Hi everyone,
I've encountered an issue with the Yamaha EW400 keyboard that I received a few weeks ago. I am unsure if it’s an issue with this particular board or the line itself. I didn’t notice it at first because for the first several days after I received it, I played it at low volumes, but the issue gets more and more pronounced as you turn the volume up, and even more so when the board is amplified. I played the keyboard with another person on guitar, and we both noticed right away something wasn’t right. I’ve been playing the Yamaha E363 and EW300 for some time now, and have never had this issue with either of those boards. What is going on is, as you play, and then use a sustain pedal, the volume jumps much higher, and on some voices, it’s ear-piercing on higher octaves (even though it is much quieter without the sustain pedal depressed) or just much louder thuds that bleed together on lower octaves. This is occurring on several voices on the keyboard (piano, synch, organ, etc.). I’ve done several factory resets on it, and tested in many different configurations, but the issue persists. The sustain issue seems to be directly proportional to the amount of volume. I then switched the EW400 back to the older E363 and had no issues whatsoever (and also no issue with the EW300). I tested a multitude of settings, as the EW400 has much more functionality than the E363 or EW300, but the issue persists to one degree or another in all configurations I can find under the conditions I indicated. The issue occurs even if Fixed touch response setting is on, so that the volume of a key should be the same when pressing a key or chord no matter how much pressure is applied. It works correctly on theE363 (or any other board I’ve played in the past), but on the EW400, even in Fixed touch response mode, the issue still occurs, again with the volume being proportional to the issue occurring. I even tested it with three different sustain pedals on both keyboards, three different amplifiers (but the issue isn’t just through amps as it occurs through the on-board speakers), and the issue occurs only on the new EW400 with all sustain pedals or amps (and never occurs on the E363 or EW300), and whether through amplification or just the on-board speakers, and as I said, the higher the volume, the worse the problem seems to be. It sounds like someone is literally turning the volume knob up and down as you play through a song, and when sustain is on, it sounds like someone just turned the volume way up (you can literally hear the volume go up to be much louder within playing a note or two after sustaining). So when you play through a song with sustain occurring throughout, it sounds like someone is continually turning the volume knob up and down. Again, not an issue we have ever experienced with the E363 or EW300, so as I said, this seems to be an issue either with the EW400 unit, or a product line issue. Has anyone else noticed anything like this with the EW400, and are there any recommendations anyone has that I can try before I send this keyboard back (and possibly wait for the EW410 to be released to see if the issue is fixed on that one)?
Thanks in advance for any assistance or feedback!