Kawai K4

I very easy keyboard to use...all the menu options are well labelled. Not too many sub-menus. PDF manual I downloaded is ok. I was making nice pads from scratch as soon I got the synth in my hands. A number keypad would be a good addition to any digital synth like this. (spoiled from my yamaha sy77)

Polyphony is great for a synth this age. It's keyboard action is plasticy...you have to also hit the aftertouch pretty hard (it's also very "bouncy"). Really lo-fi delay/chorus/flange/reverb effects. Sends note-off velocity. One LFO that controls everything. Wish I could modulate resonance (without using sysex). The fact that it even has a resonant filter is amazing though. You can even layer two filters in a patch to double the dB/octave. The envelopes aren't very slow for really sustained stuff but you can still make evolving patches with clever programming.

It's a very strange animal. For realistic sounds it's got nice organs, electric pianos and acoustic guitars (?!!?). I wouldn't really use it for that but it would do the job for very little money. The filter is very unique. It doesn't have the lushness of an analog filter but it's quite resonant, wet and demonic. There are many useful single cycle waveforms, some fill up the high end of the spectrum quite nicely (eg: #14 for a saw wave). A few of the PCM waves are great. The drums aren't the worst. My favorite wave of all is the Voice multi which is a dark and full yet breathy choir-great for pads.

The filter clicks...alot. I've heard that there are different(newer?) roms that click less. I've found that if I'm careful with the DCA levels and filter settings that the clicking is minimized (in some cases altogether gone).

This is an old digital synth. So it really hits the spot if I need something lofi. Good for sounds where pristine fidelity isn't an issue. It says 16-bit but it sounds like 12-bit.

I bought mine for very little money..it's being held together by ductape...which is why i gig with it..because it's expendable. For one of the most plastic synths I've ever used it seems pretty dependable.

It's definitely worth what I've paid. I use it as a cheap controller for gigs as it is very light. I've used it in some productions and still continue to make new patches with it. I have fancier romplers that can do all the same things (Roland JV1080 etc) and I have even fancier analog gear with nicer filters but there is something special about this thing. I like it.

I really don't know how do the presets of this baby sound, because it came with no presets. Really. It came with 4 banks full of custom sounds made by the previous owner, And, from what I've heard, I won't be loading a preload sysex into my synth even if I get paid for it. It also came with an OC-32 original Kawai card, with 4 additional banks, filled with MORE custom sounds. This expand the grand total to 128 sounds, more than enough for me.

Edit? It's the first thing you have to do here. And after you did it, enjoy the results. It's much easier to edit here things (once you've learn how to do it) than in my Korg X2. And an external programmer, like JSynthLib or an Atari one (if you have an Atari emu) helps a lot. You don't have to draw the wave shape with a substractive filter, like Korg's model. Kawai always have been about ADDITIVE synthesis, with an analog concept understanding. And believe me, it's easier this way.

The K4 has 32 oscillators. That means, 16 voices in single mode, 8 voices in dual mode. It's not amazing, but is enough for what this baby is intended to do. There's no sequencer here, but a pretty standard chorus/reverb unit.

I don't like the keyboard action, but it's because I'm used to my Korg X2 keyboard. You may like it, but I didn't. However, it responds very well to aftertouch, even though it doesn't recognize polyphonic aftertouch (well, name a keyboard that supports it apart from Ensoniq).

If you want to make metal, all kinds of it, this is your baby. Brasses and ethnical instruments with the K4 are shit, but, are you going to use them if you like metal? Do you want to make your lead for your heavy metal band? The K4 will make you scream and loud, and you can mix your ultra-mega-lead with an octave pitch-shift linked to the aftertouch and an filter sweep, all in one, plus a killer reverb. Do you want a piano for your doom metal band? The K4's piano isn't that realistic, but it's dark. Very dark. Perfect for your doom metal desires. Do you want black metal? The K4 has the darkest chorus you can dream of. Do you want custom-made sounds for your prog rock band? The K4 can emulate the sound of "The Great Debate" intro, without the thousands of dollars required for buying a K2600x. It can even create with its OC waves a synth harpsichord better for metal than an original harpsichord.

The key here isn't the effect unit, although it's capable of producing a good multitap reverb (it's pretty standard, and you can't compare it with a modern effect unit). The key it's how you can assign parameters to the mod wheel, the aftertouch or modulate one oscillator with another. Mix that with an ALMOST ANALOG filter that stops just before self-oscillating, and you have awesome capabilities.

The only catch here are the clicks caused by an underpowered processor trying to do miracles. If you can live with them, I absolutely recommend the K4 sound.

I've depended on it since I bought it. However I had a serious problem with all of my buttons (they pushed themselves mysteriously), and my K4 had to go to the technician. He told me that all of my nightmares were product of a faulty repair that the previous owner did. I don't blame Kawai here, I blame the technician who repaired the keyboard first. Since that servicing (that costed me 30.000 chilean pesos) my K4 has stood still, with no problem.

I have never dealt with Kawai. I've only dealt with my friendly technician, who repaired my K4 and left it like a charm.

If someone steal my K4, I will cry and try to find another. No, I won't buy an MS-2000 instead. I will want a Kawai K4. Or something better. But I doubt there is. I had several choices when I bought it. The Roland Alpha Juno. Buy a new keyboard. I even tested the Yamaha SK30!. And it took me time to fall in love with the K4, but when I fell, I really did.

It can make the fattest leads for me. It can make scream the entire house with a gigantic synthstring. It can produce the weirdest noises. The only thing I miss is an arpeggiator or an RPRR-like feature... but I can always buy an external sequencer, no?

The K4 can't make a realistic piano. Definitely winds are laughable. Ethnic? If you want ethnic, go and buy something else. If you want the sound of a real violin, a real cello and a real contrabass to emulate your favourite symphony, go and buy the latest Triton or the latest Motif. If you want to scream like nobody else, make the best sound for your metal band or want to make industrial and techno, this is your baby. If you want to sound dark, this is your synth. And if you love noise, love rock and love metal, go and buy this keyboard immediately. No, don't wait there. Go and buy one NOW. It will only cost you 250 USD, and it will give you the power to rock. And also, it's black, so you don't have to paint it ;)

61 note sample playback synth, all plastic case, bought used complete with "voice crystal" ROM ( maybe RAM as well ) card. Fairly straight forward to use although voice editing is a bit like decorating your hall from outside through the letterbox. Previous owner has really worked on the sounds, there is a fabulous stereo 12 string guitar which is actually 8 individual dual oscillator parts, each given a short range of notes then each range is panned across the stereo image. Strings and brass multis have been similarly treated with excellent results.

Poly appears to be 32 single oscillator, 16 dual but don't quote me as I only have a K1 manual. MIDI is fine, my old MC300 sequencer works perfectly, card slot accepts RAM/ROM's, a voice crystal came with the board. Effects are good, flexible application to single voices or multis. 8 part multi timbral, good drum and bass sounds for sequencing.

See notes about stereo sounds - 16 bit quality is fine, brasses, strings, guitars, rhodes & organs are excellent, pianos not so good - typical of an 80's synth.

Second hand but works fine, no probs so far for a 15-16 year old unit.

Kawai are still around making some excellent pianos ( I have an ES1 ), never had to contact them.

For ?50.00 its worth it for the stereo guitar alone - if you see one of these in good condition they have to be worth considering.

i am using the rack version (minus the fx section, but with 8 individual outs).
the presets suck so bad it probably is the main reason prices stay low for this baby.
i personally find it quite easy to edit, if a little tedious at times, the k1 is much better laid out for ergonomy. sometimes these little differences account for a lot. but its logical and about as carefree as on any menu-based OS.
the trick is to do all manners of "forbidden" manipulations like changing the waveforms while playing etc.
with knobs this would have been a contender.

it accepts cards but they are not essential. i find that the best way to work these machines is to program them with your own sounds and then tweak them live for each performance.
also, use the additive waves mainly, and the cheesy looped waveforms sparingly, use its bizarro AM function (a kind of embryonic ring modulation), and DO GET RID of the PRESETS asap. they aren't even 25% there. out of the box, you start feeling guilty for buying it and contemplate selling it right away. they are that horrible. but once you start programming, you'll be quite amazed.

i think its best for the following sounds:
watery, evolving pads
weird atonal fx and bizarre insect noises
strings
acid sounds that use the distorting resonance of the filter (seven discrete steps, out of which 1-5 are for colouring the tone and the last two take you straight to acid hell)

realism - who needs it?

compared to the k1, it does sound "better", i.e. no noise; but also some of the cheesy, breathy charm of its predecessor is lost.

built ok, but not as good as the k1 (knobs are a bit wobbly)

don't know

yep, i can see why the chemical brothers use this. before i had it, i used to overdrive the dynacord tam 19 (flanger) to get those wicked resonant filter sounds - very similar fx, like an electric guitar on acid.
my only wish would be for kawai to stop licking their wounds over the k-5000 and get back in the ring. i never regretted buying a kawai (or teisco) instruments. they are quirky, individual, and well thought out as a rule -(and much underrated)

Very easy to use, intuitive functions

16 polyphony is a little lilited by todays standards but still very functional.

I disagree with everyone who says the natural acoustic sounds are horrible,you just haven't found the right sysex patch yet. I use this as my main synth when I am playing in the clubs, Rock piano is great for "Let it Be" I double up the strings for "the Rain Song"
and I use an outboard phase shifter on "Comfortably Numb" and " No quarter"
I liked this keyboard so much that I just bought a second one.

Extremely reliable, I have owned my original K4 for over 12 years and I have never had a problem with it.

great synth, although some say it doesn't quite meet professional standards, I love this machine.

PRESETS FEW ARE EXCELLENT BUT MOST REQUIRE SCULPTING, EDITING DIFFICULT, MANUAL SUCKS

OUTSTANDING POLYPHONY AND KEYBOARD ARE WHY I OWN THREE OF THESE BOARDS

Brass and strings are remarkable, keyboard sounds marginal. works well for recreating mental images of neoimpressionism, motion picture sound track effects etc.Used for 40s, 50s, 60s, swing/pop/doowop and show tunes/western swing 30s to present. Very expressive with a BIG sound in an outdoor setting with the right PA system

can be tempermental in cold or damp conditions, always have a backup as it has temporarily had a stroke a couple of times

Hope I am never without it, so I have extras. Played 40 years, Korg M1 and sp 200, kawai k11. Love the full sound and expression that leaves my audience awe struck and trying to find my "canned Music". I love to hate its tempermentalness,wish its' manual was usable

This synth is extremely easy to program. I can only compare it to my old Korg PolySix although the K4 does not have dedicated buttons and sliders for each function. If you have any experience with programming an old analogue synth(lets say a Moog, an ARP or an old Korg) you will recognize 95 % of the parameters straight away.

It is highly recommended that you use an external programmer. I use Sound Diver 3.0 and that works like a dream. The only limitation of Sound Diver I have found so far, is that it does not let you program the effects-section. I don't mind because the effect-section is the only thing I never ever use on the K4: it is crap. I recommend using outboard effect-gear anyway.

The K4 has 32 voices so depending on the layering of sounds you can calculate how high the polyphony is(doubling the sounds halves the polyphony etcetera).

The effects are basically what you can expect from a late-90s synth. I would not recommend using them to anyone except if you want to sound even weirder than this synth can sound already! I use mine with an outboard Behringer Virtualizer and an old vintage Ursa Major Space-station. Just like any DX7 will sound pretty thin without some 'effects-boosting', the K4 sounds pretty skimpy without a chorus or a delay. For people who grew up in the analogue era, when there was literally not one synthesizer with built-in effects, this does not pose a problem. I actually used BOSS stom-boxes on it for quite a while and it sounded like the Chemical Brothers(who use the K4 by the way...). This synth sounds better when it is 'dirty'. Do not use it to emulate existing acoustic instruments because you will burn your K4 in horror if you do.

I used to use an external storage-card but nowadays I store the backup on my PC using SoundDiver 3.0. I have heard a rumour a long time ago that you can actually buy quite regular memorychips and put them in the K4(thus multiplying the soundbanks), but I have no experience with this. I don't mess around with my K4, once you learn to live with its limitations it is a great synth for very little money. Never use the K4 as an only synth. I usually use it in a combination of a Yamaha DX7 and a Nord-Lead II. The K4 is actually closer in sound to the Nord-Lead. The DX7 is for the electric piano and all those other things the DX7 is so good at, the Nord Lead is used to create complex layered sounds, arpeggiate, etcetera, and the K4 is used for pure synth-sounds(synthstrings, bleeps, synthbasses and not to forget my own beautiful Moog Taurus patch).

This synth was sold as a digital synth and basically it is. However: people usually expect a digital synth to have digital terms and specifications for the programmingcontrols. Not so with the K4 : except for the fact that you don't work with sawtooth or sine, but instead have to select 1 of 256 waveforms, it basically uses the same terminology as any old analogue style synthesizer. You will find all programmingcontrols very familiar.

I give it an 9 because it is a 15-year old design. It would not be fair to compare it to the modern-day supersynths and it is also not fair to judge it on the basis of the imitiation of acoustic instruments. This is a synthesizer, nothing else.

Indeed, the K4 is not the synth with the best basic sound-patches, but some effort programming them yourself will very probably turn you into a K4-fan.

In several reviews I read that the strings on a K4 are no good and that you cannot make really long sweeps. I wish these people could hear my K4 because we actually built whole dance-tracks on the sweeps and strings in it. Mind you : I am talking about synthstrings, not an acoustic violin-imitation. As I said before: this synth is no good to program acoustic instruments. This does seem a bit odd because the basic sampled waveforms have been mainly collected by sampling acoustic instruments!

The keyboard is o.k. although it is no match for my DX7(but I consider that the best playable synth-keyboard of all-time).

The modulationwheel can be used to control several parameters. I have a patch(that I altered quite heavily) of a distorted metal-guitar that starts with the chord being struck and ends with only the feedback remaining... And it is all controlled through the modulationwheel. My other bandmembers invariably cover their ears when I use it, including the guitarist... ;-)

This synth was never a really big seller. I think that among others it was the very poor quality of the original presets that worked against it. But then again : this is not a preset-synth. Start tweaking those knobs and you will find the hidden strength of the K4.

(before you ask : no I am not in any way affiliated with the Kawai-factories :-)).

I have had my K4 since 1989 and I have not had a problem with it yet, although recently one of my lower C-keys has started to fail.

It is still one of the most reliable synths I have ever had.

Never dealt with them. N/A.

It my K4 was stolen I would buy another one and reload my patches. At the price they are doing now I would be a fool not.

I have been playing synths since 1976, an incomplete list of the synths I own or have owned :

KORG MS-10
Yamaha CS-60
KORG Poly61
Poly800
Akai X7000 sampler
KORG DW6000
EMU ESI2000 sampler
Nord Lead II
Nord Micromodular
Roland MT-32
Roland JV-30
Etcetera etcetera etcetera.

If you want to get into synthesys in a structured way you can do several things : you can buy a Nord Modular and learn the theory of synthesizers very well. You can also spend a fraction of that money and buy a second hand K4.

STRINGS ARE SUPPER .YOU CAN PLAY SUCESSFULLY SHOW MUST GO ON BY QUEEN
AND BACK ON EARTH BY OZZY OSBORNE AND MORE BALLADS.....
EASY EDITING WITH LEFT SLIDER AND 256 WAVES TO CHOOSE.

4 OSCILLATOR SOUND WITH 8 POLYPHONY.DINAMIC AND AFTERTOUCH EFFECTS.
EXPANSION KAWAI CARDS.NO SEQUENCER AND ARPEGGIATOR.

REALISTIC HAMMONDS, LOVELY EL. PIANO , GOOD SYNTH PADS AND SOME
ANALOG KILLER LEADS.NO PORTAMENTO BUT DELAY AND OVERDRIVE ARE
MAGIC FOR SYNTH LEADS.SYNTH LEAD SOUND IS LIKE ARP SYNTH.
SYNTH CHOIR VERY GOOD FOR BACKGROUND.

Programming sound through that synth is quite irritating, especially with mine that have his buttons quite used. But i found through the net a software interface named k4 Win (free) & an another one i don't use anymore (i don't have the link but. yeahh i found it again :http://hem.fyristorg.com/twilek/kawaieditors.htm prograaming get really easy that way. By the way, i guess soft as sound diver or midi quest can achieve that too (but i can't get them on kazaa...).
From the same site as the soft interface you can also find banks you can transfer to your synth via midi.

Full midi implementation. sequence it through cubase sx. Good keyboard : kawai are actually famous for their keyboard feelings.
As, at my opinion, it should be used for electro : big lake of arpeggiator!

The sounds : i LOVE THEM! SOme people in there write k4 soundS are shit... K4 IS NOT MADE TO REPRODUCE PIANO, STRINGS OR WHATEVER : IT4S MADE TO BUILT CRAZY ELECTRONIC SOUND. You can really make it scream. it has waveform named reverse or loop you can mix with other (4) : it can really make amazing noise for a synth at that price (250 euros second hand).

I firstly bought it to use it as a midi controler : that was the same price as buying a brand new simple midi keyboard. then i discovered what it has inside.
Preset sound are shit. download the midi bank or just tweak it through the soft interface!

I must say a few words. The K4 has its unigue characters. It's disappointing to read comments below about the sound as people talk about the existing piano or the string sound. I'd say that it doesn't care anyway because the strength of the K4 concerns mostly the synth sounds. It is so stupid to talk about the quality of those general sounds because i'm sure that most users already have some other synth(s) having great instrument sounds.
To use the ring modulation carefully, many interesting sounds can be achieved and as there are variations of different waveforms like the sawtooth type, the available sounds may vary as wished.
As always, I think that some iq is needed to get to this and it
annoys me that many comments below are based upon a primitive reflection.
The filter(s) may be controlled by the modulation wheel.