Koichi Kawai was a Japanese man who in 1890 worked for the YAMAHA company, but who in 1927 struck out on his own and created his own company, giving it his surname, KAWAI, along with the know-how acquired over so many years of intense work in this field. At KAWAI they made excellent, personalized, traditional-looking pianos, brilliant-sounding and very much to North American taste, and exported a large number of them to that market.
In 1930 they decided to expand the business by creating the so-called "reed organs," which they made famous all over the world. When Koichi Kawai died at the age of 70 in 1955, Shigeru took over at the helm of KAWAI, restructuring its manufacturing processes and finishes and, from 1960 onward, developing its electronic range, which became a major worldwide benchmark and has kept evolving to this day, especially after 1963, when they created KAWAI AMERICA in the U.S., as well as a university with its own methods for highly qualified, modernized music education. In 1974 they expanded their presence in Europe, and in 1975 in Canada, reaching the record of having made one million pianos in 1978.
But their brilliant era in digital piano manufacturing really dates from 1985, which surprised many keyboard players, especially since 1998, when they came out with their excellent CA-750 model, which has been followed by other magnificent models in the so-called CN, ES, HA, CL, PN, CP and MP series.
What the ES-4 is good for
I'd say it's a high-quality "master keyboard," but with certain extras that are more than essential. Of course, if we're talking about a "keyboard," the first important thing is to look at those "keys," and they certainly have a more than respectable finish, similar in size, feel and weighting to those of a conventional piano, with what I'd call a semi-soft action, effective for allowing a certain virtuosic ease when performing on it.
Since it has six speakers distributed inside it, the effect of its sound is very well spread out, as are the vibrations you feel in the instrument when you put your fingers on its keyboard, much as would happen on a "conventional" or analog piano.
And if the most important thing were to find a good "piano" sound here, it is indeed the first programmed sound that comes up when we turn it on.
That main piano sound is very well done, excellently sampled, quite similar to what we'd get from a concert grand rather than a smaller upright. The lows we hear are powerful and the highs quite bright, but not at all annoying. In addition to this, it has other types of acoustic piano sounds, as well as electric ones, from Rhodes-style to more "bell-like" sounds, various organs, harpsichord, strings, "human" voices, etc., up to 21 different, carefully chosen types, sounds that are already "classics" on some of the best electronic keyboards on the market.
What's more, they have managed to make each sound respond very effectively in intensity to the pressure we apply with our fingers to each of the keys.
These sounds can be used independently or combined in pairs, either separated on each of the two halves of the keyboard (split) or layered across it, and you can easily adjust which of the two sounds you want to have more acoustic presence than the other. And in these "combinations" of 2 simultaneous sounds, some are very pleasant, for example a piano, either acoustic or electric, together with "strings," or the human voices with some type of organ, and even with vibraphone.
With these features alone, the ES-4 would be a good option for replacing a big conventional or analog piano in our practice room; not only because of its much smaller size, but because we can even put it away and "make it disappear" in a closet by standing it on end, or under a bed, behind some curtains, etc.
Likewise, since it has two headphone jacks that mute its speakers, we can practice on it in our music studies without bothering anyone around us at all, and even share our performance with another person next to us using their own headphones.
Up to this point it would already be a very useful instrument in many cases for a large number of keyboard players, but on top of that, through its MIDI or USB connections, it can be linked to a computer system, significantly expanding its qualities as a magnificent master keyboard. With this ES-4 you even save on the periodic services of a good piano tuner...
With lots of extras
Of course, it has connectors for sending its line audio signal out, either with both channels separately or with both together on a single connector in mono. But it also lets you "inject" a stereo audio signal from outside into the instrument whenever you feel like it (for example, to play along on the keyboard in sync with another external sound source, hearing the combination through the ES-4's headphones).
It comes with a pedal that we operate with our foot to sustain the sound and thus make the most of its spatial dimension when, for example, the "strings" accompany a piano sound. Thanks to having greater polyphony than the ES-3, it performs better in a case like this. There is another optional pedal available, if desired, that provides a "Soft" effect.
It has various added acoustic effects that improve its sense of space, as well as reverb that we can add as desired. To top it all off, it can accompany us with an effective metronome, either in its conventional form or as if it were a "full drum kit," including some "breaks" at certain numbers of bars, depending on the case, with a choice of 100 different percussion styles, which can also be muted whenever we want.
Transposing the keyboard and even shifting its octave (up to 3) if we wish is very easy using the corresponding switch on the main panel, as is adjusting how expressive the "Touch" response is to the sounds, with a more percussive feel, for whatever sound we have chosen at any given moment.
As the icing on the cake, and as an extra, this keyboard has a stereo recorder in which we can store up to 4 songs taking up a maximum of about 10,000 notes. What it actually records is not audio but our performance on the keyboard, so playback is acoustically exactly the same as what we heard when we played it, with no background noise of any kind. The performance of the musician's two hands on the keyboard can be recorded separately or together.
A volume knob on the left of the main panel allows quick adjustments of this kind at any moment we wish. The cabinet is semi-gloss black, although it is also made in silver.
ES-4 demos
On the left side of the main panel we find a button that plays various sound options (up to a total of 22 songs) in demo format. They showcase the sonic resources the instrument offers, with spectacular results in some cases. The keyboard is available while we listen to any of these demos, so we can join in and play along with any of them.
What's new in the ES-4 compared with the ES-3
Both have an 88-note keyboard, 2 independent headphone jacks and MIDI in and out.
Polyphony (the number of notes that can sound simultaneously) differs between the two models: 64 for the ES-3 and 96 for this ES-4 (also 96 on the MP-4 model). That can be important, especially when we play two different types of instruments at the same time (piano with strings, for example), and above all if we are also using the sustain pedal, so that simultaneous chords blend together better (in the "pad" effect, for example, of those "strings," which then sound more "legato"). Here, in addition, certain mathematical procedures built into the instrument's memory come into play, what its programmers call "temperaments," which eliminate inappropriate harmonic dissonances in thirds or fifths in some musical styles.
The number of instruments available on both models seems similar, although I'd say that on the ES-4 they are even a bit better done, with a brilliant attack, and on this ES-4 we can also fine-tune their expressiveness better with specific controls and several different options. Both have a transposer, effects that can be added to the instrument sounds (I think the ES-4 improves somewhat on this) and the 4-song, two-track recorder.
The layout of the internal speakers has also changed between the two models: 2 speakers of 8x12 cm in the ES-3, whereas in the ES-4 they preferred to use as many as 6 speakers, but of 5 cm each, giving a more homogeneous feel, not only in the resulting sound but also in the vibration you feel when playing this keyboard. On other digital pianos that are not made by KAWAI, or that don't have the speakers built into the instrument as these do, musicians who are used to playing conventional wooden ("analog"...) pianos really notice the "cold" feeling of playing on their keyboards, whereas these ES models do give the feeling of having real natural liveliness.
The external dimensions of both models are 136.2 cm long, 13.8 cm high and 32.1 cm deep, and they weigh 19.5 kg in the case of the ES-3 and 20.7 kg in the case of the ES-4.
USB and MIDI
When the USB port is connected to a computer, that connection takes priority over any MIDI connection, which the instrument also provides. It has a special built-in driver that some computer operating systems, such as Microsoft's XP, recognize, so you don't have to install any other program for the computer to recognize the keyboard.
By default, it initially connects on the first of the 16 MIDI channels. But it can easily be changed to any of the other 16 channels, and you can even route the signal of our performance from this ES-4 to or from other external MIDI modules of any kind.
Drawbacks?
In my opinion, the little "window" they've given this instrument for viewing its status or how we're sending it operating commands is a bit small, although certainly sufficient; but if I had designed it, I think I would have made it somewhat larger.
When, after setting up the instrument and playing a song on it, we decide to unplug it, most of those "personal settings" disappear and the keyboard restarts with its first piano sound, so we have to reset the desired sounds back to where we were before switching it off. It's also true that some memories are retained, such as the recorder's. But! (there's a "but") it has a memory function (on its "Registration" button) that can retain these settings, which you'll have to learn specifically on this instrument through practice, and which can store up to 7 different types of settings, though I'm not sure that seems enough...
There are instruments of this kind that do a great many more things, but I think we have to be objective, and it's a question of whether the glass is half full or half empty. From my point of view, this keyboard more than replaces, efficiently, a big piano for our music studies, and does many more things that such a "big" piano could never offer us. At a considerably lower price, it takes up less space, is portable and can even be used for recordings, on stage, etc.
If what we want is thousands of sounds, a modulation wheel and all the things those other digital keyboards costing more than twice as much as this one have, then honestly we should think about buying another instrument. To use a car example, it's as if you wanted a race car to drive on roads where you can't go faster than 90 km/h; in our case today, seen another way, you could cruise comfortably down that road at 180 km/h instead of 250...
As a digital piano to replace a classic wooden one at home... there's no question about it: this is an "excellent option." But if you have room at home for a good grand piano from a well-known brand... then perhaps we'd start studying the matter more closely...
