| I dunno much about the K-1 (loved the K3, though). There are audio
processing techniques that will add beef to the wimpiest kick drum.
These include boosting EQ at about 50cps, running it thru a compressor
to get a sharper transient at the beginning of the sound, running the
sound into an appropriate reverb field to get a bigger BOOM, perhaps
using a gated reverb sound for a higher-tech effect, and perhaps a
very short digital delay to fatten it up. Of course this implies that
you have the luxury of effecting ONLY the kick drum sound, and you
haven't said enough about your setup for me to guess.
karl
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| To fatten up and punch out the drum sounds:
In the K1 itself, double up the drum sounds with a little bit
of delay and with slightly (or more) different pitches. Add together different
types of sounds. Add an initial noise blip here and a low sine boom there. Use
the LFO to further fatten up that sound. You can produce a pretty nice flanging
effect with that too. Use the AM modulation and see how that sounds. Make sure
all the internal volume levels are way up. Having a good amp and speakers,
of course, helps a lot.
A lot of nice things you can do with that machine.
Hope it helps
Paul
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| Re: .4
I have a K1-II, which is a slight upgrade to the K1. Before I bought it I read
Electronic Musician for almost two years and watched everythin that came out on
the market. An ivory-tinkler for more years than many of you folks have been
alive, I was determined not to go without touch sensitivity, but I couldn;t
justify $1000-plus either. The K1-II was (and may still be) the only machine
in its price range to offer that. I paid $595 at a shop in Salem, NH in December
of 1989.
I realize that a number of machines on the market have far more flexibility as
well as superior sound. The K1-II is basically identical to the K1 in voice
architecture- it just adds an internal effects section and a separate set of
(non-editable) drum sounds. The drum sounds can also be stored as singles and
edited; this just gives you, in effect, more polyphony and polytimbrality.
(Whew, what a mouthful!)
Both machines have 8-bit sound, which has however been companded to get the most
out of the available bits. Most machines have 16-bit, which definitely yields
superior sound. Voice architecture on high-priced machines seems to me to be
universally superior to the K1 and K1-II. My dream machine right now would be
the VFX/SD, for instance- but I don't have 2K to play with!
Some new Yamaha synths are getting down there in price, like the SY22. Apart
from the used market, I still know of nothing directly competing with the K1-II
in price, but discount on the SY22 would probably come close. Personally, I went
for a 4-track rather than SGU expansion, but I was looking closely at the
Yamaha "sort-of-rack-mount" TG33 SGU as a good way to get into vector synthesis
without getting into gear replacement.
Gee, I just noticed that I acknowledged all the K1-II's weak points but didn't
point out that I like it! In terms of getting 90% of what I want in a synth for
25% of the price, I have zero complaints. I like the feel of the keyboard, the
internal drum and effects sections are a definite plus (yes, I realize the
superiority of outboard versions of both), and I'm basically more than satisfied
with my purchase. Would I make the same purchase today? Hard to say. So much has
changed, both in the market and for me, but some of that was probably due to my
HAVING the Kawai in the first place! Since you already have your K1, that may
not be relevant to you, dunno.
Hope you find some of this useful.
Cheers,
Bob
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