Kawai K4 (1989)
16 Bit Digital Synthesizer

A major upgrade from previous model KAWAI K1 adding resonant filters and a clearer DAC PCM wavetable.

KEYBOARD 61 keys with velocity and aftertouch.
The main panel features a 16 X 2 lines display, 28 buttons a data slider. On left side 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 signal out
- damper pedalswitch input
- data card slot (for special data cards)

Power supply PSU - 12V 500 mA+ (original model PS121G).

TECH CPU 8-bits UPD 78310G manages 16 voices polyphony based on samples synthesis DMS tone generation. DAC is a Burr Brown PCM66P. A basic K4 patch is composed by 1 or 2 PCM samples or "sources" that can routed to filter in 3 possible modes: normal, twin or double.

Matched pair of sources can be ringmodulated by DIGITAL AM PROCESS in 2 ways: A- source 1 -> source 2 B- source 3 -> source 4 Ring modulation HEAR

 

PCM WAVETABLE internal 16 bits ROM contains 256 DCO waves - Full PCM list HERE
Internal K4 ROM is organized into 2 categories:

96 PCM DC digital cyclic: mathematically precalculated fundamental and basic waveforms e.g sinusoidal, analog square, voice formants, organ additive and some short transients. 160 PCM acoustic samples categorized into 4 subgroups: drums, multi, block and reverse & loop.

PERFORMANCE structure can be assigned to 8 parts each with individual settings:

- split zone - volume gain - shift / transpose - Midi channel assign - velocity thresholds - 8 different non-editable velocity curves.

 

FILTER IC K008-FP handles 2 digital resonant filters featuring a -12 dB slope each.
Filters can be chained in serial or parallel mode and scream at high resonance value, which is way quantized into 7 scaled steps. Another useful function is the Key tracking mode at 50% cutoff value to lower or higher octaves.

HEAR filter cutoff

ENVELOPE 6 EGs:

- 1 X EG FILTER 1: 3 segments + 1 time level - 1 X EG FILTER 2: 3 segments + 1 time level - 1 X EG (for each SOURCE) amplitude a 3-segments + 2 time levels.

LFO single delayed main modulator (shapes: triangle, saw, square and random) and 3 destinations (a simplified second LFO acts as a vibrato sharing same LFO1 waverform )

- LFO to pitch - LFO to filter 1 - LFO to filter 2 HEAR random LFO

EFFECT the internal DSP features 32 patches combinations e.g. reverb, delay, chorus, flanger and distortion/overdrive.

MEMORY:
- 64 RAM slots for patches
- 64 RAM performances.
Sounds and setting may be saved to standard Midi sysex dump or recorded to Kawai RAM cards model Kawai DC-16 and DC-32.

intenal k4 motherboard click the k4 internal guts with wave table and OS eprom

 

OS operative system is on a single EPROM, lastest is 1.4

DOWNLOAD the Hex bin from FREE

 

 

EDIT there are many programmers for computer :

- Soundquest (commercial PC/MAC) PIC - Sounddiver (out of business) - K4 WIN (shareware old PC) PIC - K4 patch editor (freeware old PC) PIC - K4 editor (freeware ATARI ST) PIC - Musicode K4 Voice Development System (? ATARI ST) - K4 editor (shareware Commodore AMIGA) PIC - K4/K4R Ipad editor (commercial IOS)

 

K4 MODIFICATION It is possible to circuitbent the k4 for some experimental glitches effect... if you're into digital textures or noises.

HEAR Some random bending noises

RELATED FAMILY

	K4R rackmount version: extra analog outs, but lacks FX DSP.
	Kawai K11 successor , rackount module is GMEGA

 

 

VST PLUGIN / SAMPLED VERSION there are some free and commercial samples set:

VIRTUAL K4

VIRTUAL K4 offers a kind of emulation based on samples. However 2 major problems: It needs an old AWE32 soundcard for DCF filter emulation and It does not seem to work from Windows XP to higher.

 

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