Kawai K5m

Novel structure given the "additive" paradigm: grouping
harmonics for editing and separating odd/even seems to be well
thought out solutions that make the daunting task of editing each
harmonic level/envelope a tad easier than it would be otherwise.

I don't think an editable additive synth would ever deserve a 10...
Still it gets and 8 which is probably quite high. I give it this
number because both the structure and editing are more logical
and require less page-hopping than Rolands.

In comparison with the only other choice at the time -- K150 --
I think the K5 is good. Now we have the
K5000 which is a different beast in that it relies on the filter
and effects for much more of its character. The K5K does what the
K5 does and more, but K5 seems more of a thoroughbred to me.

Yeah, expressive. However additive is additive, consider it
to be a selection of overtones over a sine fundamental. I hear
alias noise pretty early on in the harmonic set, well, not
surprisingly... think of what frequency we're talking about
when we reach the 20th harmonic of note C5.

It doesn't seem to have the best S/N in the world.

Even then, I find the synth to be a player's synth. Very few
synths give me the impression that I'm playing an "instrument",
and the K5 is definitely among them.

Several buttons on mine are beginning to get sloppy, but I got mine
used and have no idea how the former owner treated it.

I hear good things but never dealt with them directly.

Not too many other options. K150, K5, K5K... Synergy?, Oscar?...
I think these are about it? Among them, I think the K5 goes for
the lowest price.

The K5 is capable of complex sounds, but lacks in aggression. Distortions or phasers -- things that add more harmonics
and animate them -- add further character to this synth and is
highly recommended.

I think this machine is fairly easy to use. It's even easier with a editor/librarian. There are a few pages of settings you have to punch through but as long as you understand the flow it is pretty straight forward. It has a really cool compare function that keeps the old sound you started with in a buffer so you campare the edited sound to the original.

Not real heavy on features. Only 16 parts multi timbral and no internal effects. Although it easy to duplicate a chorus effect because the machine lets you design sounds in a single or twin mode. If you use twin mode you can detune one of the sounds and get the chorus effect.

This thing makes great metallic sounds. If you'd like to hear some examples go to http://greene.xtn.net/~miker/music.htm and listen to "Electric Dream". That's one of the pieces I did while I was in school on this instrument. The basses aren't all that phat but if you do some tweaking during the recording process in your sound editor you can thicken them up immensely.

I just bought it and it works great after it sat in a music store for over a year.

So good so far. You can get an 800 number to call on the synthzone website. I sent an email with some general questions and got a live phone call back.

If I wasn't sampling a lot of sounds and turning them into sound fonts, I'd have at least two of these things. I really like it. It was one of my favorite instruments to work with when I was an electronic music major.

NO!!!!! Not easy at all. You have to be a freaking rocket-scientist to program this beastie. Additive synthesis is not for the faint of heart. But there are some patch editor programs for it that make a big difference. I use the Dr. T one for the Atari ST computer.

The machine itself has a nice display for editing on, but there are just so many things you have to set on it that it can get really tedious to get it to sound the way you want it to. I've only twice gotten it to sound the way I wanted it to when making a sound from scratch.

16 note polyphony, 16 channel multitimberal. Has sustain and volume pedal inputs as well as a secondary controller pedal input. The K-5m is the rack-mount version of the K-5 so it doesn't have the pitchbend or mod wheels but will respond to them, as well as to a second modwheel if your controller keyboard has one. Stores a lot of presets on board and also on a RAM card. No sequencer (which is fine by me since I hate onboard sequencers) no effects. Only 4 envelopes so not quite true additive synthesis since each harmonic should have it's own envelope. But given how complicated this beastie is to program 4 envelopes is headache enough.

it excells at brass sounds (the PRSHORNS preset on it is amazing), organ sounds, and bright "tinkley" sounds but has anemic bass sounds. As well the output level on the machine is a little low. There is a relatively simple mod for the machine (just swapping some internal resistors) that you should be able to find on the net, but I have never had the time to actually do this. Like a lot of older synths, you're not going to use the K-5 on every track, but you will find it has some sounds that are very usuable for almost any type of music that uses synths.

Hasn't broken yet. Haven't heard to many complaints about them being fragile. Heck even the internal battery is still going strong on mine even though by all rights it should have died about 5 years ago.

No idea... from what I've heard you can still order a replacement ROM chip for it (some of the earlier models had a buggy ROM). I've never had any problems with mine so I've never needed to contact Kawai.

Well, I'd be really ticked off if it was stolen but not as ticked off as I would be if someone stole my Moog MG-1 or my Hohner Pianet T.
I paid $700 for mine, brand new and it was almost marked down half price because Kawai ad just announced it was discontinued. It didn't take me too long to realize that I paid too much for it (even by 80s standards). Now adays you can find them for around $100 and the keyboard version for around $200-$300. At that kind of price it's not a bad addition to your midi rig and you can always impress your geek friends by actually learning to program it.