1989 Kawai K4 - Digital Resonant Filter (DCF) Demo
Вставка
- Опубліковано 29 вер 2024
- If you'd like to support the channel I will make a small profit from any purchase you make after using one of these links:
Amazon UK - Focusrite Scarlett 18i8 Audio Interface amzn.to/3zYoVvo
Amazon USA - Focusrite Scarlett 18i8 Audio Interface amzn.to/3BIZXQm
Amazon UK - Rode NT1A Microphone amzn.to/43jG3Zj
Amazon USA - Rode NT1A Microphone amzn.to/3CfezrS
Alternatively you can grab a 'Pay What You Want' album from my Bandcamp or an instrument, kit or badge from my Etsy.
chrislody.band...
www.etsy.com/u...
I recently bought this vintage Kawai K4 imported from the USA because I'd heard good things about it. I was most intrigued though by the fact that it's a polyphonic synth with digital low-pass resonant filters (as in written purely in code rather than code controlling analog filtering) which makes it one of the first on the market to offer this alongside the Yamaha SY77 and Emu EMAX II which I've been informed all launched in 1989. The Roland D50 had something that sounded very filter like with it's 'TVF' back in 1987, but this was only available on square and saw waves and was more of a mimic of a filter. So I'm told anyway, I never used any of the other gear I just mentioned 😄
So considering that it was this early in the game I was very interested to hear what it sounded like but couldn't find any other filter demos on UA-cam, so here's mine. I was planning something more involved showing how to edit a patch etc, but I got carried away playing and ran out of time. Maybe in another video.
All the examples shown use the brightest saw I could find (the waveforms are sampled) in a single slot with a single filter. I played around with the 'auto bend' which is a pitch sweep envelope, slowing it right down but making it velocity sensitive to give a kind of fake analog drift to the sound. If setup correctly a single patch can have 2 filters either in parallel or serial modes but I haven't experimented with that yet. I also used a bit of it's built in delay and chorus effect.
Actually the K4 has decently sophisticated spec and routing, especially for 1989. Up to 4 waveforms with their own volume envelopes and 2 filters can be used, amplitude modulation can be set up between waveforms, there are separate vibrato and filter LFOs and some decent features for expression like routing velocity to the filter cutoff or filter envelope amount, mod wheel to filter, aftertouch etc.
Anyway I really like the sound of this filter. It's pretty convincing to my ear, only occasionally giving itself away as digital with a kind of uncanny feeling that appears a couple of times in this video. It's not a ladder like filter design, turning up the resonance will not reduce the gain or loose the bottom end, it just adds gain at the cutoff resulting in me having to adjust volume throughout which you may notice. In fact it can even be 'pinged' or at least something that sounds like that, very short amp attacks for example produce and plucked sound which has me confused for a while when building a patch from scratch. Softening attacks and releases is essential if you want to tame it. Zipper noise can be occasionally heard too which is down to the fact there are only 127 possible positions for the filter so moving the cutoff sometimes sound like crackling. There are only 7 levels of resonance too.
Editing isn't the easiest it has to be said but at least it i fairly well organised. Each source can be selected and muted with dedicated buttons then sections for dco, filter etc can be cycled through and edited with a single slider. It works but it's slow. Luckily there is a very good free editor called Edisyn that supports it: github.com/ecl...
I also have a Kawai MM16 which can apparently be used as an editor for the K4 but I haven't had time to try that yet.
/ chrislodymusic
/ chrislodymusic
chrislody.redb...
/ chrislodymusic
#ChrisLody
Just pouring over the K4 service manual as I'm about to 'restore' mine by recapping and replacing all the tact switches so finding your work is amazing. That said, curiously, did Kawai engineer their own DCF IC, the K008-FP? That's pretty fascinating if that's the case. Really neat to see these nascent early computer marvels. Also, the filter is incredible.
Glad someone is finding my videos on this useful 😁 I'm sure I've got access to the service manual but I didn't actually read it tbh, just dived in and worked it out 😄 I'm not sure about the digital filter chip, sounds like you know more than me!
Ha I have one somewhere in the very dry cellar ….🥳
Ooh nice one 😁
Legend from the Robots Found Errors days
Thank you. Nice that someone still remembers that 😄
Awesome synth, thats always been on my wish list that one, i have the Kawai pop synth module its just presets but there are alot of great patches
Just had to look that up, never heard of that. I recognise some patches from my K1 in that. Nice for a home keyboard 😁
Thanks for the demo! I like the sound of this synth.
Sounds lovel Chris I think i want one.......coreection I lnow i want one .
Ha sorry about that 😄
@@ChrisLodyMusic 😆😆