----- Original Message -----
From: J
To: k5synth@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, November 21, 2012 1:19 PM
Subject: Re: [k5synth] Considering a K5 - Need a little help!
Just got one (K5m) on eBay for $300 (including shipping) awaiting its arrival.
Sent from my iPhone
On Nov 20, 2012, at 12:48 PM, "jammie" <jammie.emma@...> wrote:
midi quest is really buggy there is a free editor for pc
and a great atari editor
and sounddiver 3 has an adaption if you can get a copy
the only resemblance to fm is if you use the 6ops as additive waves in a dx7 lots of bell tones like this and organ tones
but k5 has a nice dirty digital filter and does some great synth type sounds the fm synths cant
resynthesis is the way to go with these machines but because they are sin additive only you loose all phase or cosin portion
so when you look at a wave it wont be exactly like the resynthesis wave form
but this is also good as mismatch phases can cause clicks and also can cancel the sounds out
the k5 has a warmer sound than the k5000
but the k5000 can have more layers
if you do get one the k5m takes up no room at all
and if you do get the resistor volume change done as it really does remove a lot of the hiss that comes out the outputs
i like pairing up my k3 k1 k4r k5m and the k5000r and using the joystic to morph the layers of the k1 to morph the layers of the k3 and k5m
you can get led backlight lcds for these and theres loads of room for them on the k5m
----- Original Message -----
From: Bill Thompson
To: k5synth@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Tuesday, November 20, 2012 4:28 PM
Subject: Re: [k5synth] Considering a K5 - Need a little help!
Go for it!
There are few hardware synths left in my rack, and these are all keepers for me. The K5m is probably second only to an MKS-80 on the don't sell list. Ironically, I also have an ASR-10m but I've reached a point where I'm really only using it for a handful of libraries, which I am trying to import into Kontakt.
Describing the K5 sound is about as useful as describing any sound<G>, but I'll try. The closest thing I can think of is FM, you can create some very bright, animated sounds with the K5. Animated would be the one word I'd choose if I had to choose one word...
Programming it from the front panel is a dog - silly though it may sound, I'd look at MIDIQuest so you can program it from a PC.
I really like mine, and have never considered selling it...
Bill
On Tue, Nov 20, 2012 at 11:07 AM, Paul <Mehlhaffer@...> wrote:
I'm looking at maybe aquiring a K5 for my synth rig. I currently use an Ensoniq ASR-10, Roland Alpha Juno 1, Moog MG-1, and various VST synths. I'm building an ambient/space music live show, and I love sounds with radical timbre shifts, like FM and vector synthesis.
I know that additive synthesis would give me a huge amount of versatility.
The specs on the K5 look absolutely stunning! I think programming a complex board like that would actually be fun! The only problem I have is resources for how the thing actually sounds!
I know now that Kawai's factory presets may not have been the best, and that it's one of the reasons why it was never popular, so I know not to be so quick to judge the sound on that.
I've spent some time scouring the internet, and I dug up a few sound demo's on the web from Youtube, Soundcloud, and even the original Kawai audio demo from 1987, but all of these seem very limited. Also, reviews on Harmony Central and Sonic State are usually mixed. People either love it or hate it!
So, maybe the community can help me out?
How would you describe the K5 sound? I'm obviously not expecting an analog sound from a 1987 digital synth, but can it be fairly warm and punchy?
I've heard a lot of demos from the Kawai K4, and that model seems to have a very warm digital filter. Is the K5's filter pretty much the same thing? Or does it have a totally different tone?
Thank you so much for your help!
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