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Author Topic: Kawai K4 / K4R (1989?)  (Read 10132 times)

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Offline chrisNova777

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Kawai K4 / K4R (1989?)
« on: January 31, 2016, 09:20:22 AM »
http://awolfe.home.xs4all.nl/studiokawaik4.htm
http://www.vintagesynth.com/kawai/kawaik4.php
http://www.polynominal.com/site/studio/gear/synth/kawai-k4/kawai-k4.html
http://www.polynominal.com/site/studio/gear/synth/kawai-k4/kawai-k4r.html
http://www.muzines.co.uk/articles/kawai-k4-k4r/185



Quote
GIVE IT A cursory once-over and you could be forgiven for thinking that Kawai's new K4 is actually their old K1 in disguise. A superficial glance at the controls reveals familiar pitchbend and modulation wheels (what, no joystick?), two-line LCD, Multi and Single buttons, four bank select buttons and two rows of patch select buttons. Kawai have obviously decided not to give their followers any future shock.

In many other ways, too, the K4 reveals its heritage, and anyone familiar with the K1 may be forgiven for sharing a sense of deja vu as they read this. But there are differences, so read on and all will be revealed.

The K4 has a five-octave velocity- and pressure-sensitive keyboard with the pitchbend and modulation wheels situated to the left, rather more convenient than their placement above the keys as on the K1. The buttons are plastic as opposed to the K1's squidgy rubber ones and the keyboard has a sprung synth action which should be responsive enough to satisfy piano players who don't violently object to playing synth keyboards.

The sound sources are produced by a DMS (Digital Multi Spectrum) tone generator (more about this in a moment) which is presumably an updated form of Kawai's VM (Variable Memory) synthesis used in the K1. It is capable of handling up to 16-note polyphony.

A single sound or Tone is referred to as a Single patch and a combination of Tones is referred to as a Multi patch. There are 64 of each type of patch stored in four banks of 16. A RAM card can be used to store an additional 64 patches of each type.

The first thing you do with a new instrument is check out its presets. I can't tell you what the default sound is like - the one that usually makes you want to buy the thing - because someone decided to replace it with a duplicate of the sound in position two. A quick run through the other sounds, however, quickly reveals the K4's forte: pads, combination and layered sounds - yes, even some of the Single sounds move and swirl and contain several different types of Tone within them.

Multi sounds allow you to combine up to eight Single Tones into one gigantic arrangement. The potential complexity of such a combination has to be heard to be believed, especially as one of the major additions to the K4 (over the K1) is a digital filter. Now we're getting down to business.

Offline chrisNova777

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Re: Kawai K4 / K4R (1989?)
« Reply #1 on: April 10, 2018, 02:09:44 PM »

Offline chrisNova777

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Re: Kawai K4 / K4R (1989?)
« Reply #2 on: December 11, 2018, 07:20:13 PM »

Offline chrisNova777

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Re: Kawai K4 / K4R (1989?)
« Reply #3 on: January 05, 2019, 11:56:55 PM »

Offline chrisNova777

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Re: Kawai K4 / K4R (1989?)
« Reply #4 on: August 21, 2019, 05:22:34 AM »
 ::)

Offline chrisNova777

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Re: Kawai K4 / K4R (1989?)
« Reply #5 on: November 07, 2020, 08:20:57 AM »