still sinking, in my opinion) “totally modeled” flagship (which included App V2), it immediately ended support of App V1 AND V2 was not designed to work on previous “obsolete” flagships. Step 10 - realization step 7 was an over-reach of my purchasing-power versus my stalled piano-learning-mojo, was the purchase of a Yamaha DGX670. To sort of put a wrap on this steps saga, step 8 was leaving the new, hardly ever used MP7 to collect dust. The DGX670 has provided me some hours of fun but it has many (many) features that i struggle to use for lack of grasping Yamaha’s click this / turn that / press these buttons logic AND the included owner’s manual constantly refers to the not-included online Reference Manual “for advanced use” …… to save trees i guess. 😦

*I think the foregoing is an example of how the notion of DEI - as applied to APPLIANCES/toys/mostly inanimate mechanical instruments - can be used as a useful albeit repurposed idea/utility. We may need a kinder, gentler free-speaking universe to discuss in the intended context; humans-used-as-political-appliances…. but that is probably another 12-step program for another time, another discussion.

kawafanboi

HZPiano So, I'm now (once again) seriously debating one out of two "deeply flawed" Kawais: either the MP11SE or the venerable VPC1.

Before, I didn't think too much of the MP11SE's action, but during this and another recent store visit (elsewhere), the joy I had playing it really surprised me.

So.

Cheers and happy deep flaws,

it's ok to sell actions with flaws, as long as they provide the tool kit necessary to re-calibrate, and they indicate clearly to the consumer that these actions need significant time or money investment to touch up over time.

kawai has done neither of those things. and for the most part people buying digital aren't expecting regulation costs in that price bracket.

ravenworks controller advertises 24 hours of regulation because of how wonky the thing is out of the box.

SouthPark

kawafanboi it's ok to sell actions with flaws, as long as they provide the tool kit necessary to re-calibrate, and they indicate clearly to the consumer that these actions need significant time or money investment to touch up over time.

Fully agree KFB. The only thing is - it's some users that spoil it for others -- as in, they give the tools, and then some users tell Kawai etc that they (the user) messed up with the calibration - and don't know how to get out of it. And then a can of worms gets opened up, as in how to sort it out for the ones that didn't know what they are doing. As in picking up the pieces or sorting out loose ends.

Maybe an agreement thing. If mess-up, need to pay, or somebody from one side needs to pay, which could be associated with the can of worms thing.

I personally would like a cal kit or cal kit and procedure. It probably also requires some calibrated/standard striker for pushing down keys at some user programmable velocity. That's for the premium version hehe

SouthPark

This demonstrator person says they don't just 'look and SOUND like acoustic pianos' ….. well … that's all I really want actually - a musical instrument that sounds like an acoustic piano. And lots of digi pianos these days really do sound like acoustic pianos. And sound really very good too. But also mentioning, that my piano doesn't need to look like an acoustic piano. I just want it to team up with me, so we can give a really good account of ourselves if/when needed - together, and most importantly, allows me to just play a piano. At the same time, I love acoustic pianos. They are also awesome/excellent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FM7VIi7lOjo&t=49s

kawafanboi

if you think about why we have a music rest at all, and why it has to be so close to the player, it's because sheet music is typically tiny, and hard to read at a distance. even the largest prints are small compared to a cheap 32" monitor.

we should've leaped away from sheetmusic a long time ago. why not put a touchscreen sheetmusic markup/management system in the piano, this is well within the bounds of our technology / software, the cost is trivial to implement, hire some new grad software engineers they can bang one of these out in a few months, plenty of copy/paste code out there for this type of image manipulation.

thanks to china, big touch screen lcd panels cost next to nothing.

not asking for oled, although that wouldn't be so problematic either, since a monochrome oled is more than adequate for sheetmusic.

kawafanboi

SouthPark

in that roland video, quote main character, "it has hybrid wood keys so you feel the mass of the wood key against your fingers, but without the risk of it warping from weather and climate changes"

take note kawai.

Johnstaf

That demo is dreadful!

The piano sounds terrible.

« Previous Page Next Page »