I'm lucky to have spent time with Kawai CS-7 for six months now, so it's time to write few lines about it. First few reasons why did I buy it. I already had Nord Stage 2 in my cellar, but I began to feel that I needed a more grand-piano-like digital piano for practicing and recording. The idea was also to buy a piano for a stable setup and therefore it was a bonus if piano also looked like a
piano. I also wanted to have an instrument which is as easy as possible to use; just switch it on and you're ready to play it. No need for mess with computers, sound cards, mixers and speakers etc.
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| Roland V-Piano |
Before Kawai CS-7 I went through few options. Basically it was a battle of three brands: Kawai, Yamaha and Roland. I must say Roland's alternatives were not very compelling to my taste. I have actually had three Roland RD-models (RD-600, RD-700SX, RD-700GX) so I believe I'm familiar with Roland's pros and cons. To me their "Supernatural" technology isn't perfect (yet). There are obviously some great qualities - no hearable looping or velocity layers - but sound itself can be little artificial and "muddy". In my opinion Roland's keybed isn't same quality compared to Yamaha and Kawai. This ain't surprise; those latter two have long history of manufacturing real acoustic pianos. There is still one Roland model which might have been a real alternative: Roland V-piano. This undoubtedly revolutionary product which was introduced on 2009 was still unfortunately too expensive even when sold second hand. V-piano is a brave concept and many pianists appraise it, but in my opinion soundwise it has same artificial qualities as Supernatural pianos. Also I am afraid that with V-piano there's very little hope for getting updates or general improvement in the model(s).
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| Yamaha NU1 |
The most serious competitor for Kawai came from Yamaha NU1. I remember that when I first played NU1 in a local music store this was a first digital piano ever which gave me an illusion of playing real acoustic piano. Or at least
very close. It also fulfilled the aesthetic idea of how a digital piano should look. NU1 was also getting great reviews from magazines and internet. To me it was still little pricey. However there was a one crucial point which finally ruled NU1 out. When I played it with headphones I had a strange feeling that I was lacking the full dynamic palette especially when playing
Fortissimo. One more thing to notice is that NU1 do not try to imitate grand piano touch, it has upright action inside. Sound is anyway sampled from Yamaha CFX-grand. So basically with NU1 you're playing grand piano with upright action.
In Finland we do not have Kawai reseller so I had to travel to Denmark to test CS-7. Luckily Copenhagen was on our summer holiday trip route! After a short encounter I had a strong feeling that this piano is quite promising to fulfill all the needs I described. Keyboard action felt natural and responsive, basic sound was nice and clear. As a nice bonus I also discovered that there were actually quite broad palette of different sounds, great variety of features (good connectivity for example) and also nice little LCD-screen. But all these extras were still secondary to the best part of it: Kawai CS-7 has a great grand-piano-like action with escapement. It also looked beautiful. Still the price was very reasonable and clearly lower than NU1 for example.
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| Kawai CS-7 |
Now after six months of playing CS-7 almost daily, I have a good feeling that my choise was right. Thanks to Kawai, I believe my playing has improved technically and arthistically: piano gives just right amount of resistance to my fingers and very precise response. If I play good it sounds immediately good but when I play badly I get immediate feedback of that too. The feeling is very similar to modern grand piano which is very responsive too. Sound is very good for playing and practicing, but for recording I'd say it's quite good. Now I am comparing it to Nord Piano Library which is in my opinion very good for recording purposes. With Kawai's "piano technician" you can nicely adjust many things: touch, voicing, resonance features etc. As said, there are many nice little extras like chance to MIDI/Audio-record your playing, metronome which can play nice drum beats and audio input (to play with your iPhone for example).
