Kawai K3 Bedienungsanleitung

Kawai K3 – a rare hybrid synthesizer

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The Kawai K3 is a typical representative of those mid-80ies synthesizers: membrane buttons (instead of real

buttons), an Alpha Dial which is used to edit the extensive selection of parameters, plus a six-voice hybrid sound

engine. The latter consists of two wavetable oscillators, a VCF and a VCA per voice. The LED display is huge (similar

to that of a Korg DW-8000, but much bigger).

In its appearance, the Kawai K3 (released in 1986) is reminiscent of the DX-7, just like the Oberheim Matrix-6, Casio

CZ-Series, Sequential 2000, Roland Alpha Juno 1/2, JX-8P/10, and others.

A few general thoughts on the instrument

The Kawai K3 is a very professional hybrid synthesizer. It’s a mix of digital oscillators, additive/substractive

synthesis and analog filters

VCF and VCA give the sound a lot of depth and warmth

The wavetable oscillators, on the other hand, can easily produce sounds similar to a PPG Wave synthesizer

Kawai K3 – a rare hybrid synthesizer

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The Kawai K3 is a very good background synthesizer, thanks to the soft character of its sound. No wonder it

gets along so well with digital and analog instruments in a mix. It leans more toward PPG-like bells and pads

than toward classic Oberheim/Sequential-like brass sounds. It’s perfect for dreamy, softly evolving arpeggio

sounds and for cool drawn-in-delay electronic patterns

Be careful using the onboard (analog) chorus! It’s quite noisy (at leat in our K3), worse than most Roland

chorus sections. Better turn it OFF and use an external chorus instead …

Kawai K3 – a rare hybrid synthesizer

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Kawai K3

The OSC BAL(ance) function, on the other hand, is very professional. This parameter determines the mixing

balance for the two ocillators. “-15” is oscillator No.1 only, “0” is even, and “15” is oscillator No.2 only.

PRES(sure) OSC BAL(ance) is even more effective, allowing for modulation of the mixing balance between the

oscillators via aftertouch. This results in organic, evolving sound clips.

Keyboard-tracking of VCF and VCA is very flexible, too. Settings may be positive or negative, making the

keyboard an important and expressive tool

Let’s look more closely at the instrument …

Digital Wave Memory

The oscillator’s source consists of 33 waveforms. “0” cancels the oscillator (no sound), while waveforms No. 1-31 are

factory preset waveforms. No. 32 is a user-defined waveform, and No. 33 is White Noise.

The instrument’s name – DIGITAL WAVE MEMORY SYNTHESIZER – derives from this possibility of programming

your own (user) waveform out of harmonic components…

Kawai K3 – a rare hybrid synthesizer

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Kawai K3

User-Defined Waveform (source: Kawai K3 Owner’s Manual, page 25)

“The sound of a musical instrument […] is complex. The amazing thing is that, at any particular instant, the

waveform can be broken down and expressed as the sum of a series of sinusoidal waves whose amplitudes may

differ, but whose frequencies are all whole number multiples of a single common frequency. The common frequency

is called the “fundamental”; the others, the “harmonics”. In music, the second harmonic is one octave above the

fundamental.

Kawai K3 – a rare hybrid synthesizer

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USER-DEFINED WAVEFORMS

A synthesizer such as the K-3 reverses the process, mixing a series of sine waves to generate complex patterns for

“natural” sounds which we recognize instantly as a piano or a saxophone. In fact, all standard oscillator waveform

shapes in popular synthesizers, such as triangle, sawtooth and square waves are easy to reconstruct in this manner.

Alternatively, you can choose a different set of amplitude settings and produce something totally new.

The K-3 allows you to create your own sound sources by specifiying the relative intensities (amplitudes) for any

32 of the first 128 harmonics. Each intensity may be anywhere between 1 and 31. (Harmonics assigned an

intensitiy of “0” are suppressed and do not affect the sound.)”

Kawai K3 – a rare hybrid synthesizer

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Building up a new waveform from scratch sounds creative and interesting. But, to be honest, I never gave that a try

(this was the fate of my OSCar, as well). The 31 factory waveforms of the Kawai K3 are more than sufficient – enough

material to program heaps of new, interesting sounds. Still, the user-defined waveform seems to be an underrated

aspect of sound programming, something I’d like to spend more time on in the future.

The internal memory allows storage of one user-defined waveform; another one may be written in the memory

cartridge. For my taste, the 31 factory waveforms are enough to start with.

Kawai K3 – a rare hybrid synthesizer

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Kawai K3

Factory Waveforms

If you like the sound of the old PPG Wave 2, 2.2 or 2.3, then you’ll fall for the Kawai K3, too. The 31 factory

waveforms are a nice mix of soft, sometimes nasal tones. The analog VCF/VCA section adds a lot of depth to them,

giving you deep, lush analog/digital sounds.

Now, please listen to the soundfile “all waveforms” at the end of the article. It contains – what surprise – all 32

waveforms (31 factory- and 1 user-waveform, noise is left out). As with the old PPG synths, the amplitudes of the

single waveforms differ considerably. That makes continuous wavetable sequencing a little difficult – you don’t want

any waveform to “jump” out of the speakers, while, in the next second, others seem to fade away into nothing.

Sadly, there’s no modulation of the wavetable possible (unlike those PPG synths). All you can do is scroll through the

waveforms. OSC BAL(ance) via aftertouch, on the other hand, creates “morphing sounds”…

Kawai K3 – a rare hybrid synthesizer

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Kawai K3

Keyboard Features

Speaking of pressure modulation: a whole bunch of features turns the K3 keyboard into a highly versatile pro-

instrument …

Velocity

VELO VCF – controls VCF cutoff frequency

VELO VCA – controls VCA output level

Aftertouch

PRES OSC BALANCE – mixes balance between the oscillators

PRES VCF – controls VCF cutoff frequency

PRES VCA – controls VCA output level

PRES LFO-OSC determines the amount of vibrato added

Kawai K3 – a rare hybrid synthesizer

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Keytracking

VCF (pos / neg)

VCA (pos / neg)

Voltage Controlled Filter: The ANALOG K3

“The VCF seems to be the most interesting part of the bunch: six well known chip SSM 2044 with resonant Low Pass

Filter -24db/oct, however keep in mind that the Cutoff and the rest of the parameters are CPU scaled values.”

(Source: http://www.polynominal.com).

Kawai K3 – a rare hybrid synthesizer

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SSM2044 VCF

The filter sounds quite good. At high settings, the resonance produces self-oscillation, giving you all those typical

electronic drum sounds and special effects.

Actually, there are two filters in the K3: a classical Low Pass Filter and a High Pass Filter (called LOW CUT). The

latter can only be adjusted manually, similar to the HPF on many Roland synths.

VCF and VCA have their own ADSR envelope generator. Like with many mid-80ies synthesizers, the envelopes are

not the instrument’s strongest point. Their attack is not too fast, they’re a little sluggish.

Low Frequency Oscillator

“The onboard LFO, again, is a standard module with the parameters SHAPE, SPEED and DELAY. A couple of extra

waveforms – like random or chromatic random – give it a nice touch, though …

Andere Handbücher für K3

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