Synth Site |  Kawai |  K5000s

The source-routed modulators are:

fixed macrobuttons 16 fixed destinations/levels user macrobuttons 8 destinations/levels global LFO, 3 fixed destinations/levels (DCO/DCF/DCA) modwheel, 2 destinations/levels pressure, 2 destinations/levels expression, 2 destinations/levels assignable contr. 2 destinations/levels (MIDI controllers)

The possible (non-fixed) destinations are:

pitch, cutoff, level, LFO->DCO, LFO->DCF, LFO->DCA LFO speed, attack time (DCF&DCA), decay1 time (DCF&DCA), release time (DCF&DCA), velocity offset, resonance, panpot, formant filter bias, formant filter ENV/LFO depth, formant filter ENV/LFO speed, harmonics lo, harmonics hi, harmonics even, harmonics odd

The effects section: --------------------

I will not go into too great detail about this since it is fairly well covered in the manual, and also somewhat less "mysterious" than the voice structure anyway.

The sources within a patch can be routed to the 4 effect busses via a matrix that allows any routing.

You can amplitude modulate one (and only *one*) of the sources with the neighbouring source. This is in fact ring modulation!

There are 4 general purpose effect processors, each of which can perform a couple of effects (yes, they are actually multi-FXs). At the end sits a reverb followed by a 7-band graphic equalizer. The four effects (E1-E4) and the reverb and eq can be arranged in 4 different combinations, termed "algorithms": main bus4 ----------------------------------------------> individual

bus1 ---E1---------+ bus2 ----------E2--+-------------------+ bus3 -----------------E3----------+ | bus4 ------------------------E4---+---REV----EQ----> main/individual

bus1 ---E1---------+ bus2 ----------E2--+--------------+ bus3 -----------------E3----------+---REV----EQ----> main bus4 ------------------------E4--------------------> individual

bus1 ---E1-----E2--+ bus2 --------------+-------------------+ bus3 -----------------E3-----E4-------REV----EQ----> main bus4 ----------------------------------------------> individual --> The main and individual outputs are the two stero pair outputs.

The E1-E4 effects have 36 algorithms, most of them are true stereo effects. The FX types cover the usual ground:

early reflection (2), tap delay (2), single delay, dual delay, stereo delay,cross delay, auto-pan, autopan & twin delay, chorus (2), chorus & delay (2), flanger (2), flanger & twin delay (2), ensemble, ensemble & twin delay, celeste, celeste & twin delay, tremolo, tremolo & twin delay, phaser (2), phaser & twin delay (2), rotary, auto wah, bandpass, exciter, enhancer, overdrive/EQ, ditortion/EQ, overdrive/EQ & delay, distortion/EQ & delay,

The reverb sports a few variants: hall 1-3, room 1-3, plate 1-3, reverse, long delay

Effects modulation:

The effects can all have their wet/dry mixes and one selected parameter per effect (hardwired) can be controlled by:

bender, pressure, wheel, expression, volume, pan, MIDI general controllers 1-8

Using the K5000 ---------------

You may think that all this is a bit much to control. Luckily the user-interface is very good, making it relatively easy to move around and adjust paramaters. There's a big graphical display (blue'ish) with lots menu-buttons around it and a dial to set parameter values. There are also hot-keys that takes you to various edit pages.

The additive oscillators have a few "tools" to harness the 64 harmonics and their associated envelopes:

You can view and edit all the 64 harmonic levels on s single page in groups of dark, bright, octaves, 5ths, all or individual harmonics. The same goes for the harmonic envelopes, but these can also be viewed and edited individually.

There are features to copy harmonic series and harmonic envelopes from any patch/source.

There is also a "morph" page that allows you to specify 4 harmonic series (each having a soft and loud version) from any patch/source and then morph trough them with specified time intervals. What this actually does is to set up the harmonic series and then compute all the harmonic envelopes for you. After doing a morph one will probably want to edit the spectrum in more detail using the methods described above.

The formant-filter is edited much like the harmonic series, but with groups of 5/10/15/20 bands, "graphic EQ", all and each, and there is a copy facility. This is really cool stuff - a DIY filter!!!

The DCF/DCA/LFO/effects are perfectly straightforward to edit

The DCF has a gain stage before its input - very handy. Unfortunately the resonance has only 7 settings, but then again we've already had the formant filter doimg its job.

The LFOs (global and formant filter) does not have selectable triggering; they are always restarted at noteon. This is about the only "missing" feature as far as I'm concerned.

For keyboard control, there is one polyphonic and two monophonic triggering modes and portamento. The keyboard itself has aftertouch (channel pressure), and is of a very high quality. It is not of the weighted variety, but still quite responsive. A cross between JX-8P and DX7-II? Oh, well... Very playable anyway.

The "macro-buttons" of which there are 16 fixed and 4 programmable, can be used to tweak the patches live - very nice! They are among the source-routed modulators described above.

The arpeggiator deserves a review of its own. It's a blast! Suffice to say its very good and has lots of advanced features and is fully user programmable. If pnly all arpeggiators were like this one...

The sound ---------

What can I say....

Techically, the sound is very clean and there's no noise, specs says 108 dB S/N, good dynamics - nothing wrong here.

The low end is solid and precise, the mid is perfectly sweet and the highs are shiny bright. It's gentle to the ears, yet very powerful and detailed. Definately the hi-fi feeling.

Musically, The K5k can make "most kinds of sound", except for some of the wild things you can do with FM and/or feedback. From bright, clear sparkling crystals via lush drones through powerful blasts and all the way to the dirtiest screaming synth, - the K5000 can do it all with a flare.

How about the sound of blood-red icebergs refracting lasers, or a binary star setting in the horizon, maybe the hammering of trauma in the midsts of your brain? OK, sorry... guess that's my trip, some of you may still the point :-))

As a synthesizer it excels with a very broad range of textures, and it is probably utterly capable as an accoustic instrument emulator too, but that isn't my department.

The presets doesn't do the instrument justice, but they do give a hint at what you can acheive. Just tweaking the macro-buttons some can take you far. If you dvelve into the core of this synth, great rewards await you!

The effects are what you might expect: certainly not Lexicon, but I think they're just fine as far as "bundled effects" go. The FX parameters are limited to "sensible" ranges so you can't e.g. send the flanger into its own spin on greater than unity feedback etc..

Conclusion ----------

What it has of (subjective) snags is far outweighed by what it has of (objective?) excellent features and sound.

It isn't a "everything for everyone" box, but if you're after a beast of a synthesizer check it out.

The K5k should satisfy the most demanding synthesists with its very detailed control of the spectral evolution. It certainly stirred my synthesist-heart!