UPDATED REVIEW – May 15, 2018 – Kawai CP1 Digital Grand Piano, Kawai CP2 & CP3 Digital Pianos – Recommended – The Kawai piano company is well known around the world for producing some of the best digital pianos available on market today and the CP series of digital pianos are a specialty product which are not carried by all Kawai Piano dealers in the US so you may have some difficulty finding on or more of them in person.
Kawai’s international headquarters is in Japan where all of their product design and engineering come from, and for nearly 100 years Kawai has produced musical instruments that have been played throughout the world and are recommended by piano teachers, prestigious universities, and famous pianists. They produce 9′ concert grand pianos, regular grand pianos, upright pianos, and a variety of digital pianos. Kawai is also a relatively small company compared to some of the other major Japanese brands like Yamaha, Roland, and Casio because they concentrate on building pianos rather than have all of the other products that their competitors do like motorcycles, home audio, tennis rackets, snowmobiles, calculators, watches, etc. Kawai has been primarily known for their acoustic pianos and as a long time piano teacher I have personally played and performed on a variety of Kawai pianos over the years as have many of my colleagues.
When it comes to Kawai digital pianos, the CP1, CP2, and CP3 Virtual Orchestra digital pianos (aka: ensemble digital pianos) are a big jump in technology over Kawai’s other digital pianos, and that is why I am doing this extensive review…to help you get to know them better. The CP1 model digital grand piano ($21,999US factory retail price) is in an actual full size polished ebony 5’3 Baby Grand cabinet and the only one in its class out of
any major brand of digital piano. The CP2 comes in satin rosewood ($8999 factory retail price), satin black ($9199US factory price), and satin mahogany ($9199US factory price), and is identical to the CP1 grand in features and function with the exception of cabinet and speaker system. The CP3 comes in satin rosewood ($5999US factory retail price) and satin black ($6099US retail price) and both the CP2 and CP3 are housed in vertical console cabinet models which are attractive and unlike any other Kawai models. The CP pianos (aka: Concert Performer series) are only built for and available in North America and no other countries, so if you want one you need to purchase in the US or Canada only:). It’s not that the rest of the world wouldn’t want these Concert Performer pianos, they’re just specifically produced for the American and Canadian markets.
What makes these pianos unique to all other digital pianos produced by Kawai is that they are known as Virtual Piano Orchestras/Virtual bands. Unlike traditional digital pianos, the Kawai CP1, CP2, and CP3 are full blown interactive entertainment centers and are designed for people to sound great and have musical fun with minimal effort. Although the built-in digital technology that allows this to happen is very impressive, it is obvious to me that Kawai wanted these pianos to, first and foremost, be pianos. In other words, when you play a Concert Performer model you get the best key action movement and response, best acoustic type piano sound, and best pedaling reproduction in its price range for this kind of piano as far as I am concerned. So even if you did not have all of the
Virtual Orchestra/Virtual Band technology built in, the pianos by themselves would be inspiring to play just for the piano playing experience alone, and to me, that’s the way it should be. After playing all of these Performer models many times, I personally believe that anyone could benefit from owning one of these pianos whether you are beginner, amateur player, advanced player, professional level player, playing in a school, University, Church, recording studio, or home studio, or whether you are a piano student or piano teacher. You could be 2 years old, 10, 20, 40, 60, 80, 90 years old and be able to make music on the CP’s…or you could have only one arm or one finger and make great music on the CP pianos. If your musical goal is for you and/or others to experience the joy of playing and listening to good music, then no matter what your past piano playing may be or what kind of music you like, if you can afford the price tag of the Concert Performer pianos then they should be a definite consideration in my opinion when shopping for a piano of any kind.
OK, so what is a Virtual Piano Orchestra/Virtual Band digital piano and why would someone want one? The best way I can describe these instruments is to list some of the things they can do very well. They are grand pianos, digital pianos, a kid’s player piano with interactive control, concert pipe organs, concert theatre organs, symphony orchestras, player pianos playing full length pro quality original piano songs, educational teaching instruments to help learn piano for all ages, studio recorders to help create and record your music in many ways and formats, music composition tools for composing music in real time, sheet music notators with wireless printing technology, professional song arranger capable of instantly setting up the CP pianos to sound and play like some of your favorite music, an accompaniment band to play along with you in any style of music you want to make you sound better, and the list goes on. What ever you want to do with your music you can pretty much do on the Concert Performer series. It is important to say that these pianos are not for someone who primarily just wants to play piano. If you just want the best digital piano you can get in a particular price
range and don’t want the extra music making technology, then you would
need to look somewhere else because the CP pianos would likely be overkill in my opinion and may not be something you would take advantage of. If that is the case then I can help you figure out what you want, but if you are looking for something that can stimulate your musical senses in a way you never thought possible and allow you to play music that really touches your “musical soul” (which is my preference), then a Kawai Concert Performer (CP) piano may be perfect for you.
Now it’s time to talk about some of the things that make Kawai CP digital pianos unique among all other digital piano’s, and the first thing to consider is key action. Everyone it seems is wanting the best key action feel and response they can get within their price range and in my opinion the CP pianos cannot be beat. The CP1 grand and CP2 console share the same 3-sensor wooden grand piano type key action which is called ivory-feel GF (aka: Grand Feel). The CP3 has Kawai’s next best key action action design and construction and is made out of an all plastic material called ivory-feel RH2 (Real
Hammer 2) and it also has the 3 senors under each key. Three key sensors
within the key action under each key helps the piano achieve a better
recognition of faster key movement when you are playing music that
requires it. It helps the piano perform more like a grand piano than
like an upright piano in terms of the repetition of keys. Many digital
pianos (in lower price ranges) only have 2 key sensors per key so
occasionally the note will not be heard as the key moves because there
are not enough key sensors to recognize faster repetition and where the
key is in its position at any given moment. So without a very good,
smooth moving, great feeling piano key action, all the extra digital
technology (aka: bells & whistles) are really unimportant if a
manufacturer cannot get the key action right. The CP3 key action is a natural balance graded piano weighted key action which in my
opinion more closely resembles a cross between an acoustic grand and
upright piano. It is fairly quiet in movement, seems to be very durable,
and is really a joy to play. The movement of the keys is quick, precise,
and quite responsive to a variety of music that you could perform on
this instrument. Most digital pianos do have plastic key actions and of all
them, the Kawai CP3 (RH2) key action is among the best in my opinion. Good key actions are complex and expensive to design and build, and if it is was easy and inexpensive to
create, all the brands would have wonderful key actions…but many of
them do not. This is what separates one brand and/or model of digital
piano from another…key action authenticity and durability as compared
to a fine acoustic piano and the way it really needs to be. If you don’t
play piano at all or play it well, you may have a difficult time
deciding on what key action offers the most piano playing realism for
the money or does it really matter? In my opinion this is one of the
primary features of the Kawai Concert
Performer pianos which separate them from all other brands in this price range for this type of
(ensemble) piano. The GF wood key action is unique because each
individual key is an authentic full size Kawai acoustic piano key
installed over a metal center pin to keep each key stable and secure.
This is the exact way keys are made and installed into real acoustic pianos and Kawai is the only brand that does this in their CP1 & CP2 digital pianos. Beyond the fact that each key is done in this way, the key movement balance points, fulcrum position, graded weighting and counter-weight technology allows each key to move in a more precise way giving it an authenticity that cannot be found in other brands of ensemble pianos in this price range.
Kawai also incorporates a feature in all three CP models called let-off (escapement) This is a feeling that you get when you press a key you get a slight resistance or notch about half-way down when pressing any key very slowly. The let-off function feel is mostly found on real grand pianos and allows for a more realistic piano playing experience. Kawai is not the only brand to have the let-off feel because Roland and Yamaha
also offer this it which is a good thing, although Yamaha does not offer
it in their CVP ensemble pianos. Finally, Kawai has produced a
proprietary satin ivory-feel material for their white keytops on all three CP models Bottom keybaord keys pic is CP3) which gives better finger control with moisture absorbing properties. In addition to the ivory-feel keys, on the CP1 and CP2, Kawai has proprietary black ebony-feel keytops (2nd piano key left pic above is CP1/2) that reproduces the organic ebony keys that you might find on a high priced real acoustic grand piano, and the ebony-feel keys on the CP1 and CP2 really feel great and add a connection to the piano that you may otherwise not get get playing the keys. It’s these organic details and authentic construction that in my opinion gives Kawai a huge edge in piano playing over the other brands in this product category. After playing all of the major brand ensemble full featured digital pianos out there, it’s the Kawai key actions that in large part keeps me coming back to their models for the natural playing experience that I get. For more info please email me directly at tim@azpianowholesale.com
With regard to the all important acoustic piano sound authenticity, without a great piano sound, the “coolness and useability factor” of the other instrument sounds and features on digital pianos take a back seat to having a great acoustic piano sound reproduction. Reproducing a realistic acoustic piano sound in a digital piano is no small thing. It takes expensive piano sampling technology, a proper recording sound room, qualified recording and piano technicians to make sure the actual piano sampling is done right and is going to recreate the organic tonal qualities and nuances of a great acoustic piano. Even with this all being said, authentic piano sound in a digital piano can be a bit nebulous because it depends on the listener and what you are used to or what you “think” a good acoustic piano really sounds like:). Kawai uses their very expensive top of the line 9′ concert grand piano as the instrument where all of the CP’s
pianos get their piano sound. Unlike some other brands, Kawai records
the notes played by each of the 88 keys individually rather than use
“stretch recording” which samples a single key and then artificially
stretches that note up to the next key and so on. With 88 key individual
piano sampling, the piano sound will be even closer to that of a real
grand piano. I noticed that the piano sound of the CP’s was very
enjoyable to play and tonally was quite consistent from one note to the
next. The CP1 and CP2 have the best Kawai piano sound chip and the CP3 has the second best piano sound chip. Both are 88-key sampled tones from a concert grand but are different in terms computer memory which allows either more or less piano sound authenticity and organic nuances. It just depends on your budget and what your musical goal is as well as your
comfort level and how picky you are concerning piano sound realism:).
Speaking of being picky, all CP pianos have a way for picky people to personalize and customize the piano sound for their own musical tastes. This feature is called “Virtual Technician” and it allows the user to easily adjust various parameters of the piano sound on the color touch screen just like a real piano technician would do on an actual acoustic grand piano. Some of the functions of the “Virtual
Technician” include having and adjusting Damper Resonance, Damper Noise, String Resonance, Key-Off Effect (incl.
Key-Off Release), Fall-Back Noise, Hammer Delay, Topboard lid, Decay Time, and Soft Pedal Depth. I have personally played around with these adjustable aspects of piano sound and some of them can come in pretty handy depending on the type of music you play. This is why (user friendly) adjustments to piano sound can be important because even though the CP’s offer a variety of acoustic piano sounds, adjusting them yourself gives you more control over how they sound and that can be so helpful when a person is after something that may not be preset in the piano sounds. Not all people will use this feature but some people definitely will and they will be
appreciative that it is there. Finally with regard to piano sound in the CP pianos, Kawai has a very intuitive feature called System EQ. This is a fantastic feature because it allows a person to further customize the piano sound and overall instrument sound by individually changing the type and amount of EQ (Equalizer) frequencies on the color touch screen in a very intuitive way. If you want more bass, more mid-range, more treble, or less of everything or adjusting other sound frequencies on the touchscreen, you can do it quickly and it can make a world of difference in what you hear coming out of the internal speaker system in the CP piano. Once you get that “perfect mix” of sound, then you can save it so it comes up that way every time you turn on the piano. It’s very useful and I think most people would take advantage of what it can do because it’s easy to work with. If it wasn’t for the ease of use on the color touch screen, then I think few people would take advantage of it. But in the case of CP pianos, you will be glad it’s there and how easy it will be for you to make these custom sound adjustments to make your music sound even better:).
When it comes to the three piano pedals on most acoustic and digital pianos, they definitely cannot be overlooked when considering a piano purchase. The three pedals include the right damper (sustain), middle sostenuto pedal, and left soft pedal. Based on my many years of teaching piano and playing professionally, the right damper pedal is by far the most important followed by the left soft pedal, and then followed far behind by the center sostenuto pedal. The damper pedal’s job is to left the dampers off the strings in a real acoustic piano so the strings can sustain and continue to be hear over a shorter or longer period of time. Without an effective damper pedal, piano music would not sound beautiful and in fact could not be played properly. You could have the best piano sound and the best piano key action in the world, but without the right damper pedal working properly or not having one at all, you might as well give up playing piano in any serious way…the damper (sustain) pedal is that important in the effect it has on the piano sound in real time. With regard to the
authenticity of how the right pedal works, it should be a full size,
full length pedal or as close to that as possible
and also should have a
particular weighted feel to it as your foot presses down. There also
needs to be some resistance to the pedal when pressing down so it
doesn’t just flop down to the bottom when barely pressing it. The pedals
should be sturdy, quiet, durable, tight fitting within the cabinet and
built with good materials so the pedals don’t squeak and wiggle side to
side like piano pedals I have played on other digital piano brands. The
Kawai CP series definitely has high quality pedals which they call Grand Feel pedals and they do feel real based on my experience using them. When the damper pedal is depressed the sound of the piano is effected by sustained
overtones, sympathetic string vibrations, pedal resonance, pedal sustain
decay, and other organic elemental recreations. In other words, there’s
a lot of sound movement going on when the right pedal is used on an
acoustic piano and Kawai does an excellent job in being able to
duplicate much of this authenticity with their pedaling and sound
technology. This is no easy thing to do and the result of the piano
sound quality in these models is very impressive when using the pedals.
It’s quite real sounding along with having half-damper sustain control (which is also electronically adjustable) for different amounts of sustain depending on how far down you press the right damper pedal. If all this wasn’t enough, the center and left pedals can also be programmed to do other things. Since most people will not be using the center and left pedals in a traditional way when playing on the CP pianos, they can use these pedals in a more practical way by triggering digital features which you would have to otherwise get by pressing buttons on
the control panel or display screen. This allows for a smooth transition and use in functionality because using your foot allows your fingers to stay on they keys instead of taking them off to press buttons while you’re playing a song. Some examples of this are bring able to control the built-in drums and accompaniments and turn them on or off, change variations, trigger intros/endings, breaks, etc, as well as create as setup a steel/Hawaiian guitar pedal glide control, and many other things. All of this simply helps you make more beautiful inspiring music and although you may not use this all the time, once you get use to using the pedals in these ways, you’ll be glad you have it and will want to use it often regardless of your playing skill level. It just helps make you sound better than you really are…and isn’t that what counts:)!
Polyphony is a word that is thrown around quite a bit when it comes to digital piano specifications that people think is important. Polyphony is a name given to describe how many notes (keys) can be played at the same time along with pressing the damper pedal to sustain those notes without the sound of the notes dropping out unexpectedly when playing a song. This is never an issue with a regular acoustic piano because it only has one piano sound and 88 keys so you would never need more than the 88 keys to play the piano notes. However there is more to the piano sound than meets the eye. There are all the small organic elements within the piano that make the piano sound the way that it does while vibrating on over 230 individual strings. So even though there are 88 keys on a piano, each key (except for some low bass notes) is activating a hammer which is striking more than one string at a time. Over 230 strings is a lot of strings and if you were to play all 88 keys at one time while holding down the damper pedal, to reproduce that experience on a digital piano would be very difficult unless you has sufficient polyphony processing power and a great piano sound chip. In the CP series, Kawai has the industry maximum of 256 notes polyphony, however, Polyphony is given in mono numbers and not stereo. The Kawai piano sound is recorded in beautiful stereo as is done on other digital piano brands too. When you have 256 notes of polyphony in the piano, in stereo you actually have half of that which equals 128 notes of polyphony because each stereo note (key) take up 2 notes of mono polyphony. Then when you add (layer) another instrument sound with the piano sound and that extra instrument sound takes up some of that polyphony away from the piano sound. In other words as you add more sounds together including rhythms, accompaniments, etc, you need as much polyphony processing power as possible to handle it all. With 256 note polyphony on the Kawai CP pianos, you won’t run out of polyphony even when playing more complex music or using more complex arrangements. I have tried it and the piano sound and features hold up well with no sudden loss of notes when playing a song. When you can play complex, more advanced piano music or have professional arrangements which use multiple instruments and not run out of notes, your music will sound better and you will be able to do things musically that you have not been able to do before which will bring your musical enjoyment to a new level.
Speaking of making you sound great, Kawai has included some exclusive features in all CP models that help you sound like a pro without being one…and if you are a pro you’ll be able to make music that you may not otherwise be able to do on your own. One of these very cool features is called instrument arrangement Registrations. A registration is actually a memory button where you would store your own instrument setups and combinations for later use that you created on the piano. Registrations can also be instrument and functions setups done by professional musicians from the factory that are stored in the piano registration buttons. The CP1 and CP2 have 160 professionally made instrument/sound setups and the CP3 has 80 of them, so there are significantly more sound set-ups on the CP1 & CP2, however even 80 of them is a lot!. The registration memories are setup into groups of instruments such as pianos, strings, brass, pipe organs, drawbar organs, theatre organs, synthesizer, electric pianos, big band, orchestral, etc, which you access from the color touch screen so they are easy to get to. Within each instrument group are a variety of individual selections which you accessed from front panel buttons numbered 1-8. So there are 8 variations of each instrument group and each of those preset variations were created by those pro musicians at Kawai to give you a complex sound setup which you otherwise may not be able to do on your own and if you could, it may take you hours, weeks, months, or maybe never to figure out the best combinations of instruments, relative volumes, effects, octaves, etc to correctly come up with a great sound. These instrument combinations get their instruments from among the 1000
individual instrument sounds in the CP1 and CP2 sound library and from among the 700
instrument sounds in the CP3 sound library. In other words, with these unique
instrument registration memories you will instantly get fabulous
sounding piano symphonies, brass bands and orchestras, concert pipe organs, gospel
church organs, old time theatre organs, contemporary synth band
arrangements, woodwind and string orchestra arrangements, etc with
basically just the touch of a button. These registration instrument
arrangements are not just good…they’re great! In fact when you play these instrument combinations, depending and how hard or soft you play the keys, some instruments will fade to the background and others will stand out which emphasizes true volume and tonal dynamics like a real orchestra or band would do. To make matters even better, the preset registration combinations are on the home page of the color touch screen showing the separate instrument names and color pictures of those instrument groups so you know exactly what is going on. In
this way you can also learn to create your own registrations yourself because Kawai shows you what
instruments they use and visually makes this clear through the color icons in the touch screen, so it doesn’t get easier than that. Most of these registrations don’t have the one finger/fingered accompaniment chords, drum rhythms, or or other accompaniment features built in because they are mostly instrument combinations. After going through nearly all of them, I find that using these full setups allows me to make incredible music without being an incredible technician in having to know how to do it. All I do is press the sound category button, press the variation button within that category, and then I have an awesome sound when playing the keys and it sounds super professional even with only playing a few notes. So regardless of your playing skill level, you will sound fantastic. You have to hear it to believe it and all I can say is those Kawai musicians must have spent hours upon hours putting all that together so that you can have instrument sound setups like the pro’s do. For more info please email me directly at tim@azpianowholesale.com
There are so many types of music styles out there which I greatly enjoy listening to and I love to get the chance to hear great music performers in person playing live instruments. To me, music is like a beautiful rainbow of color which mixes different elements of sound to come up with meaningful, inspiring music. What is musically inspiring to me may be different for you. Whether it’s watching a great symphony orchestra, a hot uptempo jazz group, a Latin band playing Salsa, Bossa Nova, Rhumba, or Latin Rock, gospel
music with authentic Hammond B3 organ sounds, listening to awesome movie
themes (from my favorite movies), a toe tapping country band, 40’s,
50’s, 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s music, contemporary rock, contemporary
Worship music, theatre organ players, polkas, ragtime, and various kinds
of culturally based music from around the world…whatever it is, when
I’m in the mood for it then I love to listen to it, especially if it is live. With that in mind, I enjoy being able to play those styles of music for myself, but on most digital pianos from Kawai and the other major brands, you cannot do that. There is no band, no orchestra, no individual musicians playing all those instruments and certainly no way to reproduce those types of musical arrangements and interact with them for the music I mentioned, especially if you want to play it live and control all those musicians and instruments and not have it pre-recorded on audio or MIDI files. The CP series pianos solves that dilemma by allowing you access to all
these styles of music with a wide variety of interactive bands,
orchestras, organists, and other musicians. This is commonly referred to as a Virtual Band feature which are professionally created ensemble accompaniment styles that allow a person at any playing skill level to play the kinds of music I was talking about with full drum percussion patterns, bass lines, guitar strumming, piano arpeggios and chord playing, organ backup, horns, etc. Basically you select the music style group you want from the color touch screen and then press a color touch button selecting from hundreds and hundreds of your favorite music styles including hundreds of intros and endings to make your playing sound even more realistic. Beyond that, when you listen to live music, those players are playing in musical patterns and those patterns change over the course of the song so they are not always the same. There are some ensemble type digital pianos where the instrument sounds and playing patterns sound “canned” and unrealistic, and you know that what you are hearing is not real. Even though there are
hundreds of accompaniment variations on these CP models, most of them do
sound live and very real with musically correct changing patterns for each of the interactive players along with the ability of the user (you) to customize each of the hundreds of arrangements by changing the types of musical patterns and progressions that are in the arrangements and saving them so that they sound the way when you want them to. Kawai calls this feature the Conductor Easy Style Edit system and you access it in a very intuitive way through the large color touch screen…easy to do and get an instant result with being in charge of the entire orchestra or band. I do like this unique feature and it just helps keep the music fresh:). You really cannot make a “mistake” using the Easy Style Edit and if you don’t like what you did, you simply reset the accompaniment style back to the factory setup.
To make things even more realistic, the CP pianos have a function called 1-2 Play which has predetermined professionally arranged right hand instrument sounds as well as song tempos and other facets of the song that correspond in a musically realistic way when playing any of the hundreds of left hand ensemble accompaniment styles. This means that you don’t need to figure out what melody instrument sounds would go best with the left hand accompaniments…the Kawai CP 1-2 Play will automatically do that for you by you touching the accompaniment
music style & variation that you want on the large color touch screen. As the piano changes style accompaniments with their variations, your right hand sounds will instantly change along with those styles giving you an ever changing and perfect rendition of how everything should sound for both left and right hand. No more guessing or sounding like an amateur player (which is not a bad thing:) when trying to set up the best sounds and accompaniments. The CP will do that for you and make you sound great in the process. In fact there are many configurations and combinations that
could take years to work out on your own, so having it done for you with a touch screen button is an awesome way to make the kind of music you have only dreamed of and never thought you could. These are not some cheesy renditions of fake music but they are actually stylized like real musicians would play them and I found them to be very convincing in using them with many styles of my favorite music. So there really are few barriers on the CP pianos in my opinion that would prevent you from making absolutely exciting music regardless of your age or musical abilities. Yes you do need to play some sort of song when using these features but if you happen to be a novice beginner, you can slow down the accompaniment to any speed you like and just take it a little bit at a time. Even in this way you will enjoy yourself…and if you play really well then you’ll still be amazed at how good it all goes together.
Most people have a library of specific songs through the years that they enjoy listening to and it would be great to play some of them on a CP digital piano. Well you could definitely do that using some of the features I have mentioned already, but how do you set up one of your favorite songs to sound as close as possible to the original arrangement of the actual song? What rhythm accompaniment would you use? What right hand melody instruments would you use? and how would you put that altogether correctly? You would need to have an understanding of the original
song and its instrumentation, rhythm accompaniment patterns, and
then where to find those settings on the CP piano (if you can find them
at all) and how to put it altogether. This could take weeks or months to
figure out, if not years because achieving a close arrangement
authenticity to the original song
takes a great
ear and lots of musical training. Well, once again Kawai has made even this kind of thing very easy with a feature they call Song Stylist. The Song Stylist takes the instrument sounds, rhythms, arrangements, and patterns that are in the CP pianos and puts them together in a special way so that they reproduce the style and feel of the original song that you like in a huge library of popular songs built in to the piano. As an example, the
CP pianos have setup arrangements for songs like the Beatles “Hey Jude,”
Elton John’s “Candle in the Wind,” James Taylor’s “Fire & Rain,”
Jobim’s “Girl From Ipanema,” Frank Sinatra’s “Strangers in the Night,”
Elvis Presley’s “Love me Tender,” Oklahoma’s “Oh What a Beautiful
Morning,” Sound of Music’s “Edelweiss,” and Chicago’s “Hard Habit to Break” just to name a few, and
the list goes on & on. There are literally hundreds of famous songs
including Christmas, Hymns, Contemporary, Jazz, Big band, and many more
all built into the pianos and you can search for them in the color touch
screen either by song category or by alphabetical letter. When you
press the name of the song you want, the piano is automatically and
instantly set up so that you can play that song and the arrangement of
the song style will instantly remind you of the actual song. The Song Stylist does not actually “play” the song…you have to do that. What it does is allow you to sound like the song as far as it’s original band arrangement goes. This is no small thing and certainly took hundreds of hours for Kawai to put
this kind of thing together with all this music. OK, so you see the song
in the screen and you want to play it but you need the notes and the
chords and maybe even the lyrics so you or someone else can play it and
sing along. No worries because Kawai offers a series of five music books
(purchased separately for $14.95 each) which is produced by Hal Leonard
Publishing called the “Decade Series.” These books have hundreds of songs among them compiled by decade and they are in the Easy Play format using easy to play in keys (C, F, G, etc) along with simple melody music with the note letter written into the musical note along with the left hand chord symbols above the staffs. In my opinion those books are a small
price to pay for the enjoyment you be getting using them with the CP
pianos. This means even a beginner can play their favorite music without
having had much past playing experience. If you are more advanced then
you will still have fun with these books or you can buy your own more
advanced music and use that instead because there are no limitations.
There are also other additional books beyond the Decade Series from
Hal Leonard for other songs in the CP1 and CP2 (not CP3) so you have
many to choose from (up to 15 total books) if you want to buy them.
Regardless of how you do it, you really will sound like a pro with the
Song Stylist feature and your playing will no doubt be more enjoyable
because you will sound great with less effort, and if you have more
playing experience then you can put more effort into it and sound better
than you would otherwise. I know that’s the way it was for me when I
took advantage of the Song stylist feature and I enjoyed every minute of
it and it kept me wanting to play more…it is just way cool as some people might describe it:). For more info please email me directly at tim@azpianowholesale.com
In keeping with the educational and entertainment value of the CP pianos, Kawai has included a special piano learning system with a complete library of well known favorite songs throughout the decades and centuries especially arranged and orchestrated to provide hours of listening, singing, and playing fun with a self instruction program for absolute beginners of any age to play music on the keys perfectly the first time you touch the keyboard. This exclusive system is called Kawai Concert Magic (CM) and it is appropriately named. You play perfectly like magic and it sounds like a concert:). The way it works is that you select a song from the large song library which includes folk songs, popular standards, country-western tunes, internal songs, classical music kids music, patriotic songs and so on. Once you have selected the song on the color touch screen then you decide how you want to see it. There are a few different options including seeing the actual sheet music score on the display screen, seeing the lyrics to the long which has a red bouncing ball letting you know where you are at all times, or you can select the Note Navigator mode which allows you to play by rhythmic dots and plus signs indicating when to
strike a key so that you do not need to read music. You can set speed
and go at your own pace and when you press any key black or white, that key plays the correct note regardless whether it is the correct note or not! As a long time piano teacher who has taught thousands of individuals how to play piano, I was impressed with how intuitive and useable this system is and what it can do for a
beginner to instill playing confidence while helping to teach the
important fundamentals of rhythm & timing along with proper playing
dynamics and note reading. The songs are preset with fully arranged
orchestrations and instruments so they sound great just like pro
musicians would play them and you control those musicians by playing the
any keys in any order and getting that song to play. This may sound
like a toy but it definitely is not. It will subliminally teach musical concepts and in the process you will sound amazing. In addition to the learning and playing aspect, the song library in these Concert Performer pianos contain 176 songs which can be heard like a player piano where the songs will play one after another by
themselves and you can sing along to them with the lyrics to each song
displayed in the large color screen or you can connect the piano to an
external large video monitor to see the lyrics in a bigger way so they
can be displayed like Karaoke music for the entire family or group of
people in the room. You can also select from the Vocal Harmony feature and turn your voice into multiple voices at one time singing different parts (choosing from a variety of vocal harmony styles), just like a small vocal group might do. The CP pianos can even display the sheet music notes to each song along with lyrics in the music in case you want to read and sing along with the actual notes as well. You can change the key and speed of the player music to suit your vocal range better and the tempo you want to sing at. This Concert Magic system is super great for kids, seniors, families, Mom’s and Dad’s, beginners or even professional players like me because it’s FUN and makes you sound great and the player piano sing-along aspect of it just adds to the pleasure you will get when using these different Concert Magic features! There is so much more this CM feature can do that you’ll just have to try it out and be careful that you don’t loose track of time when using it because it provides hours of fun and learning for the entire family. As a teacher and performer I highly recommend it and no other digital brand has anything like it. Check out my videos at the bottom of this page to see the Concert Magic feature in action…live!
If all of these preceding functions and features I have already talked about weren’t enough, Kawai also has created an exclusive feature called Player Piano Music which is entirely different than Concert Magic. This special feature is accessible through the large color touch screen and contains (according to Kawai) over 7 hours of original piano music composed and played by top pro pianists in full length songs that will play by themselves just like a player piano. The keys on the piano don’t move but the songs will play individually one after another just like a real pianist would do. These songs are not ordinary demo songs that you’ll find on so many other digital pianos, but they are piano only high quality original compositions or new versions of great songs played
entirely in “real time” and not done on a computer or pre-programmed.
These songs sound completely live as if you had hired a great pianist to
play a grand piano in your living room and entertain the audience. You
know these songs are live and original just by listening to them and
hearing the tempo changes, nuances, dynamics, and flavor of the original
songs from contemporary mood music to jazz, blues, Latin, and other
forms of music. Along with full length original compositions you can
also choose from well known classical music played live in the original
arrangements by pro pianists at Kawai and these well known pieces are
exceptional in their movement, feeling, and quality of performance…and
I should know:). Also there is a Christmas song library within the
player piano which will play piano versions of well known Christmas
tunes in new contemporary arrangements which are brilliantly played and
can add extra enjoyment to your Christmas holiday. You can also record you playing your own piano music on the CP piano and save those songs into the player piano library to play back
within the Player Piano feature…how cool is that! But when it comes
to professionally composed original music played live in concert or
having that musician come to your home to play live at a home event, if
you personally paid a pro pianist to write over 100 song arrangements
and play them live for you, it is likely you’d be paying that person
hundreds of dollars and perhaps much more depending on who the pianist
is, so this Player Piano feature is no small thing in adding more music enjoyment to the piano. Another really cool feature of this Player Piano Music is that you can play along with any of the songs, assuming you can play by ear or have the music, and you can select any instrument sound (piano, strings, choir, trumpet, bells, etc) on the CP piano to use as your play-along instrument. This adds some very nice interactive enjoyment to the player system and allows you to participate in the playing of the song if you wish. With the exceptionally realistic grand piano sound of the CP pianos being played by the Player Piano Music Library, the combination is really outstanding. Regardless of how you use it, just listening to the piano song library as you go about your day or evening is worth the price of admission. Finally, it’s important to note that only the CP1 and CP2 have the Player Piano. The CP3 does not have it which makes a compelling case to spend a bit more for the CP2 as opposed to the CP3. For more info please email me directly at tim@azpianowholesale.com
I know there will be a number of people who will purchase these instruments but they may not be much more than beginner players just wanting to learn to play and have fun. Or maybe you do know how to play pretty well but need to brush up on a variety of music and exercises and improve your playing and fingering skills. With this in mind Kawai has a comprehensive feature built in to these pianos called “Piano Lessons.” These piano lesson songs are actual lesson songs that are pre-recorded and saved directly into the piano from well known piano lesson books by Alfred Publishing and other educational
curriculum. There are literally hundreds of songs and finger exercises
along with classical music which allows you to buy the actual books that
teachers recommend and them play back the song or exercise recordings
in the piano while looking at the music from those books. You can slow
down the lesson song temp to any speed you like as well as select
specific parts of the song you may be having difficulty with so you can
loop that part from the start of a measure to ending at any measure you
choose and then looping those measures so the song keeps repeating that
part of the song over and over. In this way you can keep practicing the
part that is difficult for you without needing to play the rest of the
song during your practice sessions. The color touch screen and value
wheel dial on the control panel allow you to easily and intuitively
access the features of the Kawai Piano Lessons so that you can access
the various built in lesson book songs fro kids, adults, more advanced
players, beginners, and a number of other selections to help in better
being able to play a piece of music. It makes the learning and
practicing of a lesson more enjoyable, gives you a better feel for the song you are playing, helps you with you rhythm and timing, and intimately makes you sound better than you are when learning the piece. Another useful component of the Piano Lessons is the ability to turn down the volume or shut off completely either the left hand or the right hand of the song playing back to you. In other words you can listen to and play along with both recorded hands (bass clef & treble clef). However if you want to isolate the right or left hand playback without hearing the other hand, you can easily do that and then when you have learned that part (bass or treble clef) you can play it live with the recorded
playback of the other part so you have something to play against while
making you sound good. To test out how well you have learned the right
or left hand, you can actually record it into the piano by touching a record button on the color touch screen and save it and then you can play back your recording of that practice part along with the actual perfect recording so you can tell how you are really doing! This is a fabulous way to learn to play and practice as well as develop your ear to hear notes and understand rhythm & timing better. Also, aside from the built in lesson songs, the CP series can play General MIDI lesson song files from both the Alfred and Faber lesson curriculum for additional ways to interact with music education using additional lesson books beyond the songs that are already in the piano. General MIDI song files can also be purchase to go along with a vast array of music books containing some of your favorite songs. Unlike the song “styles” that I spoke about earlier that don’t actually play the song but instead allow you to have an instrument arrangement style that sounds like the original songs instruments and patterns, General MIDI song files are the actual full length songs with full instrumentation that allows you to play regular piano along with the songs. The CP1, 2, and 3, are General MIDI compatible which means there are literally thousands of songs you can get (some free, some you buy) that will play through your piano either one at a time so you can learn and play along, or one after another without stopping like a continuous player piano and you have control over speed, song volume, key, etc and then if you like you can play the regular piano parts over that song. General
MIDI has been used for years by piano teachers, students, and pro
players like me to learn favorite songs, have more fun with lesson, and
overall to just make playing music more enjoyable. Go to the following
link to learn more about General MIDI: General MIDI Info. If you want to play and understand music better, the Kawai Piano Lesson song features are something I have not seen on any other brand before (except for external General MIDI) and it absolutely does help with furthering your music education regardless of your age or playing ability. For more info please email me directly at tim@azpianowholesale.com
When it comes to recording what you play on the piano, the CP pianos have extensive audio and MIDI recording capabilities which can be accessed from the color touch screen. It is not only fun to record yourself to hear what you sound like and how you’re doing, but you can create music, write songs, and put together full musical soundtracks. There is a simple easy record mode which you can quickly access off front panel buttons where you can play a song and record it and then play it back immediately.This is perfect for people who just want a simple no
hassle way of recording themselves without needing to be rocket scientists to figure out how to do it. Then for the people who want more of a comprehensive recording system, the Kawai CP’s allow you to record and play back up to 16 different instruments and tracks at one time. With this more advanced recording system there are a number of editing controls and functions which you access from the color touch screen and allow to to control things like the relative volume between each instrument, the effects, actual instrumentation, and a host of recording details to help you make the
perfect recording whether it’s your own original composition or a cover of a famous song. You can then save those recordings as a MIDI song file or an audio wav or MP3 file and then save that into a USB flashdrive to load it on your computer or elsewhere. In addition to recording yourself, you can also see that song in the form of sheet music on the color display screen and print that song out on your computer home wireless printer. You will see the actual notation and be able to have that as a tangible piece of music although this is only for convenience and not to replace properly formatted and sized
sheet music. There are better and more practical ways of converting your recorded songs into sheet music using specific notation software you purchase for your computer which would give you more control over the sheet music and the printing capabilities, as well as extensive song editing. But for a simple and quick approach to getting some sheet music to come up, the Kawai CP pianos do a good job with that. As far as the actual recordings themselves, I believe you will be pleasantly surprised how professional they will sound using the Kawai Song Recorder system based on all my experience with that. Even some of the more “advanced recoding features are fairly easy to navigate and surprisingly intuitive using the large color touch screen and the value wheel/dial. There are many detailed editing and recording features within the CP pianos so whether you want simplicity or more advanced studio quality multitrack recordings, I believe the Concert Performer pianos will be able to keep up with most demands for quality music when it comes to recording, playback, and seeing music notation.
As far as some of the other features that are good to know about, The CP1 and CP2 have the capability of combining four instrument sounds together whereas the CP3 can layer two sounds. Layering two independent right hand instrument sounds together is what you’ll find most digital pianos can do. But layering three independent high quality right instrument sounds together that compliment each
other is not generally available on digital pianos. This ability to
hear three instruments at one time plus a fourth one with a separate left hand sound and having full control over each
instrument volume, effects, and other aspects of the sound is what helps
to make the CP1 and CP2 sound so good, especially when it comes to
using the registration combination presets. You can enjoy
playing the piano sound & other instruments on both models and some of the other great instrument
tones as well as the dual combinations on the CP3. But the CP2 is a definite step up as long as you have the budget for it. Other important but secondary features of the CP models that I personally use include reverbs:
Room, Lounge, Small Hall, Concert Hall, Live Hall, and Cathedral. Key Touch sensitivity curves: Light+, Light, Normal, Heavy, Heavy+, Off (Constant), User 1, User 2. Temperaments: Equal (Piano), Meantone, Pure Major, Pure Minor, Pythagorean, Werckmeister, Kirnberger, Arabic 1-2, User, Key of Temperament. Tuning: Stretch Tuning, User Tuning, User Key Volume, Half-Pedal Adjust, Minimum Touch. (Selectable Split Point), Mixer, Master Volume, Accompaniment Volume,
Transpose, Octave Shift, Tune, Portamento (CP1 and CP2 Only), MIDI (16
Part Multi-Timbral Capability). Chord playing setup: Fingered, One Finger, Full Keyboard, Bass Inversion, Right Hand Harmony (10 Types), Special Effects: Chorus, Phaser, Flanger, Brilliance, Tremolo, Delays, Panning all with micro edit control, Vocal Mic Effects: Vocorder, Bear, Robot, Duck, and more,…and other cool stuff I won’t talk about here.
In these higher price ranges all digital pianos should have good connectivity when it comes to hooking up external devices to the pianos, and the CP’s definitely do have the connection jacks you need to connect just about anything you’ll want. The CP1 and CP2 both have the full compliment of connector jacks
whereas the CP3 has less ability. Whether it’s connecting a USB computer to the piano, an iPad, external speakers, a video monitor for connection to a much larger color monitor screen for Karaoke and Digital Sheet Music sing along, a pro XLR cable connection for use at events, churches, outdoor activities, etc, standard MIDI
connections, or even plugging in your MP3 player to the piano through a front panel 3.5mm mini jack (not available on the CP3), you’ll find these pianos can do it well. There’s even 2 headphone jacks for each piano so 2 people can practice in privacy at one time. Also next to the headphone jacks is a microphone standard 1/4″ input jack with separate volume control to control the vocal volume when you are singing or speaking in the mic through the piano speaker system. It’s easy to see that Kawai uses high quality components and connectors as opposed to other digital pianos I have seen who use cheap parts which cause problems over time. The CP3 does not have all the capabilities in these ways whereas the CP2 and CP1 do, so that is another reason why the CP2 console cabinet model is so compelling to buy over the CP3 console cabinet model.
The piano cabinets on these three models are very attractive, especially the
CP1 full size polished ebony 5’3″ baby grand..that one is absolutely
beautiful in person. As I mentioned in the beginning of this review, this is
the only digital baby grand of its size on the market today and Kawai uses an
authentic acoustic baby grand case (including sprucewood soundboard) they make
for their acoustic grand piano line and they install all of the CP1
electronics, speakers, key action, etc in this cabinet….so it is the real
thing. The nine individual speakers (including a large 10″ bass woofer) going through a 3-channel
200 watt sound system are spread through the cabinet in the
wood soundboard which helps disperse the sound in different areas of the
piano and allows the sound to passively vibrate through the wood grains
in
the soundboard, so you get both a powerful stereo sound through the
speakers
combined with the natural wood soundboard, and the result is very
impressive. The larger size of the CP1 cabinet helps the
sound system to work well, making the piano sound beautiful. The piano lid has
two opening positions along with the lid also being able to lay down flat, just like
a real grand. The brass hardware including hinges, knobs, wheels/casters, etc are all
high quality materials (I tested them) and add elegance to the CP1. The specifications of the
CP1 are 57” x 63” x 39” and 430 lbs in weight. Even though the factory retail price of the CP1 is $21,999 which is no
drop in the bucket and comparable in price to fine acoustic grand pianos
that are even larger in size, with the CP1 you are buying a complete
interactive music entertainment center as opposed to just a piano. I
love playing great acoustic grand pianos, but once you play and hear the CP1 just for the piano experience alone coupled with all of the impressive technology features it offers,
you’ll get the best of both worlds. However, you really need to be
fairly certain that what the CP1 offers will be of benefit to you and
your family as opposed to purchasing a high quality new acoustic grand piano.
With regard to the CP2, the cabinet has a 4-speaker (mains and tweeters) 100-watt high quality speaker system which also has plenty of power and fullness for its size and will easily fill up a large room with a big, bold sound. I have tried it and and put the volume at different levels (and also tweaking the digital EQ) and the result was very good in that it can handle small rooms or very big rooms and Kawai did a good job at optimizing the sound for the size of the cabinet. However, the CP2 (and CP3) sounds even better when connecting a couple of good powered monitor bi-amped speakers to the piano which you can do for about $300US. That extra boost of clarity and power allows the piano to reach its full sound potential, but this would be true of other digital piano brands & models. The CP2 cabinet (below left pics) has front support legs that add an element of design and a touch of class to the piano. The available
cabinet finishes on the CP2 are what Kawai calls
Premium satin black, satin rosewood, or satin mahogany and the
specs are 56.1” x 22.8” x 38.1” and 190 lbs in weight. The CP3 piano with a 2-speaker 100-watt sound system which also has a big powerful sound, although not quite as crisp and defined as the CP2 because it does not have the added tweeter speaker system. The CP3 does not
have front cabinet legs and is a pedestal model, but still very attractive and the
available cabinet finishes are satin rosewood and premium satin black and the specs are
56.1” x 22.8” x 38.1” and 146 lbs in weight. All piano cabinets have a large sliding key cover to fully cover over the control panel and keys to
protect them as well as matching benches which have storage space, although I would like to have seen the benches have height adjustment capability or perhaps longer duet size benches so two people could sit down at the same time. The only slight disappointment I
have with the CP2 and CP3
cabinets is that they are not offered in polished
ebony like the CP1 and other digital piano models in the Kawai line. Polished ebony does raise the price quite a bit, as and much
as $600-$700 or more in most cases in this cabinet style, but at least a polished ebony finish
would have offered another good finish option. However, it’s important to note that polish ebony is applied as a polyester coating (plastic) which is true of all high gloss polished ebony finishes on other brands and that finish can scratch and show dust much more easily than satin finishes. I personally like both the satin black and satin rosewood finish in the CP2 or CP3 models because both colors are timeless and in a low maintenance finish.
I did forget to mention something that I almost never talk about in reviews and that is
the built-in “demos” in these pianos. I usually don’t pay attention to
factory demos because most of them are boring or just typical stock demos and not
very creative in showing off the piano. I happened
to try out the factory demos on these pianos and was, as they say, blown
away! Yikes, these things are awesome and whoever put them together at
Kawai did an outstanding job. There are dozens of demos in all kinds of music styles including pure classical piano, orchestral, Latin, Country, patriotic, jazz, country, pop,
Gospel, church, pipe organ, Celtic, international, Big band, Swing, oldies,
movie theme style, full concert grand piano demos, funk rock, blues,
contemporary jazz rock including live sounding band arrangements and many (not
all) of these songs are original music written by pro players from Kawai and
saved into the Concert Performer pianos as demos. These
demos (many are not complete songs but still great) can be played one after another for literally hours without stopping or you can
select the one you want and just have it play. If you closed your eyes
while
listening to these demo songs I think you may have a difficult time saying if
they were real live players having been recorded, instead of just sounds
coming from a digital piano. Awesome demos….really…and fun just to listen
to, like a player piano playing great tunes. It’s just another way to turn the Concert Performer into another type of “player piano” because the sound and accompaniment demo songs are so good and it sounds like just about every kind of grand piano, organ, band, or orchestra you can think of. This demo system inspires you to want to play like that and you know it’s possible because all those sounds and
accompaniments are actually in the piano…you just need to play them. The demo function also displays a tutorial showing the user what some of the many piano functions do like keyboard action, piano sound, and a huge variety of features along
with pictures and a easy to understand explanation without
absolutely needing to go into the owners manual. It’s a quick way to learn
about the piano and figure out what some of it does and what some of the strong
points of the piano are. All of these demo features are accessed in the large
color touch screen and are very intuitive to use. With regard to the huge library of demo songs, the song names and pictures change by themselves on the color touchscreen while the music is playing so visually it looks
pretty cool too. Playing all those demos will also allow you to hear
what these pianos are capable of doing, even if you can’t do it! If you were brave enough or accomplished
enough, you could try to duplicate those demos yourself by recording
your own demos in the 16-track pro recorder feature, then you can make your own music:). So when you see the “demo button” on the CP pianos, don’t think this is a small thing because when you press that button, tucked away inside the piano is a huge library of amazing songs that will play in full stereo all day if you let it and it’s just one more very impressive feature of the Kawai CP series that few other digital pianos have including other Kawai pianos. Just open your windows wide and turn on those demos and your neighbors will think you are an incredible musician…assuming you are not one already:)
In
the final analysis, the Concert Performer pianos offer a lot of playing
pleasure for people of all ages, all musical tastes, and all playing skill levels, no doubt about that. The question is…do you need or want these upgraded technology features on the CP pianos and are you willing to pay the price for it as opposed to a standard digital piano? Are the CP features necessary? Would you be able to use it and figure it all out, take
advantage of what the pianos have and make the investment worthwhile? Those
questions are important and valid and should be
asked. Why spend money and
potentially waste it if you don’t have to? There are many great digital pianos out
there for under $5000 retail/discount selling price that you may be just as
happy with, if not more so, but how do you know what is the best piano buying decision for you? The reason I went
into SO much detail in this review is because I wanted to point out that the
Concert Performer pianos really do offer many excellent ways to achieve musical
enjoyment and satisfaction that you just cannot get on standard digital pianos. As far as I am concerned and something I have
learned in my own life, you really cannot put a “price” on something
that reaches deep down into your soul…your musical soul. Ask
yourself this question “do you love music and if so, how much?” If
one or more of your answers is that music moves you, it relaxes
you, it stimulates you, it makes you feel young,
it takes you to a mental and spiritual place that few
other things can do, it allows you to connect to world in so many positive ways,
it gives you a personal way to express yourself, and you also believe it could do that for others in your family,
church, school, studio, etc,…then in my opinion, the investment in the CP pianos
is totally worth the price. The more these many music making features in the
Concert Performers drive you to want to play music, I believe you and your family will
reap great benefits from that. With all my many years teaching piano to
thousands of people and playing professionally in many types of venues, I can
say with certainty that playing music changes lives for the good and is one of
the very best things you can do for yourself as an adult and for your children
or other children that you know. Out of all the Kawai pianos as well as other major brands, the CP pianos offer the most ways of making
and enjoying music first hand, up close and personal. The Concert
Performer pianos are not only great pianos for the traditional and classically
minded person, but the CP pianos are also Virtual Orchestras and Rhythmic
Bands as I previously mentioned that allow you to make music in ways you could never do on
the other traditional pianos. Think about this: when you go to a movie that would probably not like that movie, that movie is likely full of music
going on throughout different scenes and it has theme song which
is
normally an original complex arrangement of instruments and rhythmic
percussion,
and sometimes there are vocal tracks too. Think of Disney films like
Beauty & the Beast, Pirates of the Caribbean, adventure
films, movies like Star Wars and Star Trek, Superman, you name it, and
most movies have
famous themes and lots of music that you can evenhum or sing from
memory. That music may be
classically oriented, fully orchestral, or may be pop music, jazz (think
of the
Pink Panther or the Peanuts Charlie Brown theme), country, romantic,
etc. There is all kinds of music of in movies but most people could
never play it like that athome
because they only have a piano. Without that wonderful music in the
movies you near as much and would not be as visually and mentally stimulated. Movie music as well as many other music styles through the years can be played and enjoyed on the Concert Performer series in a much more versatile and realistic way than you could ever get out of a traditional digital piano…take my word for it. You combine those awesome CP features with the pure piano playing you get and then you’ll have the best of both worlds wrapped up in one piano. Oh, and if you are using some of these impressive Virtual Orchestra or Band features and you don’t know how to get back to the piano sound and turn off the other features, well even that dilemma is taken care of with a default Grand Piano button that you just push and hold for 2 seconds and it instantly resets everything on the CP back to sounding only like a grand piano when you play. It couldn’t be easier and that feature is what I call the “panic” button. Overall, it still may take you a little while to get used to the control panel buttons and touch screen functions, but they are fairly easy to learn and the balance between the control panel buttons and features in the color touch screen are such that there are not as many buttons on the piano (which is a good thing) as a number of other digital pianos I have seen. In fact the operation of the piano is easier than most because of the easy touch virtual buttons on the large color touch screen and their intuitive nature. However, when you want that concert grand piano sound to come up and all other features and functions to shut off, you just go to that piano “panic” button and all will be good:).
Before you make any purchase, especially in this price range, I recommend you do your research and homework so that you can make the right decision. But with regard to these new Kawai Concert Performer pianos, you certainly cannot go wrong with them even if you don’t take advantage of all the features. Some people would classify these things as bells & whistles, toys, or even “cheating” but I say that’s nonsense! Music comprises a huge world of possibilities and to limit piano playing to just a piano sound or two and to certain types of music or ways to play it, is very short
sighted in my opinion. I believe every person should have the opportunity to get a good music education so that they can play music well, learn to play the piano in a traditional way, and understand playing technique and structure as well as sight reading...I fully support and teach that. The pure beauty of listening to great piano solo music is awesome and I am blessed with 2 daughters who are local pianos teachers who play grand pianos in amazing ways and I love to listen to them. In fact one of my daughters owns a large Kawai grand piano and loves it. But to limit piano playing to a narrow musical structure and way of playing it in my opinion removes the enjoyment of the music many people (but not all) could really have if they had the right instrument to do that with. Such is the Kawai Concert Performer piano series and with a factory 5 year parts & labor warranty along with in-home service and an excellent reliability track record based on my personal experience with this brand, these pianos should last for many, many years. My feelings are...”you only live once so go for it, play the music you love, and do it with a great piano!”
*In the video below of Eden, a 7-year old piano student that I know very well, she is using the CP Concert Magic feature to experience what it can do for her and how much fun it can be. One of her favorite songs happens to be the song “Once Upon A Dream” from Sleeping Beauty, and she found it in the Concert Magic music library. She thought that was pretty cool:)
**In the video below, the Kawai Concert Performer piano is being played by a very young 3-year old piano student named Emmy who is using the Concert Magic feature to interact with the piano to help her learn and understand Rhythm & Timing along with volume dynamics, while letting Emmy play and interact with one of her favorite songs…Twinkle Twinkle Little Star! She loves this thing and it encourages her too. As a piano teacher, I love when that happens:).
“Please contact me at tim@azpianowholesale.com for more important piano shopping info before you buy anything from anyone.”
Hi Tim
We read the whole article. Could you comment on how the CP1 and CP2 compare to the Yamaha Clavinova CVP 709. We currently own a CVP 509 which is great and looking to get a second unit for another location.
Love the idea of a 9 speaker baby grand Kawai but thinking they are way to expensive for us if they are still selling in the $22,000 range. When did they first come on the market and have they come down in price, domyou know. Also, do you sell them. We are currently watching Ebay and craigslist for a used Yamaha CVP. Thankyou in advance for your article and any info. You may be able to pass on to us.
Joe & Nancy
The Yamaha CVP709 is really a great instrument and I rate it the best in its class. I can show you how to buy a new one for considerably less money than internet and store price.
Tim: I enjoyed your lengthy/detailed review of the Kawai CP1/2/3. I recently purchased the CP2 after being astonished at the quality of the grand piano samples. However, the full beauty of the CP2 sound can only be heard through headphones in my home. The piano's 4 speakers offer only a hint of what is really inside this piano, and I have added PreSonus R65 monitors to play in concert with the piano speakers to improve the sound. But even with hours of equalization adjustments, I still can't get the beautiful sounds out of this piano other than via headphones. Do have suggestions for making better success on getting out the great sounds (higher end monitors, PA speakers, subwoofer, 31 band equalizer)?
Len