REVIEW - Kawai MP6 Digital Piano - Awesome Piano Tone & Key Action - for Home, Church, School, Studio, or Stage - This one is a WINNER!

UPDATED REVIEW - July 27, 2013 -KAWAI MP6 -  RECOMMENDED - I originally reviewed the Kawai MP6 when it came out in early 2011 and although a couple of years have gone by, there is still nothing else quite like this piano in its price range and I still highly recommend it. It was ahead of its time when it first came out and is still on top today (in its price range) in terms of what it can do. The Kawai MP6 portable piano ($1499 internet discount price) has what I consider to be the best acoustic piano reproduction & key action movement with the most flexibility in a portable digital piano for under $1500 on the market today, and I have played them all. It is not only a great portable digital piano for realistic piano hammer weighted key action and acoustic piano sound, but I like this piano better than many higher priced portable & furniture cabinet pianos because the MP6 control panel allows for more flexibility in creating your own custom individual piano & instrument sounds, layers, splits, and effects possibilities that are not available on the other types of digital pianos. In other words, you probably won't grow out of the MP6 anytime soon:)

In simple terms, the MP6 is like having 4 different individual pianos in one (more is almost always better than less:). This is because you can use 4 independent acoustic piano and/or instrument sounds one at a time or all together (or in any combination) while being able to control them independently of each other. This would be like having four brands or models of acoustic grand pianos sitting side by side and being able to play them one after another (or even together) and controlling the individual volume, octave, pitch, resonance, sustain, etc. Pretty amazing stuff and simple to do. Now it is true that most people only need or want one acoustic piano but because there are so many varieties out there, the Kawai MP6 pretty much takes care of whatever acoustic piano sound you may like and allows you to move from one to the other in easy fashion. The true stereo grand piano tone inside this new model is so advanced that you may have a difficult time believing you're really playing an electronic piano:)

Kawai international headquarters

The Kawai piano company is well known throughout the world for producing excellent home and professional upright & grand pianos and their international corporate headquarters is (coincidentally) in the same city as Yamaha Corporate headquarters, which is Hamamatsu, Japan. Kawai was also chosen by the famous Steinway piano company of New York to build their "Boston" line of grand & upright pianos in their Japanese piano factory. The 'Boston' Grand Pianos sell for approx $20,000 and more and are used by respected universities, homes, churches, and many other venues all over the world (I have played many of them). If Steinway regards Kawai that highly to ask them to build acoustic pianos under the Steinway name, then as far as I'm concerned, that is a big compliment and shows that Kawai builds some very nice instruments if it can meet Steinway piano standards. 

Kawai acoustic grand piano

I must admit I was a little skeptical when I first laid my hands on the MP6 because up until that point, I knew Kawai had not been a big "player" (haha) in the world of digital pianos, although they have been producing some decent models for many years. However, they were still lagging behind Yamaha, Roland, and a couple of other brands in my opinion as far as digital technology and popularity. But for the first time I believe Kawai has really moved ahead of the pack for authentic grand piano touch and tone at a price well below the competition. In fact when I played the MP6 for the first time, I really did think I was playing a full size high quality acoustic grand piano by Kawai instead of a digital piano...I was pretty amazed to say the least.

If you're looking for a very convincing acoustic grand piano sound and key action in a user friendly model at a lower price, in my opinion the MP6 is it because it feels and sounds so natural (check out my MP6 song recordings at the bottom of this review). I would consider the key action movement on this piano to be medium or slightly firm (as opposed to light) which gives the player better control and dynamics in my opinion. However, the Kawai MP6 also includes 5 touch velocity control settings to change the way the keys respond to your touch including heavy key touch to extra light, so there is something to please nearly every kind of playing style. With that feature you can really tailor the velocity sound response to your personal taste.

To get everything you need for a great playing experience on this piano, you'll have to purchase some accessories including a sturdy stand, bench, and a small but powerful  (powered) stereo speaker system (assuming you don't have these things already), and then you'll be set. But I don't think this is a big obstacle because these accessories are relatively inexpensive and as consumers, we are used to purchasing accessory items such as added speaker systems, stands, and other things when purchasing larger flat screen TV's, computers, home stereo systems, or other electronic devices. Once you have these accessories in place, you'll still be under $2000 and will save a lot of money over the much higher priced furniture cabinet digital pianos, and I'm a big believer in saving money these days.

You should be aware that some Kawai & general internet dealers suggest certain stands, benches, and other accessories that are not necessarily good for this particular instrument. This is because they have may not have thoroughly played this instrument themselves as I have, or they just want to create a cheaper "package deal." I can tell you the proper MP6 piano stand, speakers, bench, and headphones, etc to buy (if you don't have those already) and tell you how to get them at low discount prices.

The Kawai MP6 can be used for many applications including home, stage, church, school, recording studio, gigs, etc. But overall this piano is being purchased by individuals and families for recreational home use, followed by churches, piano teachers, and professionals. When it comes to the acoustic piano sound, you can duplicate a variety of them including Yamaha, Steinway, and Kawai Grand Pianos (among others) as well as full cathedral pipe organs and beautiful symphonic orchestras. The MP6 also does a great job in reproducing the famous classic electric pianos from the 50's, 60's, 70's, & 80's such as the Wurlitzers, Fender Rhodes, Yamaha CP70/80, and Yamaha DX7's. It's like you're almost playing the real thing including the nuances of those electric pianos. And the Hammond tonewheel B3 organ sounds are convincing too with virtual adjustable drawbars along with a large variety of B3 tone combinations and effects which can be edited and easily saved into user memories. I have played actual Hammond B3's and know what they sound and play like. The MP6 even has a great Leslie rotary speaker reproduction with a fast/slow rotary speed control.  There is also an array of high quality solo instruments including sax's, trumpets, acoustic & electric guitars, flutes, harps, harpsichords, synths, bells, bass, percussion, and more. But don't let all these features & buttons fool you into thinking this instrument is complex to use, because is really isn't.

The only portable instrument which I believe is even better than the MP6 when it comes to the primary acoustic piano sounds and overall key action is the Kawai MP10 at $2499 (internet price). However, the MP10 has just 27 total instrument sounds compared to 256 very useful sounds on the MP6, but the MP10 piano sounds along with the specialized wooden key action are even more refined then the MP6 or any of the other digital portable pianos out there. If you want to know more about the MP10, then go to the following link:
http://azpianonews.blogspot.com/2011/03/kawai-mp10-digital-piano-review-best.html



The MP6 does some other very cool things like playing or recording your performance as a MIDI file as well as MP3 or WAV audio file directly on the piano and saving or loading from a USB flashdrive. That means you can take your favorite song from iTunes or any other MP3 song file and play along with it directly on the MP6. And if you want to record yourself, the MP6 recording will sound exactly as you played it and heard it with exceptional digital sound quality. This instrument is 192-note polyphonic and has 256 instrument sounds with 4 zones for layering and splitting (that means putting 4 separate instrument sounds together at one time for layering and/or splitting keyboard areas with individual editing and relative volume controls). It even has 30 pro sounding drum patterns so you can play along with your own drummer if you like, which is great for rhythm training and timing, plus it's fun.

When it comes to actual acoustic piano tone, the MP6 piano has intuitive editing features that allow you to control many of the aspects of an acoustic piano sound by adjusting and editing things like piano damper resonance, string resonance, key off effect, voicing, dynamics, cutoff, attack time, decay time, and release time. It will even analyze your finger touch and strength as you play the keys and automatically and set up a customized touch sensitivity curve for you with potentially unlimited touch settings. For those people looking to get even more than the easy to use 256 preset instruments on the Kawai MP6, using your editing features gives you thousands more possibilities.

The MP6 also has educational features for learning to play piano and specific songs because of its ability to play General MIDI song files over 16 separate tracks. This allows piano students to hear and play along with popular piano lesson accompaniments from their piano lesson books (Faber, Alfred, and others) as well as learn to play specific songs using tempo control to slow down the song as well as mute any of the 16 playback tracks for "music minus one" play-along. Not only do General MIDI songs sound great when your listening to them, but they make learning and playing the piano more fun. I use this method in my piano studio for students and it is an effective educational tool that I highly recommend.

The Kawai MP6 is super powerful and I believe it will absolutely inspire your "musical soul." I have never been a big fan of Kawai digital pianos in past years and always thought of Yamaha & Roland as offering more superior instruments for low prices and recommended them as such. But this time I believe everything has changed and the Kawai company has hit a "grand slam" with the MP6 as well as the top of the line MP10. Oh and one more thing, the Kawai MP6 does comes with the single damper/sustain pedal (which supports graduated half damper control) , but is also set up to use an additional & optional dual pedal unit for traditional piano functions incl soft, sostenuto, and damper/sustain. One of the pedals is even programmable to access a few of the keyboard functions for "hands free" sound selections.

Below are just some of the specs on this piano. Specs never tell the real story until you actually get a chance to hear & play one of these pianos. But that might be difficult as this model is in short supply and not easily found at local stores. Kawai is first and foremost, a builder of real Grand Pianos played all over the world, so these people know what they're doing but unfortunately they have not been able to keep up with the demand for these instruments since they came out and frequently are out of stock.I suppose that's a good problem for Kawai to havebut not so good for the consumer. I would recommend that you do your research, as well as listen to some of my personal audio demos below which will give you a good idea of what this MP6 actually sounds like.

• - Progressive Harmonic Imaging™ (PHI) (reproduces grand resonance). You can hear the nuances of real piano strings
• - Responsive Ivory Feel Hammer action with Let-off (reproduces grand piano touch)
• - USB Audio - MP3 and WAV files - play/record - load and save with flashdrive
• - 16 separate MIDI instrument tracks for General MIDI song playback
• - New Concert Grand and EP sounds along with all new symphonic instruments
• - 256 Instrument sounds total includes 22 pianos incl Concert Grands, 10 string symphonies, 10 pipe organs, 20 authentic vintage electric pianos, 32 authentic Hammond B3 organ tones, choirs, classical nylon & steel string guitars with overtones, choirs, vintage synths, bass guitars, and more
•  - 100 pro drum patterns for rhythm backup or music education
• - 192 note Polyphony to reproduce the most complex music passages and tone layers
• - 256 User Memory Setups to store all your custom settings
• - 4 Internal/External Keyboard Zones for layering & splitting
• - Special effects incl an array of reverbs, EQ's, chorus, analog editing, and more
• - Customizable piano sound and setups (to easily "create" the ultimate piano YOU like)
• - Custom Hammond organ drawbar with digital Leslie speaker and slow/fast control operated by a touch of a button 
• - Intuitive LCD display screen
• - Tilted/sloped control panel for easier use & viewing of buttons and LCD 
• - Mahogany wood sides