Canadian ambient electronica artist synth4ever shared this vintage synth review of the Kawai K3:
“The Kawai K3 is an underrated vintage digital/analog hybrid synthesizer from 1986 with wavetable-ish sounds,” he notes. “In this review, I cover Kawai K3 features, sounds, likes/dislikes, and provide my final thoughts.”
Check out the review, and share your thoughts on the Kawai K3 synthesizer in the comments!
ah, a refugee from the age of 5 octave keyboards. such majesty.
I owned a K3 and thought it was a hidden gem. Absolutely loved the glassy sounds you could create and how well they stacked with analog polysynths. I sold mine because the user interface was absolutely terrible, like programming a microwave oven while twiddling a coffee coaster.
I’m with frodo. Synths with big square grids make programming tedious. Yamaha is especially guilty there. The K3 is a nice instrument from that period of hybrids like Korg’s DW8000. Now, wavetables are a given. I’m glad I had a DW, because the concept has grown into something amazing.
Also, there are a lot of options now, of course, but some of those 80s keys have a decent feel. They can make decent MIDI controllers, even when you’re more DAW & USB based.