Trend price : 150 €
A major upgrade from previous model K1 adding resonant filters and a clearer DAC and PCM wavetable.
Company: Kawai
Model: K4
Class: 61 keys synthesizer
weight: 7,3 Kg
Dimensions: 1020 (w) x 310,8 (H) x 88,5 (D) mm
Dates: 1989
Price: 150€
Technology: DMS tone
Synthesis: PCM rompler
N.Wave: 256
Polyphony: 16 voices
Multitimbric: 8 parts
Filter: 2 digital lowpass
LFO: 1 modulator
Effect: 32
CPU: 78310G
DAC: BB PCM66P
Demo: 1
Video:1
Review: 1
DOWNLOAD: user manual - service manual - factory patches - 400 news patch sounds
K4 Synthesizer Overview
61 keys with velocity and aftertouch.
The main panel features a 16 X 2 lines display, 28 buttons a data slider. On left side there are 2 wheels for pitch bending plus a modulation assignable to LFO rate/ filter or filter cutoff.
Back panel terminal connectors:
- Midi interface
- headphones out
- main out
- damper pedalswitch input.
Sound Synthesis
16 voices polyphony based on 16 bits samples synthesis DMS tone generation, a kind of rompler.
A basic patch is composed 1 or 2 samples layer.
Ringmodulator
matched pair of oscillators sources can be ringmodulated by DIGITAL AM PROCESS:
- source 1 modulates ->source 2
- source 3 modulates ->source 4.
Wavetable
ROM contains 256 waves split into 2 categories:
-
96 PCM DC digital cyclic: mathematically precalculated fundamental and basic waveforms
- 160 PCM acoustic samples.
Multitimbric
system manages up to 8 parts
Envelope
- 1 EG FILTER 1: 3 segments + 1 time level
- 1 EG
FILTER 2: same as EG filter1
- 1 EG (for each SOURCE) amplitude: a 3-segments + 2 time levels.
Filter
2 digital resonant filters featuring at -12 dB slope each.
LFO
1 main delayed modulator (shapes: triangle, saw, square and random) and 3 destinations: pitch, filter 1 and filter 2. Second basic LFO for vibrato.
Effects
Digital DSP features 32 patches including reverb,delay, chorus, flanger and overdrive.
Memory
-
64 RAM slots for patches
-
64 RAM performances.
K4 Review
OK: wavetable / filter / affordable / pads
NOT : edit / obsolete acoustic sound
"Very good pads and sweep sounds! anything else is now obsolete. OK if you're into eerie pads!"
Text , review, special demos copyright polynominal.com / Eric Pochesci
