Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Forum Sustain pedal make my keys too light!

I just bought a new piano and feel that whenever I play with my damper pedal, the keys feel like they “lose their action” or the action becomes uneven.

I would say my piano is medium to heavy action without pedals which I find the touch just right. Somehow with pedals, the action becomes a lot lighter which results in uneven sound when I play a chord. The chord notes comes out even when I play without the pedal. But when I play with the same chord with pedal, the keys feel less action or rigid action? Not sure if I’m explaining things right.

Or am I used to heavy action and my fingers are just applying too much pressure? My previous piano is a hailun hl125 which definitely has a heavier action than my new Kawai k300.

I called kawai to come down and take a look but would like some inputs so I know what to look out for during the tuning/regulation session. Thanks in advance!

I love my 15 years old hailun piano. The sound is great but unfortunately the action on the lower register (below middle c) is uneven (sometime no sound sometimes muffled sound) and the pedal has been broken for a few years. Got a few technicians to look and fixed a few times but the problems persisted so here I am with a new Kawai.

I was also recently diagnosed with mild heart failure so the heaviness on my hailun really impeded my progress so here I am with my new Kawai with some weight which I like for expression but lighter than my current hailun.

After trying out the chords again I think I described the issue wrong.

The issues lies in action “kink” when my damper pedal is down. In other words, when I play without pedal, the action is smooth but when the damper pedal is down and I play the same notes I will feel a “kink” when pressing down on the keys before the keys actually go down.

I think it is this “initial force” that makes the keys feel suddenly light thereafter.

What you are experiencing is to be expected in every upright piano including my Bluethner. When you depress the damper the keys move closer to the strings which results in a greater clearance in the action. However you should check that without pressing the damper there is no key drop before a hammer key starts to move. Run the back of you nails all along the keyboards with the lightest of pressure and you should just see the tiniest of movement in each hammer.
Ian

Coffee Tea21
Are you playing very softly when this happens, perhaps depressing the key very slowly.I cannot say I know what you mean.I thought it was depressing the soft pedal that there was some lost motion on uprights.I think it is easy for a pianist to adjust to this.(not advocating too much use of the soft pedal)

If you do not understand how Beamer mentions you test what he suggests you could also post this in the Technicians Forum here on PW.Of course you may need a touch up regulation?You do need to call your technician if the action seems not responsive in anyway at all.Congratulations on your piano.K300 are very good instruments.

If you are talking about the sustain (left) pedal, that's the way it is in both grands and uprights.

In fact Kawai went to great lengths and efforts to have the same behavior in the novus NV5 and NV10 hybrid digitals!

That said, it might be too much and a technician may be able to regulate it.

Same with my K300 (now sold). Not so much with my teacher's Yamaha upright. Not sure if it is a Kawai thing as I only have experience with 2 brands. I was not able find any solution other than tried to live with it.

OP is not talking about the left pedal. He is talking about the right pedal. My K300 was also like that. When right pedal is depressed, key becomes slower to bounce back and feels kind of like floating in the air. Its hard to describe the feeling with words.

OP had her or his problem with the K300 fixed by the technician.See the technicians forum.All's well that ends well!

When you play a key without use of the sustain pedal, you must press the key with enough force to both activate the hammer and to push the damper away from the string (counteracting the force of gravity on the damper in a grand and counteracting the damper spring in an upright.

When you play with the sustain/damper pedal activated, the force on the pedal is doing the work of holding the dampers away from the strings, so you need less force to press a key.

This is true for any piano, vertical or grand.

Modern verticals tend to have strong damper springs for a good reason: It increased damping effectiveness.

So sure, you can weaken the damper springs, thus narrowing the perceived key force required between pedal and no pedal, but you'll hear more bleed-through of sound. It's the same with grands, which use a spring and gravity (including lead weights in the dampers). Key lift from the key doesn't active a spring though. Vertical hammers also have springs that can be adjusted, but that can also cause other issues.

This is why, when the technician is assessing touch weight and friction levels, the dampers are propped up with a rubber mute or something at the pedal. If I remember correctly from a class on verticals, the damper should add maybe another 20% to the force required at the key (other techs feel free to chime in).

If it were my customer who got a new piano, I'd suggest they play it for a while and get used to it.