Kawai MP11 vs Korg SV1 (Keyboard Review Series)

People have been asking me for a while about both of keyboards, and my opinions of them. So I decided to make a video comparing them, and seeing which one is better. To be honest, they both are excellent, and both have redeeming qualities that make them awesome instruments for practicing on and recording with. The MP11 has a great piano sound and a wonderful Rhodes sound, while the SV1 has a fantastic "Wurli" sound, and several other awesome sounds that I enjoy.

[@maxdonegal]

Apparently when the sv1 was first released players complained that they accidentally touched the buttons and changed the sounds while playing normally. Korg addressed this in an update making it more difficult to trigger these buttons accidentally. So the behavior of those buttons is intentional, though not part of the original design.

[@christinacary]

This is one of the reasons I sold my Sv-1. Many a song interrupted (and heart attacks) from hitting those 5,6,7,8 presets buttons swapping me from lovely mellow piano to scary organ. I just think placement is the issue, no matter how hard you have to press. It’s why I’m not even looking at the Nord grand since it’s the same angled button layout.

[@michoorox]

The background sounds (key clicks/dampers) on the KORG sv1 are totally controllable, you push the function sound, then the treble EQ knob becomes the volume of those sounds. You can crank them to unrelasitic levels or kill them completely.

[@jpetermaughan]

James, I've learnt a lot from you about grand pianos, even though they are completely outside my price range and I could never own one. The benefit is that I now appreciate the different piano voices on a digital keyboard. So, thank you.

[@robo9466]

Get an old style piano for 500 bucks, or a Casio CDP-100 keyboard for 400 bucks

[@lostinbeauty7129]

A fascinating and exhaustive look at these two keyboards. Enjoyed it very much. Very interested to see the video that will include the Rhodes.

[@AriKona]

Even though I'm not in the market to replace my keyboards, I had to say that this was a significantly superior comparison and analysis of these keyboards. Not only did you get the "important to all" factors on the table, you included many of the questions that would be asked after that first interaction with a salesperson. But, you did it with a succinctness that prevented my mind from wandering off. Found your take on certain things interesting in a good way. How you see the use of metal and wood as "quality" isn't something many would consider over the sleekness and eye-candy approach many manufacturers use today, but in fact you are addressing an issue many of us are experiencing with our keyboards that we opted for the look over the construction and we are now sorry we did. Anyway, my main point is not the keyboards and which I would consider, but rather the quality of the review and comparison and how you provided a comprehensive review with important commentary in a compact format that made it outstanding and a "must see" for anyone serious about purchasing one of these keyboards.

[@ThePianoforever]

Really glad you enjoyed this video! 😁

[@alubto]

Korg SV-1 is still made, and it’s displayed in their showroom in Japan. They really don’t refresh their lineup that often, IMHO it’s a good thing.

[@bruin4937]

It's been replaced by the Korg Grandstage now in the U.S.

[@boldcautionproductions9203]

James, always interesting, great enthusiasm for playing. I am rebuilding a neglected MP8, learned a lot about the innards this way - wood keys, felt bearings. Great format for looking at a couple of big models at once. Never a perfect choice. Must have many.

[@shopbruce]

Great review - let's us (the viewers) actually hear the difference between the two keyboards. Thaks for sharing.

[@pizzagogo6151]

Thanks for the comparison, of course the mp11 is now superseded by the se version- which is what I’m considering buying so your detailed description ( eg. I didn’t know about the lack of organs on the kawai) plus your fantastic playing, really helped me get a great perspective on these keyboards.

[@ThePianoforever]

As I understand it there are almost no differences between the MP-11 and MP11 se. It's honestly looks like they thought they should come out with a new model after 5 years so they did in name only. I know the sides on the MP-11 were this really nice wood (walnut?), now they are painted black (I expect to cut costs). I expect all other changes would just be hype or to save production cost. If you can save a few bucks as I did go for the MP-11.

[@Mrpoulenc1899]

Greetings To you James, that was certainly most comprehensive in it`s analysis, and humanly charming that you left in the footage at the end where you could not remember certain features you had planned to mention, made me smile a little. I wonder if it would perhaps be fair to say that the MP11 is more of an entry level Pro machine, and the SV1 A top end Amateur Machine, just seems to be the impression from what you report and the very look of each machines. Most enjoyable, thank you. Kind regards Simon.

[@ThePianoforever]

I would honestly say that I have always considered them to be equal, but different, both having avantages over the other.

[@Mrpoulenc1899]

Fair comment :-)

[@maxdonegal]

I’d say the Kawai is the superior all around piano while the Korg is geared more towards gigging out with a loud full band.

[@Murcielag0scuro]

The Kawai MP 11 SE is a fantastic instrument. I have it on the right side of my Roland C-39 Digital Harpsichord, and keep my Johannus Opus 370 Digital Pipe Organ on the left side.

[@joeminton5770]

Both are great keyboards. But for me being a beginner piano player, I purchased the Yamaha mx 88. It has a great piano action, has the Motif sound engine, over 1000 sound voices and the great thing is it's 999$ free shipping. Simple layout, easy to get around and very user friendly. Check out the Piano man Chuck review. You won't be disappointed!

[@plektosgaming]

I remember doing research on it when the SV1 came out and the Rhodes was.. yeah, they ALL are meh compared to the real thing. But the Whurlitzer is something that they actually sampled correctly and is pretty much dead-on. Which no other keyboard really does right. It's odd how one is off by a mile and the other is perfect. I haven't tried the SV2 though - supposedly they fixed a bunch of things, including the meh amp modeling.

[@casinomann]

Great video, man! Keep it up!

[@instrumentalistjade8367]

Thats great Bro.. Its nice seeing you demoing digital pianos.. Atlease you can really tell which comes close to a real piano..

[@kassemir]

My electric piano does the same thing with having the organ sounds be significantly louder than the rest. And, it's really annoying. I don't wanna play around with the volume knob constantly when switching between sounds. My guess is that organ sounds, generally speaking, they go for organ sounds with a lot of the stops, if not all of the stops pulled out, thus there's more harmonic information which translates to more volume. But, it should be an easy fix though, so why not just level the sounds of all of the sounds in the keyboard? As for the Clavi thing and the pitch. I think it's possible that a real Clavinet might do the same thing, if you really bang hard on the keys. Remember a Clavinet is essentially doing a sort of "hammer on" (guitar term) on the steel string inside, so I think it's possible it'd behave like this. Similar to how a guitar string goes sharp if you strike it real hard. You can actually hear this effect on Helter Skelter by The Beatles where the low E string almost goes to F after it's struck in the intro riff. Though, totally possible they went overboard with it :)

[@goodwillhart]

My Korg B1 also has programmed key sounds, which really bug me too, especially now that the keys creak and clack, so that there are two lots of key sounds. In fact it got so bad I pulled it apart and swapped some of the octaves around to get slightly less creaking and clacking in the central octaves, which I play more often.

[@robertveal7187]

I like the ideal that you are being practical

[@WarrenPostma]

Question for you: I read somewhere that there's about a 50 millisecond difference between when you press the key and when the sounds really start on a real acoustic piano. This is because of the mechanical nature of the action. Because of this, band players who play with a Pianist who is not "in electronic keyboard mode" mentally, will tend to play AHEAD of the beat. Are you aware of switching modes mentally in order to play in time? P.S. The Korg SV1 shows up as about $1300 US$ on ebay.

[@ThePianoforever]

I have played keyboards with a band before, and never had to change my playing style, nor have I noticed a delay in acoustic pianos. If you look around a bit, you can find them for well under 1K, ebay's prices fluctuate a bit though. I paid $1,400 for mine new.

[@jacobbrown1690]

like rhodes on the korg better

[@foxybrown2]

I thought the Kawai sounded warmer Korg has always had a hollow piano sound except for the Kronos .

[@lymphhh]

Hi, James! Have you played Korg D1? What's your opinion on it?

[@ThePianoforever]

Strangely, I have not. It has a good keybed, I know, but other aspects of the build quality may not be as good. There were some issues in the past with instruments arriving with broken keys, yet with undamaged boxes. This is reported to have been addressed but is one of the reasons I have not ordered a D1 yet.

[@Helloworldwrjfjrjrj]

Which speakers are your using and which keyboard is closer to grand piano

[@markjaylandes]

$1200 is the cheapest I saw on eBay currently, and that is for the 73 key. $970 on Reverb.com

[@ThePianoforever]

We have seen the SV1-88 for as low as $700.00 in our travels, and as I had said before I paid only $1,400.00 for mine brand new including tax, in a unopened box several years ago. If you want to look you can find a deal! I found my Kawai MP-11 for $1,700 out the door. It was an unplayed display model that was up on a wall, and was the earlier MP-11 not the se. If you want a big bang for your money it's out there just look!

[@umajunkcollector]

lemme see here, the Kawai was sampled from a Kawai grand, the Yamaha from a Yamaha concert grand, Roland from a Bosendorfer, Casio from a Steinway lol, and what does Korg sample? Baldwin?

[@ThePianoforever]

In all honesty non of them do the original pianos true justice so it really dosn't matter.

[@ItsThatJahncke2]

@@ThePianoforever and that's why we have VST to replace the sounds on our digital pianos lol, but I really do like the convenience of a digital piano

[@plektosgaming]

It also samples a Yamaha as far as I can tell, but most likely an upright. It's designed to be a stage piano and have a bit of that gritty sound. Based on the original marketing pamphlets, it's designed with three things in mind: 1 - Tube preamp to give it a warmer sound 2 - Spot-on Wurlitzer. They appear to have put all of their effort into getting this right. 100% accurate. 3 - Very good traditional electric organ sounds (reeds and Leslie and so on) The Clav is laughably not anything like a Hohner D6. Mutant child bad. The Kawai is also off, though, to be fair, but reasonably close enough to sort of fit - like turkey bacon. The Korg is bacon made out of tofu or something... The piano is really an afterthought. You don't buy this as a piano. It sounds exactly like a 1990s Yamaha studio upright - the same ones most schools have in their practice rooms. The high end is just that hard "tink" sound you get out of an upright's last few notes. This is probably what half of the small venues and dive bars in the US have, or something similar - the old piano in the corner that isn't a grand. So I kind of get this decision in a way. But it's NOT a concert grand.

[@musikone1780]

James, great comparison. have you checked out Spectrasonics KEYSCAPE? If you like Rhodes, you will LOVE KEYSCAPE. They went out and gathered all the classic keyboards like the Rhodes. Many of them, they had to rebuild. They then sampled the the sounds and put them in a massive collection. It took them 10 years to make KEYSCAPE. Here is a video of Greg Phillinganes trying out KEYSCAPE: kzbin.info/www/bejne/qae7Z4qIjKeDbtE

[@robertveal7187]

You made a Jamaica sound know as reggae

[@umajunkcollector]

Kurzweil?

[@jacobbrown1690]

korg sv2

[@ThePianoforever]

Tomorrow.

[@radiorexandy]

You are too kind about the sv-1 piano bass sound -- not like a baby grand, my friend -- more like a spinet. The other had a much more convincing piano sound in the bass. And what's this about you getting forgetful towards the end of the presentation? You're 'way too young to have senior moments!

[@criticalmaster2]

Andrew, you must be way too old to be able to provide a kind and productive criticism. Or not senior enough? Who knows. The kid gets a thumbs up from me.

[@jaakkojokela-bergstrom8018]

Andrew Rood I just forgot everything you said ;)