Playing the Kawai ES-120
Playing with the acoustic piano sound of Kawai’s smallest model immediately sparks joy. The sound is expressive and plays wonderfully via the slightly textured keys.
The speaker system is quite loud compared to the overall piano size, but of course, no voluminous bass sound comes across. More importantly, the piano sound remains clean at high volumes – quite enough for piano practice or a jam session in the living room. During a small living room concert, neither does the speaker system reach its limit, nor do you get disturbing cabinet resonances.
However, the sound only causes proper joy when you connect headphones. Very practical here: There are two jacks, 6.3 mm – i.e. the big one – and 3.5 mm, also called mini jack. In addition, you can set various headphone modes in the settings. This lets you adapt the sound behavior to the respective headphone construction (open, closed, semi-open).
Otherwise, you can find all the important functions for selecting sounds, the metronome or recorder on the control panel. If you own an Android or iOS mobile device, install Kawai’s free PianoRemote app right away. Simply establish a connection via Bluetooth to control the functions of the electric piano. It really couldn’t be any easier!
Kawai piano sound
The Shigeru Kawai EX concert grand piano is immortalized in many Kawai digital pianos, including the Kawai ES-120. With the 192-voice Harmonic Imaging sound generation, this sound seems brilliant and warm. And that even though this is the smallest variant of sound generation found in Kawai instruments. Play the piano sound with full grip – it is perfectly voiced over the entire range thanks to 88-key sampling.
Also, the piano sound accounts for many simulation details such as String Resonance, Damper Resonance and Damper Noise. You can also adjust all these details individually if you want to experiment with them. While the Kawai ES-120 may offer fewer settings than, for example, the larger CA models, a speciality found on all Kawai digital pianos is still noteworthy.
Voicing the piano sound
Using the “Voicing Type” function, it is possible to intonate the tonal behavior of the acoustic piano sound. The ES-120 offers four types: Normal, Dynamic, Mellow and Bright. The advantage: If you like to play with a certain sound, e.g. to recreate the restrained sound of a neo-classical piece, you can achieve a corresponding sound behavior with the Mellow setting.
You can further enhance the resulting softer sound response via the Touch Curve “Heavy”. By the way, the voicing is a testament to how flexible and expressive the piano sounds of Kawai digital pianos are in general.