Kawai MP9000

I purchased my MP9000 new when it first came to the market. I have seldom used the manual as the controls & settings are very intuitive.

I LOVE the keyboard action. Have been a concert pianist for over 40 years and due to lack of space in my home decided to switch to a digital keyboard when I tested the MP9000. The keyboard action is what sold me.

I love the Grand piano sound and also use the vibe & strings for layering effects when recording sound tracks.

The MP9000 has been very reliable - never had a problem with it.

Customer Service at the time of purchase was excellent, but have never needed to have any servicing or repairs.

I have it connected to two 12" powered Tannoy speakers - great sound! I'm hoping this keyboard lasts me the rest of my life as I can't imagine living without it.

This thing can be as simple as plugging in and playing. There are a couple of really great presets; 3 being mellow,studio and rock piano. One of the two organs are right off the bat, the Vibes are cool and the high notes of the bass sounds are really cool too! I was not frightened by this machine in the least, the first time I plugged her in... so plug her in!

I used the midi only a couple of times and everything seemed to work fine. The feel of the keys is unmatched in my opinion. Everything else that i tried felt cheap to me.
It has built in effects that you can apply to the pre-set sounds which has been pretty handy for me. Trial and error without a manual is nothing to be feared with the mp9000 either, just dig right in.
A plus for me, a negative for some... It is a high end digital piano so you must have an amp to play out of, it doesn't have some cheap korg quality with speakers on top. Sorry korg fans...

For a digital piano, i think some of these piano sounds are unrivaled. The organ is very strong and you can hear it being used on "in my place" the coldplay song if you don't believe me. They used this piano for a long time. It won awards for its sound and action! I didn't give it a 10 on this cause they don't have enough cool sounds. What you pay the pretty penny for is the quality of the few sounds that you know you can't get quite right from anything else and for those beloved wooden keys. straight up.

This piano has gigged with me for 5 years. It's been dropped, put in the back of an open bed truck on very very cold nights (with no case), it's been sweat upon, its had it's beautiful wooden keys slammed down by everyone in my band in an attempt to play the most beautiful song ever and never has anything gone out on me. I truly try to keep some rock band integrity and not treat everything like it's gold, so my piano has been through the ringer. With some of our shows i've had some of the outputs not respond do to the moist or freezing drive over there, but one output always kept on and so did the show! It's worth noting that that the outputs were always fine once I gave the piano a day to rest.

No opinion, never needed em (knock on wood)

I wanted to give the mp9000 a 10 because I have never played a digital piano better and trust me I looked for a long time, but it gets a nine cause of the lack of GREAT presets and because it is a heavy piano to be lugging around show after show.
Final note: This piano is top notch, if you can get a good deal on one i say buy it!
I'm sure no one cares, but if this thing came with like 76 keys or 61 it would take up less space for the live show and would get a 12! from me

Fairly easy, if you read the manual.

Didn't have any problems, except when playing a torrent of notes. And even then, I didn't notice anything dramatic. Pretty easy to use.

Average quality sounds (but, again, I am used to hearing 2GB+ sounds on the computer.) On the other hand, it "listens" quite well. I only wish its super lows were lower. But, still, it's action is pretty good, and reacts well to the differences in touch.

Definitely a no-go. I used it extensively, and, while its electronics where always fine, I had severe problems with the keyboard. And I mean severe. I am used to playing a Yamaha Grand Piano, and I crushed half the keys (especially the middle and upper section) in six months after I had bought it brand new! I had it repaired at least four times, and it usually was broken just before a gig or right on one! Personally, I love the touch of the keyboard, but my main thing is trust. And I have reached the point where I do not trust Kawai action ever again (at least not until I read that someone that usually plays on a real grand and has used it extensively finds it reliable - and even then, with a grain of salt.

The international support was pretty good. Support in my home country was hopeless. So I cannot form an opinion.

I have it in a friends home, with the keys broken once more. I am looking for a lightweight (let us not forget that ir weighs as much as two keyboards!), durable keyboard with a good touch. The sounds I will drive externally, but I want a few good sounds in case of emergency. No, I wouldn't buy it again. I had so many problems with the keys that make me not want to have a lot to do with this line of models again.

The mp 9000 is very easy to use, the only issue I had was the split keyboard, you need to have the correct layer activated before you can change the sound, but that took all of 5 mins to get used to.
The manual is very comprehensive and easy to read.

I think the best feature about this machine is the keys. They feel just like a piano and they are very touch sensitive (unlike most other digital pianos that I have tried). The sounds are also very good, there may only be a few of them, but you can do alot with the inbult effects and reverbs, and split keyboard without even using the midi function.

All of the instrument sounds are top quality, my only disappointment has been the piano, there are 5 great piano sounds, but none of them are quite what I am looking for, but then I am very fussy.

Had it for four years and it hasn't let me down once. I would take it with me everywhere I went if portability were slightly easier, but it is called a stage piano for a very good reason, that's what it is, it is not made to be dragged all over the place, hence the 50 or so Kgs that it weighs.

Never had to be in contact with Kawai as I have had no problems what so ever with it.

I love my keyboard, my only regret is that it is shut up in my small music room. It is not made for a small space (it works perfectly fine in one) but it is made for a large auditorium with it's sound pumping through a good quality speaker system.

When I was looking for a keyboard, I spent about 3months searching out for the best one that i could find. I tried all of the common names and models, the Roland's RD series, the Yamaha's P series, the korg, Kurzweil and others, but I found that the Kawai had the best piano feel and great quality sounds. It doesn't have some of the other features that others do have, but with midi and a computer, you don't really need all of those other features anyway.

Layout is logical and easy to use once you play with it a while. Lots of lighted pushbuttons. And I have to say this the best-looking and feeling digital piano I've found.(And that includes recent models from Yamaha and Roland). The slanted top with thick, brushed aluminum looks great and makes me feel like I'm playing a real instrument.
The finish on the aluminum slightly darkens it and looks better than the brighter aluminum on the MP9500. The keys are wooden and are about a foot long (into the piano) and pivot just at the same point as a real piano.

Instrument patches are easily edited for attack, sustain, decay, and resonance and effects are easily accessed from the front panel and a small but adequate LCD.

Polyphony is fine..never noticed any dropped notes. Midi is easy to use and has two zones. I use it with a M-Audio Uno adapter that connects to the usb port on my laptop. Effects aren't bad and can be very useful especially with the E-pianos and Clavinet.

The Piano sounds are good but not a satisfying as the current Yamaha and Roland pianos. Grand Piano 1 is a Kawai concert grand and is rich but a little bright for my taste. Piano #3 (Mellow Grand) is basically a filtered verison of GP1. It works better for jazz, etc. I use the mellow piano with the "dynamic touch" setting and find it OK but lacking a little dynamic range/tone. Electric Pianos are good though the velocity mappings make is hard to play loud notes and get that "overamplified" E-piano sound. Wurlizer sounds perfect and the Rhodes gets better when you add some effects like a small amount of distortion. Clavichord works well with the phaser effect. Stay away from bright headphones like the Sony MDR-V6 with this piano...especially the piano sounds work better with darker headphones like Sennheisers.

This is the best instrument for playing sampled pianos IMO.
I midi the mp9000 to my laptop through a M-audio UNO and use Kontakt2 to play the Old Lady piano from PMI. Sound comes out through an Echo Indigo sound card and Sennheiser HD580 headphones. Holy $#@!#$%# it sounds and feels good! I would say the action on the MP9000 is equivalent to a light grand. The keys are not graded from heavy to light so the lower octaves are a little lighter and upper octaves a little heavier. Overall I find the touch more solid and inspiring than on any other digital piano I have played. I like it even better than the MP9500 which I find too heavy for my taste in the lower octaves.
I've seen a review that calls the action too light and like a spinnet piano. Totally wrong. The key action has a much greater range of travel than a spinnet and the keys are heaver overall. Perfect in my opinion.

I bought the piano used a year ago and its worked without glitches. Haven't tried to gig with it.

Overall this is a gorgeous instrument that you will enjoy playing very much. The piano sounds are nice but not as satisfying as current Yamaha and Roland pianos. If you are thinking about playing sampled pianos on your computer, this would be the best controller you could get IMO. The marriage of the perfect Kawai action and amazing 24-bit quality from Gigastudio3 or Kontakt2 will put you in piano nirvana.

The mp9000 is extremely user-friendly. Switch it on and play it. The design, pots and sliders, is excellent - and pleasantly retro if you like that kind of thing. Quick EQ adjustments are a breeze; similarly, balancing the levels between zones is slider-controlled and nice'n'easy.
Editing patches is also straightforward, though no more so than one would expect.
As regards the manual, it's atypical. i.e. could be clearer, but basically usable. The thing is, the keyboard is pretty intuitive to begin with, so I've hardly ever had to refer to the manual anyway.

The polyphony is 64bit, which is fine, and pretty standard.
The built in effects are good, particularly the sympathetic resonance which is designed for the acoustic piano samples. A range of chorus, flange, delay, phaser, auto-wah and several reverbs. Also overdrive and distortion, which are quite good when used, (IN MODERATION) with the Rhodes sample in particular. These effects can be minimally edited using two of the 4 pots, (the other two are assigned for editing reverb).
The keyboard has two zones, which can run external patches alongside internal. An extra pair of sliders enable level control for 2 external sounds.
Th action is absolutely THE reason to have this keyboard. No other keyboard comes anywhere near it. Wooden keys and wooden hammers make it as close as you are going to get to an acoustic piano action. I own, and gig with this keyboard because it is as near as I can get to playing a real piano: nothing else will suffice. There is no aftertouch, (which doesn't bother me at all), because it really isn't that kind of keyboard. This is for pianists first and foremost. If you want aftertouch then buy something else, it will be cheaper and lighter.
There is no sequencer, no poxy drum samples, no metronome, no disco lights & no kitchen sink attachment. Praise the lord.

The piano sounds are good, particularly considering I bought this in 1999. They still stand up in 2005. All the sounds can be edited, (attack, decay etc.) but the piano samples generally don't need it. Depending on what you are using to amp it, (I use a small HK P.A. system), you will find the piano that works best for you. I always find digital piano samples are too bright, and thus use the mellow grand, which, if you have a decent rig, is bright enough for my taste.
The rhodes is ok, a bit lacking in growl; the E.P.2 is a DX-style affair. Ahem. The wurlitzer is the best of them in my opinion, with lovely warmth in the lower register and great attack. The organs are fine, nothing special; strings are average, and there's a choir too. (If you like that sort of thing.) The bass sounds are servicable and there's also a clav, which I guess is why they have an auto-wah in the effects bank.
The sensitivity is very good, far better than roland or yamaha. I would say though, that it is a heavy action, which is not great for some players. If you're used to a roland for instance, you will find this keyboard hard work. I like it, but that's just subjective.
I have used this keyboard on thousands of jazz gigs, and it has held up very well. It is acceptable for classical music, and I guess, in terms of playability, that means it will cover anything else.

Hmmm. I should mention that as of this week I am buying a new keyboard, since my mp9000 has had too many problems lately to be relied upon. HOWEVER, the new keyboard I'm getting is the mp9500 - so go figure.
I have used the mp9000 exclusively for nearly six years: it has done thousands of gigs; travelled tens of thousands of miles; taken a few knocks along the way; and it's behaved pretty well.
I had problems with the power supply, which I eventually had replaced. And the keys, despite the marvellous action etc., are basically held on with a pathetic bit of plastic at the back of the board. This has meant a few home repairs with glue and tape, when the keys have suddenly stopped springing up. (Painfully annoying in the middle of a gig.)

N.A.

This is beyond doubt the best keyboard I have ever owned. Despite it going wrong a few times, I have kept faith with it, and am replacing it with the mp9500 this week. This review is in honour of all the satisfaction the mp9000 has given me over the years. I recommend it to pianists everywhere who care about touch and sound. By the way, use stereo amplification, not just for this keyboard, but for any digital piano. It sounds SO much better.....

Switch it on, pick a sound and start playing. Normal operation, including split and layering is just easy. If you enter the setup mode where you make the thing act as a master keyboard, it get's more complicated and you need the manual.

Polyphony is 64.

The keyboard action is the best ever. I guess most people buying this product do it because of the 88 wooden keys with real hammers.

Effects: Some reverbs. The other FX are either the string resonance stuff or some more unusual like chorus, flanger, distortion, auto-wah etc.

You can assign each zone (which can be either left or right part of the keyboard or layered) an internal and one external sound. (Meaning each zone has it's own midi channel as well).

People argueing that this is far from enough should be the MP9500 which has 4 zones instead of two, 128 polyphony, different tunings and a lot of more things.

You can edit all your sounds. I didn't find out how to reset a single sound to the defaults.

There are 4 knobs that can control 4 different things: FX parameters, evenlope, equalizer, MIDI-controlers. This allows some live modification of sounds if you're of an experimental kind.

Also worth mentioning are the integrated DI boxes, the device has XLR outputs - and is the only keyboard I know that has this. If you're doing the equipment stuff within a band, you will enjoy this feature - and you will hate the thing for a weight of 51KGs including it's case.

Just keep in mind that by the time of writing this instrument is about 6 years old and 6 years ago, digital piano sounds where not as good as they are nowadays.

Then again for the price - you get NOTHING new in Germany for that price, concerning digital pianos. And what you get if you pay 200 Euros more is not as good as this device.

The excellent keyboard action allows (at least in my fingers) to play expressionate, one can tell something with velocity while in other devices it's more or less louder or not that loud and no feeling...

I had to repair it because on all keys, some little foam pads were worn out. Seems that the guy who owned it before played A LOT on it and also head it on some kind of world tour, causing some scratches.

Fixing this was half a day of work - but then again, the only alternative would have been buying the MP9500 (new) which is about 2000? here in Germany at the moment.

Never needed them.

My over all rating is good because I use this device every day and it just gives me pleasure when I'm playing. It could have some features improved and so on but the basic thing is perfect, it's good to play.

And for the price (which included a nice case, by the way) ist's just a great deal.

I've compared this to other products, in deed I did play every digital piano I came accross in every music shop for about one year. I found one that was better and this turned out to be a home digital piano by KAWAI having the keyboard action from the KAWAI mp9500 - which then again is the only dignified successor of the mp9000.

The interface is quite simple, although this is mostly due to the lack of features.

Somewhat under-featured, even for a digital piano. In particular, there is no way to change the tuning -- you are stuck with a "stretch" tuning.

Also, the number of MIDI zones is limited to two -- I believe this will be an issue for some people who want to use it as a controller.

There is also no aftertouch, it would have been really nice if Kawai could have figured out a way to add aftertouch without negatively affecting the action.

I got one of these when they first came out, and I still like the sound. If you listen through headphones at high amplification levels, there are some dissonant overtones that get annoying after awhile, but these can be largely EQed out. While the sound technology is dated, the concert grand patch on the MP9000 still sounds a lot better to me than any of the acoustic piano patches on my Motif Rack.

Also, the action is superb, in my opinion. I like it better than any other piano-type action I have tried, including Roland RD700 and
Yamaha P250. The action is the main reason to get this board.

The other sounds are mostly usable. The Wurli is decent. I can't stand the Rhodes unless I run it through the leslie sim, as it is all bell and no bark. I find the Hammond to be quite useable and a nice compliment to the Hammond patches on my Motif Rack, although I should note that I'm not a B3 buff. The clav is very unrealistic and digital sounding. Strings and basses are usable.

The effects are limited. You get 1 insert FX plus reverb. But the effects that are provided all sound pretty good, with exception of distortion and overdrive, which are kind of lame sounding.

Well, I can't remember exactly when I got mine, but it's been over 5 years, with no problems. But then I don't gig, and it doesn't get moved often, although it does get played every day I am in town.

When I first got my MP9000, I had some questions which Kawai promptly answered by E-mail. They also e-mailed me updates for the OS.

I still think this is a great board. Even if you don't like the sounds, the touch is superb, and it makes a good controller, if you can live with two MIDI zones and no aftertouch (obviously, I can). I don't forsee selling mine anytime soon. I still use the acoustic piano sound, and use a Motif Rack for the rest.

Very easy board to get around on. Manual is straightforward.

5 years ago, I bought a MP9000 new, and it's STILL the best action I've ever played for a digital. Recently, I took mine apart to isolate (and fix) some key noise. It took about 20 minutes to open it, 10 minutes to fix the noise (key was rubbing against the pin it was balanced on,so I just re-glued the felt), and 20 minutes to put it back together. I don't recommend doing this w/ a new instrument, but this is the first time I've ever been able to
fix a problem like this with NO complications, and no sending it off to someone that I hope can fix it without charging the proverbial arm and leg. It's heavy, but well worth lugging to whatever venue or gig where piano technique is a factor.

Piano sounds have certainly evolved from 5 years ago, which is why we have MIDI - I hardly ever use the on-board sounds, but when I have to, they're still usable. Since I originally bought the board for its action, the sounds haven't seen much service.

Any instrument that's still in my rig after 5 years, with only the key-fix occuring, is definitely reliable. Being the 78-80lb monster that it is, we've gotten the best results (i.e., stability) by parking it on top of a pair of sawhorses, which gives the whole rig a kind of "home improvement" look.

Don't know about customer support, especially for a discontinued model, but they were OK back then.

Overall, this is still my go-to instrument for playing digital piano.
I wish it was lighter, and wouldn't complain if they had a better upgradability path for sounds, but the action is still amazing - I own a Kawai grand, and while the MP isn't exactly like the acoustic's action, it's close enough for jazz or whatever.

With a bit of fiddling around,I have found it to be pretty directive,and simple to use,great midi-controller,my set up is a Motif 6 and now the MP9000,I had a P80 perviously,but you cannot compare the MP9000 to the P80,its like comparing a BMW to a Mini.

64 note polphony,seems ok ,I have not heard any note dropping yet,does not have any expansion capabilities,but then again its a digital piano,I also own a otto bach piano aucostic,and I reckon this is far better sounding.

Better than anuyhing I have ever played to date,I have used the P80,P120,Motif 8,S90 and P200 and nothing beats the sound of the MP9000.You can also set the attack,reverb and brightness,this is great for different styles of playing,I am more a classical pianist and this most definetly compliments my playing.

Look pretty robust.

N/A

Best Digital piano I have ever played,I have used many as mentioned above,its really in a class of it's own and will be for many more years to come,this piano is not going anywhere,it's staying with me.I would replace it if was stolen,but I will ensure this baby.I have been playing now for 25 years and know a good piano when I see one,and this is a must for the classical pianist on the move.

If you are looking for quality sound and feel,this is the way to go depsite the weight,a truely totally proffesional instrument.Coldplay(Chris Martin) and David Grey use it as well for performances.