Kawai Synthesizers

Hi Monk,
  I'm glad to meet a fellow K11/GMega owner. I'm also glad to hear 
about the MidiQuest now I know I didn't mess up something in the 
setup. The 2 banks of patches I'm talking about are Ronny Vogel's 
patches. When he gets to where he has them stored this weekend he 
said he will send 2 full single banks we can have as he no longer 
sells them. He seems like a really nice guy.
  I almost have the bank done that I'm setting up. It as a few of 
Ronnie's and a bunch of my own. It even includes some MidiQuest 
random mixup patches that were usable although some are a little 
weird. Some have a bright area in the middle of the keyboard. 
  Did you notice in MidiQuest that the graphics for the DCA and DCF 
envelopes don't show the second sustain section. The assured me the 
section has a controller because the mod time is the same for both 
but I wish the graphic showed it better. They said it was a weird 
envelope??? Of course it is that's why it sounds so good when the DCF 
is setup to sweep a nice resonance to get that analog effect. Like a 
Casio CZ with 8 stages there's always something moving around in each 
sound if desired. 
 I never thought about the processor being slow because this synth is 
doing so much all the time with all the sections and 32 midi 
channels. It plays really well with any of my PC's even 2 at once. I 
like "solo" mode for section 1 using the singles, playing or editing. 
And remember an edited voice from midi will always show up at program 
location 1 overwriting anything already there. This is the patch edit 
buffer. 
  The 90C051 CPU is running at 33.8 mhz and using 24 bits to control 
the 6mb Rom samples then the 16 bit waves are sent to the ASP for all 
the DMS envelopes and filters. The CPU has another 8 bit data buss to 
allow us to run the midi, load voice data, and the keyboard 
interactions in the K11. This is where the weak link is. And why it 
has to dump everything at once from external control is beyond me. 
Maybe with all the filtering algos they ran out of room for sysex 
dump control.  
              Such a deal, Narfman
   
 --- In kawaisynths@yahoogroups.com, "monk" <mboyer_poyets@...> wrote:
>
> Hi !  
>   
> I have owned a GMega for little more than a year now. It is indeed 
a  
> "hairy" synth as creating singles from the Single Edit menu 
requires  
> a lot of trial and error and SYSEX support is problematic for 
large  
> dumps.  
>   
> I have experienced the same problems as you with MidiQuest.It 
seems,  
> however, that smaller dumps, single patches in particular, 
transfer  
> OK between my GMega and MidiQuest.  
>   
> Also, bank changes (that is, switching between GM, SP and USER) 
take  
> at least 5 seconds to be effective. If, for instance, you press  
> SYSTEM, dial USER then press EXIT immediately thereafter, you will  
> still be using whichever bank you used previously. You have to 
wait  
> for the cursor to resume blinking for the change to be effective.  
> While this is somewhat acceptable for hands-on use, it requires to  
> take timing into account when switching banks with SYSEX.  
>   
> I take this sluggish behavior with bank switching and SYSEX  
> receiving to be a sign that the microcontroller Kawai put in the  
> K11/GMega is too slow for the task. A shame, really.  
>   
> Also, there is a bank of really impressive patches by Ronny Vogel 
> available here : 
>  
> http://web.archive.org/web/20030413025429/www.uni-
mainz.de/~kirss000/html/english.html 
>  
> The site is down, so you have to use archive.org. The downloads 
> still work, though. 
>  
> - mboyer 
>  
> P.S. For the record, I have ROM version 1.0 and there doesn't seem  
> to be updates for the K11/GMega.  
>   
> --- In kawaisynths@yahoogroups.com, "narfman96" <narfman96@>  
> wrote:  
> >  
> > Hi,  
> >   How many members have a GMega or K11 synth? I got a K11 last  
> week   
> > and what a bear this synth is. I've made a bank of singles up  
> already   
> > and I found 2 more banks of singles that a K11 owner is going to  
> send   
> > me from Germany. Now I need to work on some performances. I'll  
> upload   
> > everything when I get enough of them together...  
> >   Today I took the whole keybed apart and cleaned all the dust   
> > bunnies out of it. I was having velocity problems with a few 
keys  
> and   
> > found half of the plastic squares that activate the rubber  
> membrane   
> > switches missing from the undersides of the keys but they were   
> > nowhere to be found. Hmmm... After making some up and glueing 
them  
> in   
> > place the keys now play the way they're supposed to. I also  
> replaced   
> > the battery as it was only 2.7 volts. A new CR2450 and a total  
> reset   
> > and this synth plays great. Removing the battery left all kinds 
of   
> > gibberish in the memory so the reset was necessary.  
> >   I know this synth probably doesn't hold the record but it can  
> dump   
> > sysex forever. Midiquest errors in the same spot everytime on a  
> total   
> > dump then recovers on a retry after several long minutes. Then 
the   
> > synth just keeps on sending, and sending, and sending. 
Interesting   
> > Kawai made a multitimbral GM plus so much more synth and it 
can't   
> > send sysex without sending everything everytime???? No ROM 
update  
> so   
> > I guess that's it. Does the GMega act any differently?   
> >   Well sorry for the long post but there isn't much going on 
here   
> > anyway. If there are any other fans of these synths, talk it 
up...  
> >   See ya, Narfman