Kawai ES-4

I've only got one on rentals right now and I can safely say it's got a really nice weighted action. The piano sound is excellent and most notably, it sounds really good in mono!! Now that's rare. The overall package is a bit heavy as I put it in the Roland FP4 class which is considerably lighter. I also don't like that it's a bit longer than other portables with no pitch or mod wheels due to the side panels being used to house all the outputs etc. Plus you have the power line input on the opposite end which I personally don't care for as I find it more convenient when inputs. outputs, peddle jacks stc are all in one area. But in terms of a portable piano for feel of keys and piano sound, this thing is the best I've come across in this price range. If this thing wieghed 10 pounds (5 kg) less and was a bit shorter (it doesn't fit across the back seat of my car which others did) it would get a '9' rating for sure.

It's a pretty simple, straight forward unit but I must say that I really like the drum patterns. I find them to be among the best I've ever heard in a portable keyboard. I wish there was a volume control for them but then again I haven't looked that up on line as I don't have the manual as to me, they are too quiet when i jam along to them. I find the output level too low which is annoying as I have to lower my other keyboards. I found the same situation with some Kurzweils and definately Nord products like the Nord Stage. Never a problem with Korg, Yamaha, or Roland.

Sufficient

Decent amount of polyphany with no real noticable note stealing. Split is intuitive, layers offer panel control for levels which is good. I also really like the Rhodes sound. It barks when slapped and there's a nice bellpad sound. Some of the sounds really sparkle when layered but the big prize, no doubt, is this piano sound which is even, full, sparkly at the top, rich at the bottom and has enough dynamics to make it expressive and very enjoyable to play on this keyboard action. I wish there were more than 7 presets as the FP4 has 26, way more sounds, auto accompaniment and a lighter package but I'll still take this piano sound on this key action over it and any other portables I've tried and there are many. I've tried the Yamaha P80, P90, P85-now this one has a good piano sound, excellent size and weight but the body is shaped strangely that it doesn't fit well on 'X' style keyboard stands as Yamaha wants you to buy there special stand and face it, those guys know what they are doing; they wouldn't put 1/4 outputs on it because they don't want you going for it over their CP33 and other pro end boards but that keyboard flies off the shelf at my local music store here in Toronto at $650. Canadian and I can totally see why. Also tried the Roland FP2, FP8, FP9 (this one I like but can no longer find) FP3, FP5, Korg SP series which I don't care for at all. I've tried so many and the Kawai has the best marriage between feel of keys and piano sound.

I've mentioned it all already but in closing will add that the unit I am renting is used and is selling for just under $1000. Canadian which I think is just an okay price. For $800. it's a good deal. For $900. it's still pretty good. I say this because it's still heavy compared to other portables, the speakers are good but not brilliant or anything, not a lot of extra sound selection, very little editing, could use more presets, and it's a bit longer than other portables. I still plan to buy it if I can knock a bit off the price as this piano inspires and I can over look it's short comings because of that piano sound and the feel of those keys. That's how it looks from this keyboardist perspective for what ever it's worth! It would rate a '9' but it falls short in a few areas for my liking and I'm a gigging, Pop/Rock/Blues/Country/Jazz-wannabe player.

Plug and play. This is quite simpple instrument with only few function buttons. Some of the functions are hidden beneath button combinations so that part could be easier.

The most important feature in this keyboard is the action which is very, very good. Its full weighted with little lighter touch than in standard acoustic piano and it reacts very well to my playing. This keyboard feels easy to play and it makes you wanna play! You really can do everything you can do with real acoustic piano. It has adjustable keyboard sensitivy. I use setting "light1" for more expressiveness and because the sounds work best in the higher velocity values.

Another good feature is build in speaker system. It's made of six little speakers and really sounds lot bigger than you would expect. It really makes big difference when you are practising at home. I personally hate wearing headphones. You can also use speakers as monitors when playing gigs. There is also line-in connection which is very nice little feature. When playing at home I'm connect my Korg TR synth to line-in and play also it through the ES-4 speakers. The sound quality doesn't stop to amaze me.

weight 25 kgs, Not too much for stage piano with wighted action and good speakers.

polyphony is 92. Enough for me.

Onboard effects range from very good (reverb) to totally useless (rotary).

There is standard 2 track onboard sequencer. Never used it.

No aftertouch or modulation wheels or so. Hey, this is stage piano not synth.

There is also 100 onboard drum patterns with quite good drum sounds. Beats using metronome.

This is the thing. When you buy a stage piano you are mostly looking for a good piano sound. In this keyboard there is only three sounds that I use (stereo piano1, mono piano and rhodes) but those are very good. The rating I gave is mostly about those three, not about the sounds as a whole. I have synth for other sounds so I dont care so much about them.

The main stereo piano is superb. It's rich and expressive. I compared the sound to Yamaha and Roland offerings, and this sound just has more class and depth. It aslo reacts very well to playing and you can really do dynamics with it. Only thing I would ask more is little stronger sustain, expecially in higher octavs. Second stereo piano is brighter and thinner. It's ok but I dont use it. Third piano sound is good mono piano which is nice thing to have on your board. My personal experience is that in hard circumstances, for example when playing with band trough small audio system, mono pianos often works better than stereo pianos.

The rhodes sound is also killer. It's probably not the most authentic one ever, but it sounds nice and reacts to my playing just the way i want it to do (use the velocity setting light1). There are two other E-pianos. Something a-little-like-but-still-not-quite Wurlizer and cheesy DX7 piano. Dont use them.

Then the not so impressive part. 2 Hammond type organs. Jazz organ and one that is suppose to be standard drawbar organ. Both sounds are thin and lacks all character. Totally useless in my option. church pipe because there have to be one. Harpsicord because there have to be one. And in the middle suprisingly good clavi but I have better on my kogr so I don't use it. And mallet sound. 3 String sounds that are far from perfect. Barely usable when layering them with piano sounds. There are also choir and two toy-like bads. I often wonder why.

Acoustic and electric bass are actually quite nice and can be used when splitting the board.

So if your looking for good piano sound this is your board, but if you need also other sounds they are vey vey limited here.

Have had no problems so far. Feels solid.

No experiences.

If lost I would definetly buy a new one. I think this is best stage-piano in its price range and beats also lot of more expenssive models. For me It's perfect compromise between gigging and home use.

For next model Kawai could still really make some changes to sound memory. Fix the string sounds. Throw away those pads and other toy sounds and put there some good hammond sounds, maybe a rock or honky- tonkey piano. And real wurlizer! After that this keyboard would really be out of competitors.

The ES-4 has a comparatively spare array of controls, which I like. Though you have to occasionally use combinations of buttons to adjust certain features, it's effective and straight-forward.

I truly love the action of this piano. Kawai clearly has learned how to translate the feel of of a real piano into a portable digital unit. I found the action of Yamahas to be too heavy, and some Rolands and Kurzweils to be too light. The ES4 feels just right.
I would have liked a rotary wheel, but the two rotary speeds are passable. The built-in rhythms are nice for practicing at home or diong sketch composing, but in the year+ that I've had it, I haven't used the rhythms as much as I thought. The on-board recorder is simple but effective - great when you have a new melody you're trying out and don't want to forget it before you sit down to play next time.
The built in speakers are cute, but if you want any kind of volume and fullness, use studio monitors. I bought the ES4 despite the speakers, so I don't feel at all cheated. For what it's worth, they sound better than any other built-in keyboard speakers I've heard through the years (read: faint praise).

I play mostly pop/rock/country and a little jazz and find most sounds to be quite good. The first piano sound is terrific and I use it for 90% or more of what I play. Middle B on Piano 3 is a bit flat, which is irksome. I would have liked an upright piano preset for a honky-tonk sound, but it's not the end of the world. The Wurlitzer sound is spectacular. Play the 'Logical Song' by Supertramp and you'll be wearing a HUGE grin. The Clavi sound is also dynamite, as a run through Stevie Wonder's 'Superstition' will immediately demonstrate.
I am a big Rhodes piano nut, and find the ES4's Rhodes not all it could be. You just can't get that aggressive crunch that you want no matter how hard you play it. I wish the Rhodes sample was a lot meaner - or better yet - editable! Now THAT would have been a nice effect to have on board. The 3rd elec piano sound is that same terrible, sappy, treacky cr*p you hear in the worst pop ballads or drippy contemporary Christian music. Nails on a chalk-board to me, but hey, if that's your thing. The three organs are very good, and the vibes really sound great. Strings? Why bother - how about a couple more suitcase Rhodes?
The variety of reverb types is ample and sounds very good.

I haven't used it to gig, but I've had no problems, and it feels rock solid.

No issues with customer support for repairs et al, but I have to kvetch about the dealership. Most local piano stores - especially the Kawai store - just aren't that interested in selling electric pianos. They don't know the features it has, or how it compares to other Kawai digital pianos (and forget about comparing it to other brands). It's very tough to find a model in stock, and the mark-up is horrendous. I'm OK paying a bit more to be able to sit down and touch & feel the instrument - but please know what you're talking about, don't try and sell me something else, and don't jack the price up another $700. Still, it beats trying to play in the cacophany of any Sam Ash or Guitar Center.

I've had the keyboard for over a year now, and used it mainly for playing at home. run it through a pair of Rockit studio monitors, and they sound perfect together. Overall, I really like this keyboard. It has a few things I don't need, and is missing some things I desire, but after much research, this came closest. If a meteor fell on it, I would try to find a GEM to play as a comparison (and good luck in THAT quest BTW), and failing that, I might opt for the new Kawai MP5 which has a greater collection of sounds.

This is an update after having owned the Kawai ES4 for 8 months.
There was a lubrication problem with the action. I hade two Kawai ES4 keyboards and the same thing happened with both of them. They use a big gob of white lithium grease to lubricate the front guide pins of the black keys. In my home it sometimes gets 90 degrees, that plus daily playing caused the grease to slide down the front of the black key guide pins. That resulted in a disturbing clackity noise when playing the black keys. I learned from "Puff" on the Piano World forum, who had the same situation with his ES4, how to open the ES4 and re-lube the pins, which gets rid of the clacking noises and makes the black keys feel and sound like new again. But that takes about 2 hours and I didn't want to keep having to go thorugh that ordeal because over time the grease slides down again. So I sold it. I'm happy because I much prefer the sound, and the faster and stiffer action of my new Roland FP4.

The Kawai ES4 is very similar is size, weight and design to many other portable digital pianos in it's price range, but it has a touch of class and a depth of realism that others do not. The preset sounds are mostly excellent, especially the grand pianos, electric pianos, and mallet sounds. The electric pianos include a very nice Rhodes sound, a Wurlitzer piano that's ok, and a DX-7 sound that is fine if you like that sort of thing. The string sounds are average and the choir sounds are just passable. There is a selection of organ sounds with a rotary amp simulation they all sound ok but they don't excel and the jazz organ could stand a bit more midrange in it's tone. The bass sounds are above average. But it's the piano sounds that you really buy an instrument like this for and they are exceptional. There are not many editable parameters except for a small choice of effects, reverb, string resonance and damper effect. The manual is a scant 32 pages long but is complete. It's a pretty straight-forward keyboard but I recommend taking the time to adjust the parameters to suit your playing and then save them.

The keyboard action is a major plus of the ES4 - it has Kawai's AWA4 graded hammer action and it's very satisfying. I like a heavy setting and the ES4 delivers... it's a major reason why I bought it. In fact the ES4 works well as a MIDI controller if you excuse the fact that it has no pitch bend or modulation controls, which is too bad but par for the course of many digital pianos.

The polyphony is 96 notes which sounds like a lot but here's the rub: it seems that Kawai is using two stereo samples per note on the ES4 to achieve stereo, so the polyphony with stereo sounds like the acoustic piano is halved (that's why piano patch #3 is mono). This isn't noticeable at all when you play piano alone (48 notes of polyphony) but add strings to the stereo piano and you can hear a few dropouts. I made the layered strings drop out in a major way by hitting a right hand C chord hard and sliding down the keys - the strings vanished totally after two octaves while the piano continued to sound. I've heard better polyphony distribution (Kurzweils especially), but again I'm emphasising some of the weak points... most people will love this instrument and never even notice the polyphony issues.

Another issue is the combination button pushes it takes to get to parameters for effects and many things. You'll need the manual to navigate around them until you get the ES4 setup the way you want, and then you can have the keyboard memorize your personal settings and not worry with them again.

Let me mention the drums while I'm at it - they really sound good. Unfortunately there is no easy way to select the 100 different rhythms that come built into the ES4 - you have to dial them in from the metronome value buttons, scroling through them all until you get what you want. Wish this was better designed but most keyboards like the ES4 offer no drums at all so there's a plus and minus for you. Since the ES4 has a split-voice feature you can do left hand bass with right hand piano and drum accompaniment. Also there is a bass/ride cymbal patch to round out the gig options.

The ES4 is actually GM compatible - no it doesn't have nearly all of the General Midi patch or control settings, but the ES4 sounds can respond to GM patch settings and the drums are laid out appropriately should you decide to use GM sequences via the MIDI input. USB MIDI is also available.

I should acknowledge the limited practice sequencer that comes with the ES4 (and many other digital pianos). It's the common 2-track, 4-sound, 10,000 note variety... nothing to get excited over.

The best thing about the ES4 is that it has a decent built-in speaker system. There are three speakers on each side for a total of 26 watts, and it sounds pretty darn good. Wish there was more control over the EQ (there is only a "brilliance" control). And there is a stereo line-in port so plugging in an MP3 player works better than you might expect. The stereo system is perfect for practice and maybe good enough for a very intimate gig. Beats headphones.

I love the expressiveness of the piano overall. Kawai's Harmonic Imaging technology smoothes over the velocity switching making it nearly undetectable so the response is very realistic from hard to soft. The Rhodes sound has a nice growl to it when you bite into it. I did notice a slight jump in volume when you add & subtract a layered sound... like when you play piano and add strings then take off the strings, the acoustic piano volume jumps slightly. The audience will never notice it but I do.

Feels solid enough. Kawai has been around a while. Honestly this is my first Kawai and it's a new model too so who knows how reliable it is? Should be dependable enough.

Had the ES4 a couple of days so far and played the heck out of it. It's a wonderful digital piano and way better than most. At 45 lbs it's highly giggable too. Mine came with a Kawai-brand softcase - very handy. The acoustic piano sound is realistic and convincing as is the Rhodes sound... everything else is fluff but piano+strings is essential too and that sounds fine on the ES4 even with the polyphony limits. The ES4 looks good too - black is the coolest color a keyboard can be. I like the Kawai ES4's cords-on-the-side approach that leaves the backside clean. I tried it with the USB MIDI port as a controller... works fine.

My wishlist? EQ, pitch/mod wheels, and a way to select the rhythms easier. The organ sounds could be better. The jumping layered sounds could use adjustment. All minor issues... that's about it.

Bottom line: the ES4 is a very satisfying digital piano that can fill many needs. It sounds great and it really makes you want to play, and that's it's best feature.

There are a limited number of controls on the board and this means that their function is doubled up. You need to read the manual to figure some of it out. But that's not too bad, coz the manual is very clear and easy to understand. It's also not too big and you don't have to fight your way through 20 different languages either. This is always a plus!!

Polyphony is 92. Have never even come close to reaching that capacity and have never noticed notes slipping or anything like that.

The feel of the keyboard, along with it's piano sound are it's two greatest features. The action, I think, is the AWA4, and it is really good. You can have it with a light or a hard touch or none at all. I have never played another board that is so sensitive to your touch, it's great!!

It has your standard 5 pin midi connectors and also a usb conection that sends midi signals. Works well, very responsive, I use it as my controller keyboard as well.

This is my second Kawai now, and I don't think I would ever buy anything else! My only gripe is that they have not come out with a full blown workstation with all the latest technology. The moment they bring out a machine like that, their competitors will have to work very hard just trying to match it, let alone superceed it. That would be a dream machine, unfortunately it is only a dream... so I guess that is a long winded way of saying that it is not a workstation and doesn't have any of that kind of built in software.

The Piano sound is stunning, especilly in the upper register. In most boards as you start to go up higher, it starts sounding faker and faker, but not with the es4.

The other sounds are also good, although I don't use them much.

There are about 100 different inbuilt drum beats that you can change the bpm for and I find them a million times more interesting to play with than a metronome, would also give a beginner a good chance to learn abit about playing with a drummer, although this is a very differeituation.

The inbuilt monitoring is great. Second to none! I have no idea how they get such a good sound out of those 6 little speakers.

I haven't had any problems with it at all, and weighing in at about 20kg it is light and easy to cart anywhere you want to.

Never needed to use customer support, so I guess that is a good thing

If it were stolen I would be mortified, and would have to go through the very longwinded process of getting it sent over to New Zealand again. It hasn't cone out here yet. I saw it on the net, had to have it and so I got it imported in from Australia.

I love this keyboard, I used to have an MP9000, but it never sounded right in a small room, so I sold that and went for this one. It sounds just like I knew the mp9000 shhould have sounded if I only had the speakers to put it through, and maybe even better.

basically its good and easy to use, there just a lot of funtcions only available by pressing 2-3 buttons at the same time ( chaning fx, chaning metronome volume, etc. and you HAVE to look in the manual as it is not written on the instrument.
LOOKS good as there are less buttons but....

96 voice poly is really a lot, the keyboard action ist fantastic.
you can also switch the sensitivity of the keys, very useful.
FX are very good vor the reverb.
rotary, chorus and trem are very subtile and not great ( though they dont "hurt".... ) but better than nothing.
SEQ works good for recording ideas etc. easy to use too.
there is also a line in, you can switch the speakers ON / OFF, not automatically. THANK YOU, KAWAI !!!

pianos are fantastic, P1 is just amazing, rich and naturally sounding.
P2 P3 are more mids and "harder", great for use in bands.
EP1 is standard rhodes giving you bells to squealing sounds depending on the velocity. works fine. EP2/3 are crap ( DX7 style )
chruch organ ist great, the other organs are more jazzy, they are o.k. but not useable for pop/soul music.
everything else is very fine, strgs, vibes, choir, etc.
there is even a clavinet on board, good basic samples, but you need some external FX to make it funky.
the keyboard action is great and works perfect with the samples. doog job.

what is really FANTASTIC are the built in speakers, this blows EVERY yamaha and roland and for sure korg away, even the expensive ones.
i compared it to ALL of them. the concept of 6 small speakers seems strange, but it works fantastic. also the bass is great.

feels great and looks very solid. only the power supply jack is "home-use-style", so make sure nobody can unplug it by accident at the gig.

no experiences

best sounding stage-piano i ever heard. line-out-wise in the studio as well as on stage ( also MONO ! ), and especially just at home with the built in speakers.
NO comparison to the es3 that sounds like a cheap toy ( speaking of the internal speakers )
roland FPs and yamaha Ps can not challenge this piano sound.
i did not WANT to buy this one, i just tried it at the store while waiting for something else and fell in love with the sound.
it also looks great !