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Average rating:
4.7 out of 5
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So I've had this thing for about 3 weeks, and because of it I've only gotten 4 hours of sleep per night due to Tweek-and-Edit addiction. Whereas a lot of the synths out there are finished paintings that you can change the tint and shading on...the K5000 allows you to start that painting from ground zero. The K5000 is the color palatte that synth enthusiasts should worship. I am still trying to zone in on what 'additive synthesis' is definition wise, but as far as what it does...it's a miracle. Additive programming allows infinite possiblilties, and the PCM engine on board is also phat.
Bottomline, you get everything with the K5000. It's a monster to program, but go for it. Dive in.
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Throw out the old notion that Kawai can build a professional synth! This one will be sought after for a long time! For those of us who enjoy working with synths, nothing is more pleasing than firing up the K5000 and hearing a "breath of fresh air." Sounds that you wont find on your average synth...seriously.
Dont buy this guy just for its looks, or because you need some bread and butter sounds. It's a fine looking board, I'll say...but bread and butter sounds it has not. Piano, guitars, organs...poor emulations...but thats not what this puppy is designed for. Analog purists can achieve some familiar sounds with a bit of effort. What this synth shines most of all for is interesting obviously digital sounds. This synth achieves, with musical tonality, shattering glass-like timbres....dark, evolving moodscapes, and wicked leads.
You will certainly need to make use of the loaded internal effects processor (or use your favorite outboard gear) to mkae this synth fit in your mix - because it cuts through one like butter. Very cool if you need something to steal the show, but you need to tame this beast if you are using it to color a mix.
And, lastly, for those VA purists...well, this puppy has all the knobs right there for you to twist and tweak. A bit of a necessity, since programming this thing like its intended can be more like a calculus course. Maybe there is a newer OS that solves this problem - but the knobs seem to like to go to zero before it effects the sound. And also, it seems as though you need to retrigger the sound when tweaking in real time to hear the progress of your editing. It may just be me, though.
One drawback is that they held back on the wave and patch memory on this, whereas the K5000W has the full waveset. I think the K5000S is expandable to include the whole set. Kind of silly when you run out of patch space with half the numbers unassigned.
Who needs a synth like this? Well, if you are considering this to be your first synth, pass it up.
But if you have an arsenal of synths with all the bread and butter sounds and fat analog sounds you need, this synth could really change your music. It will be a unique synth in your studio thats for sure. Hell, its so much fun to play with I find myself wasting hours tweaking sounds just to see how far out a sound I can get...only to find that Ive created some monster that has no practicality at all in my music. If you can find one in good shape, jump on it. Where they were once blowing them out at Sam Ash a couple of years, they are creeping up in price as people are discovering the potential...
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I just discovered something interesting, and as far as I know undocumented. On the K5000s (I have version 4.03) hold down the Section up and Section down buttons for 4 or 5 seconds... "phrase preview" comes up! It's pretty cool, and loaded with demo riffs for all the singles. Don't ask me for more info, since I don't have it. Just... this keyboard is quite cool, very unique, and to top it off it has a great action.
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I posted this synth for sale 6wks ago and I'm so glad no-one buy I'm now in love with it sounds. I was in a struggle financial situation so I got to sale most my gears and I didn't take enough time out to really play with the K5000S cuz I was disappointed with the sound when I first got it a year ago and then mainly used it as a controller for all of my modules. It only til recently that I discover the hidden treasure I never knew I had. I tell you the rest of my VA's can go except for K5000S, FS1R and my sampler E5000. Sure its tideous and steep learning curve but the sounds you get are nothing short of amazing, though at time it ears pearcing pitch got you screamin for mercy of why you left the darn volume so high. This is an ambients/pad machine that I mainly used for darkwave, synthpop music types. It's great for back ground noises on your track, the drone pads really stand out over the rest of my other instrument and sounds beautifull, its really bring your track up a notch. But that's not all, I got some analog(Moogs) leads, sweeps that are just amazing(thanks to them wonderful, intellegent programmers out there that post them up for free) and the PPG & Fairlight voices that you have to listen to believe; it sounded almost exactly like a Fairlight that I'm used to hear from the 80's tracks! So you guys that are out there with K5000S and used it mainly as a controller or thought of selling it, give it another try before you rid of it. This won't do if you're doing them wonderful pop tune sounds, but anything in the ambients, darkmoods, soundtracks, newage... will work wonderful with it. The sounds are nothing like any of the synth I heard before, and it did some great emulation of the classics and it sounds full and meaty, even better than most of the current high end VA's. It just can't be beat for the current price/performance value of this synth(around $500-$800). Happy hunting!
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as an appendix to my earlier review, don't get this synth unless you're ready for some insanely complex editing time. i have been unable to grasp the synthesis engine so far since there are so many different parameters to change. the formant filters are very good at modeling vintage synths and especially e-mu's z-plane filters like on the morpheus and ultra proteus.. but my ultra proteus in some way seems a little warmer. the wavestation-esque patches make me miss my old wavestation ex...
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