RS062 Kawai XD-5: Funky Drummer

Cheap recycling attempt or ingenious visionary product?

For some reason, in 1989 Kawai decided to release a version of their popular K4 series synth that had most of it’s stock waveforms replaced by 80s flavored drum sound.

Whatever the intention behind this product was, the result of this conversion was a wildly unique machine, a Franken-Drum-Synth of sorts, with sound creation and editing capabilities that go far beyond what your average 80s sample based drum machine or even many modern drum machines offer.

Every drum sound can consist of a blend of up to four one shot and/or single cycle waveforms, each of which can have individual amp and (dual! resonant low pass) filters ADSRs, individual pitch bend envelopes and ring modulation between the samples.

64 of these drum sound monstrosities can be arranged into one the 16 drum kits and assigned to six individual outputs. Yes you can also make plain old boring 80s drum kits, but for everyone willing to experiment, there are tons of potential for some wild sounds.

While I have barely scratched the surface of what could be done with the XD-5, I’m already in love with this 80s rack drum powerhouse. Weird drum synths for the win!


Sharing is caring, you can download animations I create for my channel to use in your own projects on my new sub channel Rejected Synths Recycling Center:

   / @rsrecycling  


Playlist:

0:00 Intro
0:30 Introduction
1:57 Synth Engine
2:53 Controls and Connectivity
3:54 Stock Single Sound Demos
5:31 Stock Drum Kit Demos
6:22 Custom Drum Kit Demo
7:10 Demo Track
10:38 Conclusion
11:05 Outro