ALPHA & OMEGA

The K5000 series was officially unveiled at the Summer NAMM Show in Nashville, Tennessee, USA in July '96.

Sales Management, Electronic Musical Instruments, Kawai Australia¹:

"The electronic musical instrument R&D division of Kawai in Hamamatsu, Japan led development of the K5000 series..."

"...and teams of sound engineers and product specialists from both the United States and Germany were also intimately involved in the development of the K5000S."

Kawai stopped production in the fall of 1998.

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THE CONCEPT

The K5000 brightly distinguishes from any other synthesizer in several aspects. However, there is one thing that clearly sets it aside from the rest, something that has complemented the syllabus of synthesis in a way no other had: "Advanced Additive" Synthesis².

Historically, additive synthesizers belong to a very rare specie, just quite a few have seen commercial light.

Last 20-30 years have seen a handful of additive synths: Synclavier, the Synergy, the Acxel Resynthesizer, the Kurzweil K150-FS and the Kawai K5, among them. Kawai K5 (release in 1987) was the first truly modern/commercial approach to additive synthesis. Although Kawai initiated the idea in the K3 (release in 1986) some years before the K5 was released, it wasn't until the the last appeared that a real devoted additive-engine powered synth was available. The K5 (16 voices polyphonic and 15 part multi-timbral) digital harmonics generator engine (DHG) has the capability to edit two sets of 63 harmonics per voice (twin mode) or one 126 harmonic set (full mode) per voice, then route them through a few 6-stage amplitude envelopes, digitally controlled filters, frequency oscillator, 11-band EQ and amplifiers (By no mean it is intended to explain in a detailed manner K5's internal structure, for more info please consult other sources)³.    "Subtractive synthesis" synthesizes, contemporary to the K5, dimmed this last's commercial success.

Kawai's K5000 finally came to tremendously improve the K5. At a time when subtractive workstations were dominating the market place, Kawai integrated the following features to offer one of the most powerful synthesis machines ever available yet to-this-date:

• 64 harmonics per source, up to 6 additive sources per patch additive engine.

• PCM waveforms sources combinable with additive sources in a patch, to produce an additive/subtractive sound.

• Level, amplitude envelope and filter customizable per each individual harmonic!!!

• 128 band fully editable format filter

• Incredible real time control, sequencer, arpeggiator, phrase generator, sound morphing and a superb digital signal effect processor (DSP).

Very unfortunately, the K5000 also marked the end of Kawai's synth-market participation.
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THE SOUND

Example 1 (250Kb) 

Example 2 (235 Kb)

KAWAI US has some more demos available for you to enjoy.
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