Kawai CA95 sound

[andrewp7]

Hello,

I have recently bought a CA95 and I am having problems using the virtual technician to get a custom piano sound.

I am trying to alter the settings so that I get a clear bold sounding chord sound (if that makes sense) - For example the chords played at the start of "All I want for Christmas" in this video ->

This is played on a roland rd-700 which makes me think whether I probably should of gone with a stage piano over a home digital.
Or perhaps I am just not good at using the VT 

Also, The reverb always seems to sound like it kicks in quite a while after the keys are pressed even when set to the highest setting (cathedral).

If someone could also give me some help with using the virtual technician or direct me to a website that teaches you how to master it, that would also be appreciated.

Thanks
Andrew

[liszt1022]

I'm about to buy a Kawai CA65, which has Virtual Technician as well. I'll see if I can come up with something. What settings have you tried so far?

[hfmadopter]

My Kawai MP6 does not have Virtual Technician but it has the features of the virtual technician on board, it wasn't yet laid out in that format on my stage piano. I can say that in regards to reverb there is on board overall reverb and then within the instrument you are playing from as well, at least so on the stage piano.. I set mine up as a setup and saved that. Also key velocity curves and sustain make a difference. It's all highly tweak-able. But I have not worked within Virtual Technician.

Additionally I have added Pianoteq software and this brings a whole different set of pianos and parameters to the table for pretty short money. Pianoteq can do some things that I have not accomplished on board of my MP6 FWIW, especially in the area of older classic piano tones reverb.. So I have setups I like within Pianoteq and a couple I really like within the MP6 itself. All my Christmas music is being done with on board sounds for instance because the bell like clarity is so good in the upper registers, even though the sustain pedal over holds in the lower register ( something I have to work out yet). This is in Mellow Grand 2, I set it up to my liking but I also add chorus and  or instrumentation in some pieces. People absolutely love it. Maybe not piano purists but the common folk.  Pianoteq though is more authentic. I have a couple of Steinway D sounds, especially the Classic D that are quite good.

I have to tell you I tweaked for months to get what I wanted out of the MP6 and really am not done at that !! It sounds absolutely nothing, and responds absolutely nothing like it did out of the box. The sound system counts too. I run this out to Adam Audio monitors (not cheap) through an M-Audio sub. Many times my wife has stuck her head in the door to see if I was on the grand piano or the digital piano.. She tells me she really couldn't tell from the other room. I can tell at the piano, the sympathetic harmonics are slightly different. The grands case gives more of an echo effect to the tone with pedal.. The digital a bit more of a ringing tone. But my grand is not an average everyday modern grand , it was built in 1898 and I tune it to A 438.

edit:
Finally, not sure how the EQ is set up on the CA95 but on my MP6 it's in 4 zones over the keyboard. More importantly, the boldness of the key strike would be controlled here within EQ. As well, clarity of keys and tonal control within the particular instrument you are playing are greatly effected by EQ.. I set up Mellow Grand as my piano to most emulate my real grand though I use Mellow 2 more and Concert Grand somewhat less. EQ, Modulation and Reverb have huge effects on the playability of the piano and the overall experience as it relates to a real grand piano.. Best I can tell you, don't stop tweaking !

[faulty_damper]

I am trying to alter the settings so that I get a clear bold sounding chord sound (if that makes sense) - For example the chords played at the start of "All I want for Christmas" in this video ->

No, that doesn't quite make sense.  Do you mean you want a more mellow tone?

Also, you can voice chords to sound "bold" as well as from all the keys striking simultaneously.

[liszt1022]

OK, let's look into the CA65's Virtual Technician a little.

First off, here's a short chord progression that I'm going to use for my examples.


-Wear headphones while listening to these to catch the small changes.

First off, here's this example played twice: first with Factory Default settings, then with a modified version.

"Factory Default" involves many settings that I'm going to get into. However, the ones we'll be checking out are set this way:
Damper Noise - 5/10 (the sound of the damper lifting off the string.)
Key Off - 5/10 (the sound of the damper stopping the vibration.)
Fall Back - 5/10 (the sound of the key action returning to its at-rest placement.)
Topboard - Open3
Stretch - Normal
Reverb - Small Hall, Depth 5/10, Time 5/10
Tone Control - Off
Touch - Normal
Voicing - Normal

The modified version, which plays second, turns off "Damper Noise," "Key Off," and "Fall Back." They are just distracting if we're looking for a good tone to make recordings.

[liszt1022]

Topboard - Simulates the change in tone due to the piano's topboard being closed or open.

Order in the recording:

Open3 (default setting)
Open2 (less open)
Open1 (less open)
Closed

[liszt1022]

Stretch - How much "stretch" is put into the tuning of the very high and very low notes.

Order in the recording:

Normal (default)
Wide

// I gotta say that so far, there haven't been major changes in tone. But we got a few out of the way that seem like they should have an effect.

[liszt1022]

Reverb

Now here it's hard to make every example. Besides "Off," each of the six reverb settings have ten levels of "Depth" (how much sound it grabs from the notes to reverberate) and ten levels of "Time" (how long the reverb lasts.) So there are 601 reverb settings. These examples are all in their standard Depth 5, Time 5 settings. Perhaps we can look into this one more at some point.

Order in this recording:

Small Hall (default)
Off
Room
Lounge
Concert Hall
Live Hall
Cathedral

[liszt1022]

Tone Control
in "Basic Settings"

Order in the recording:

Off (Default)
Loudness
Bass Boost
Treble Boost

Edit: MP3s don't want to merge properly. Here are the single files.

[liszt1022]

Touch Sensitivity

Order in the recording:

Normal (default)
Off
Light+
Light
Heavy
Heavy+

//It seems to get brighter or mellower depending on the touch setting as well.

[liszt1022]

Voicing

Order in this recording:

Normal (default)
Mellow1
Mellow2
Dynamic
Bright1
Bright2


// So let's try to find the best from each category and make a good, authentic sound. Anybody have opinions so far?

[hfmadopter]

First off, here's this example played twice: first with Factory Default settings, then with a modified version.

On my MP6 Stage piano I additionally can tweak these settings further with the on board 4 channel EQ panel, live. Reverb, EQ, Tone controls all have separate knobs to turn, 4 of them. it's my understanding that the CA 95 has EQ for live settings as well but not sure how many channels. Also under Touch Sensitivity you can get to a separate control feature that allows altering of the touch velocity curve . All of these features add up to a completely different experience than what you feel from the piano and hear from the piano out of the box but I don't know how this compares with the console pianos like the CA65 and 95..

And then there is Pianoteq software, that brings a whole new element to the digital piano, any MIdi featured digital piano.

It's quite something that you have taken this time to show some of the effects !