HeartKeys When I tell folks about Kawai, they have no idea.
We all live in different environments, have different friends and networks, but for folks who have no pianos, have no interest in pianos, within my world, almost none know about Kawai and most all know about Steinway and Yamaha.
By âknowâ I mean whether theyâve heard of it⊠that said they seldomly know of any other brands either.
This is coming from me, who owns a Kawai, so itâs fair to say Iâm not being biased here đ I certainly wish Kawai was more known and renowned.
johnstaf Steinway is a famous brand. Kawai isn't a high-profile brand amongst the non-piano-playing public. Steinway is more like Fender.
Gombessa I think the enthusiast digital piano market skews heavily in favor of Kawai (when you consider the multitude of acoustic piano makers, AND the digital makers who just offer an unnamed Steinway sample/reference), and because of that, many more digital players know of and appreciate Kawai, and would love a high quality SK-EX VST.
Agreed. And, itâs their acoustics I was referencing when I spoke about Kawaiâs market hold. In the digital world, Kawai is a power player. In the acoustic world, theyâre solidâŠbut they havenât yet caught up to that name-recognition/household-name status of Steinway and Yamaha. And because VSTs tend to be aimed at capturing acoustic instruments, then naturally the most popular acoustic instruments would be the ones to get sampled.
Interestingly, I think Kawai could catch up to the other brands, but I think their main issue is two-fold: a lack of wholistic focus on their prestige/history/legacy and a lack of a centralized identity.
Sadly, for better of or worse, the acoustic piano world is heavily focused on âprestigeâ - whether real or manufactured. If you donât have the omnipresence of a Steinway or Yamaha, you need to lean into the factors that makes your brand special. Bosendorfer, Bechstein, Bluthner, and many others did it for years - focusing on posturing themselves as the savoir-vivre/cognoscentiâs piano, leaning into their history, nationalistic overtones, unique colors/tones/timbres/woods/methods/blah, blah, blah lol. Kawai really only seems to do this these days with the Shigeru Kawai line. Meanwhile, their regular main Kawai line - the one they push the most - seems to have been relegated to averageness. The regular Kawai website seems looks plain and bland, like a Target website. Their in-person advertising is equally tepid.
Also, for many years, most of the piano brands kept everything under a single names. They separated the levels of their instruments via model names and numbers (e.g.Model D vs Model A, CFX versus GC, 290 Imperial versus 200). Even with Yamaha, another piano maker who also does digitals, everything is centralized - thereâs just plain Yamaha. You want luxury, you got CFX. You donât, you go GBK1. With their digitals, same difference: luxury is Avantgrands, top of the line is Clavinova, then thereâs everything else. But the pride, prestige, & the name recognition of the Yamaha brand, still carries regardless and is central on everything. Meanwhile, with Kawai, thereâs K. Kawai (for Koichi the father) but only on their grands, thereâs plain old Kawai on their digitals and uprights, and both these lines seem to lean into plainness with how they are marketed. Then thereâs the luxury Shigeru Kawai brand which gets all the prestige, but has a completely different logo (that doesnât even look like Kawai). They roll out the red carpet for that line, but the other Kawai lines are kinda meh. Thereâs even some slightly confusing overlap with the naming, as there are plain EXs, but also SK-EXs. Itâs too much.
Iâd love this to be centralized.
Just make it plain old Kawai. Or combine the two: Koichi Shigeru KAWAI. Something. But they need a central brand and a central identity. And the entire brand needs to be wrapped up in history, prestige, and beauty. Look at how Bosendorfer associates themselves with Vienna, and using the finest Austrian wood, and being the heart of the Viennese people and ties itself deeply to the culture. Sad as it is, the classical worlds eats things like that up. Iâd love a centralized Kawai that leans into that, too. Build the mythos. Tell me the wood is straight from the forests of Mount Fuji đ. Hype up the story and mythos around the entire brand, the history, the culture, and the prestige, the way they do with the SK line. And, of course, start throwing some instruments at the competition circuit and the concert halls, the way the other brands do.
The top instruments need to be slathered with the same luxury and prestige they reserve for the SK line. And start pitching them with the same pretentiousness the other brands use lol. And of course, there would be the lower-tier and affordable models. But do it how the other brands do it: get you in their dealer house with their prestigiousness, and if you canât afford their $200,000 instrument, they take you into the separate rooms with the mid-tier, entry-level, uprights, and digitals. In that way, they maintain the âprestigeâ factor, but still donât lose out on all customers.
Great point.
I think itâs more fair to say âthere arenât many Kawai VSTsâ, and/or, there arenât as many as the VSTs for the other, more well-known brands.
Thereâs definitely some. They just donât get the kind of attention or have the kind of numbers as, say, a Steinway or Yamaha centered VST.
dore_m Let me provide a different perspective.... I just started selling my piano libraries, and guess which one (by far) sells the best? Steinway. Does the Yamaha sell well? Yes, it sells, but not nearly like the Steinway. Does the Bosendorfer sell? Yes, but not nearly like the Steinway. Name recognition is extremely important, and I think Kawai, in terms of name recognition, ranks behind those three - so no one spends time to promote them.
Great context from an actual VST maker. And I think the same trend seems to play out with other VST makers as well.
