Since my teacher is encouraging me to play more inward (closer to fall board) on and between the keys, I have been thinking about upgrading my DP. My investigation into pivot length lead to the conclusion that the Kawai MP11SE is probably the closest to a grand action in a slab DP. However, US price is so expensive. So I’ve been scouring second hand market for one. Last week, one popup on Reverb.com in excellent condition by a highly rated seller at great price. I jumped on it.

It arrived well-packaged in original box. Boy! This thing is heavy! I had to get my neighbor to help carrying the box up the stairs.

After setting it up on my stand, I was dismayed to find a number of keys in the middle register seems to be stuck. There are so much friction on some key that they wouldn’t come up once pushed down. What a bummer!

Reverb has good return policy. Still it will be a huge hassle to repack this beast and ship it back. Maybe I can try to figure if the keys can be fixed? There are plenty of YouTube videos on how to fix the slip tape issue. I followed one to open the cover. And voila! The keys magically unstuck themselves and work beautifully. Putting the cover back on and they still work fine. Now I began to regret not taking a video of the stuck keys for historical document. So the problem does not appear to be misfit or overtightened cover. After examining the action mechanism, the only possible reason I could think of is if the box was transported upside-down, and the hammer dropped past its normal upmost position (which could be reproduced if I take out a key stick then replace it).

Whew! Now some first impressions.

The key bed bottom feels softer than my Roland. The black key is covered in a matte texture that is not slippery at all. The surface of the white key is smooth but also less slippery.

The weight near the fall board is SIGNIFICANTLY less heavy compared to the PHA-4 action in the Roland. This is the main reason of my upgrade, and it’s really worth it.

Next thing I tested is MIDI output range, since I will be using Pianoteq. Initially it is indeed difficult to get reliable MIDI value under 25. Modartt’s suggested velocity curve maps MIDI 16 to zero. I did find if I set MP11SE’s onboard Touch setting to Light (or even Light+), I could get MIDI value down to 12-16, albeit still unreliable (could be my technique). At the top end, bang the keys as hard as I can gets me MIDI 120. In the end, I settled on velocity curve that linearly maps 16-120 to 0-128.

How does the action feel? My only reference point is my Roland’s PHA-4. The Grand Feel action in MP11SE feels better. There seems to be a heft in the keys that the finger can sense. Yet, it’s not heavy at all. Weight-wise it not dissimilar to the Roland, but it also feels more responsive.

A few other things I like. This thing is built like a tank! The extra action length also give the top cover extra real estate to put my computer keyboard, track pad, metronome, stream deck, etc. There are more physical buttons than I would ever learn. But they do make changing sound and settings really easy and intuitive. The GFP-3 pedal is very nice, sturdy, and smooth. It is stiffer than the RP-10 sustain pedal, allowing me to fully rest my foot on the sustain pedal.

There is one thing I do not like about the MP11SE. The music desk, although well-made in full metal and mounts securely, it is TOO FAR AWAY! From my normal playing sitting posture, I need to lean way forward to reach the bottom half of the sheet music. Forget about page turning gracefully! Also the bottom of the music desk is flat, so sheets or book bottom will slop and slide forward until stopped by the lip.

Day 2 with the MP11SE. I noticed a couple of noisy keys. F3 is making a rubbing noise if press diagonally from top left to bottom right. A2 sounds like having too much grease although it’s not sticky. I decided to try fix them.

I am good at opening the cover now. The action is just beautiful to look at.

The balance pin even have a paper punch-in to get proper height.

For the F3’s rubbing noise, the prime suspects are the extra red felt on F#3, or a wood splinter at bottom left corner of G3. I trimmed both. Bingo! No more noise.

It's surprising this tiny amount of trim was making enough noise to be bothersome.

A2 no longer make that sticky noise once I opened the cover. Another mystery. I did look at the grease situation on all hammers. Some seem to have than the others, so I use a toothpick to redistribute them between the keys. I had the feeling grease application do not need to be this precise. But hey, it won’t hurt to be meticulous.

Since I have it open, I went through every key twice to check for noise another issues. Found another one with splinter - easy fix. I also took out a few key sticks to look at the slip tape. They all look fine to me. This particular MP11SE was manufactured in 2022. Hopefully it has the latest slip tape. Fingers crossed - but if it ends up needing the fix down the road, at least this does not seem too difficult.

I put everything back together. The MP11SE is now working just flawlessly. I love it!

Glad you went for this one instead of the VPC1 with its drawf like pivot length.

Any thoughts about Kawai EX and SK EX samples vs pianoteq?

    WieWaldi Any thoughts about Kawai EX and SK EX samples vs pianoteq?

    I did briefly try out the SK Concert Grand (MP11SE default sound when boot up) using the headphone. But no real comparison done between the different built-in samples, or against Pianoteq.

    I am using the SK-EX in Pianoteq currently. I really liked it when it was first released and my DP is was mid-sized bedroom. Then, I moved to the current studio room which is smaller, rectangular, without soft furniture. The SK-EX sounded a little muddy due to too much room reverberation. So I switched back to the Bösendorfer 208VC which sounds cleaner and a little brighter. A few weeks ago, I decided to try the SK-EX again. This time my ear got used to it after a while.

    I remember when reading Dr. Floyd Toole's book on speaker design, he did scientific research to prove speaker burn-in is a myth. He found what really happens is not new speakers changes as they are being used, but the listener's perception changes as they get used to the new speaker's sound. So if later I do a comparison, I shall be careful drawing any conclusions.

    Oh, I did test one thing in MP11SE's sampled sound - sympathetic resonance. They do have that. I held down a key silently, and play the same note in a different octave, then release. The held down key will continue to resonate.

        Congrats on the new piano! It looks really nice and I’m glad you were able to fix it!

        iternabe Oh, I did test one thing in MP11SE's sampled sound - sympathetic resonance. They do have that. I held down a key silently, and play the same note in a different octave, then release. The held down key will continue to resonate.

        Of course there is sympathetic resonance. Even my CN-29 has this feature, and its sound processing is one level below MP11SE. Does the FP30X lack of this?

            Congratulations 🎉. That action looks beautiful indeed. And it seems easily repairable.

            Is the action noticeble louder than pha4?

              hebele Is the action noticeble louder than pha4?

              Yes. Not unpleasantly, though.

                4 days later

                WieWaldi Of course there is sympathetic resonance. Even my CN-29 has this feature, and its sound processing is one level below MP11SE. Does the FP30X lack of this?

                I never checked this on my FP-30X. But a quick search online shows other people has tested, and it indeed has sympathetic resonance. Although this feature used to be absent in lower end sampled DPs, it gradually become available after 2000.

                Your question did prompted me to look further into this issue. I've read often that people praise Pianoteq's implementation of sympathetic resonance for playability. So I wonder what's the difference. What I found is that the difficulty is not in having the resonating string sound, but the quality of that resonance and how it should blend with the main sound.

                Take my FP-30X as an example. Contrary to some belief that all Rolands use modeling sound engine, the lower end models actually uses sampled sound (recorded from modeling engine). There are 4 sampled layers (velocities). So a simple way to play the resonating string would be to pick one of those sample (usually the lower one), then play it at fading volume. And you can tell the quality and subtlety of the result will be quite limiting.

                I've read that better sound engines may still use sampled sound as the main sound, but use modeled sound for resonances. My guess is that's probably what Kawai does for the SK-EX sound. This probably also explains why Pianoteq being a fully modeled sound engine has further advantage as far as sympathetic resonance is concerned. Because of this, practically speaking, even at my skill level, the ability to discern effect from pedaling feels not difficult at all with Pianoteq.

                  Now that I have obtained a service manual for MP11SE, I am gladly surprised to find it contains a wealth of valuable information on how to regulate the Grand Feel action.

                  It contains procedures and specifications to:

                  1. Set proper key height
                  2. Set proper hammer height (capstan length)
                  3. Set proper key stroke distance
                  4. Check proper partial key stroke distance for each of the 3 sensors (there is test mode for that)

                  The manual also clearly illustrated how weight grading on the keys is achieved, by using 4 sets of hammers (of different weight) for 4 zones of the keyboard.