jBamâs Kawai XD-5
Kawai... Good old Kawai. Â The XD-5 is either confused, or brilliant... Iâm still not sure which one.
The absurd yet just fantastic approach they adopted for the XD-5 sound engine is... itâs just so funny, yet powerful and accidentally deep... (I honestly think they didnât intend for it to be used to make half the sounds that I squeeze out of it). Â
Mirroring the engine (basically) of its keyboard / rack synthesiser counterpart (the Kawai K4), the XD-5 dives into a ROM based 90âČs Digital Drum Synthesiser wonderland, dominated by:Â
4 âOscillatorsâ (or rather sound sources, ranging from waves; one shots; and looping sounds), grouped into two groups of two that can modulate each other within these groups (amplitude modulation... but in the digital domain, this has some seriously cool and unexpected results as the bits and bytes flip out and squeeze into a new sound to be converted to audio)...Â
2 basically horrible filters that still serve a role in pushing the engine beyond the ordinary (parallel with one for each of the 2 sub groups; or in serial together on the overall mix)...
Seemingly rudimentary envelopes.. BUT - you can delay the start of an âoscillatorâ sounding... Clicks and Claps are so generously enhanced via this, especially with very tight envelop settings... and the combination of envelopes here also allows effective âuse the attack of this, and the ring of thatâ programming...
The fantastic array of expected, odd, and then outright-questionable-sound-sources allow you to create a seemingly endless supply of new tones through the modulation options. Â And to top it off, when pushed seriously hard, thereâs some kind of an anti-aliasing engine that decides to give up in the upper limits (high pitches) and goes freakinâ insane with awesome digital glitchy results that are beautifully consistent (repeatable) and useable.
Other glorious features include, as with the Drum Station, the ability to keyboard track sounds - this is far more capable on the XD-5 however, enabling it to effectively become a musical synthesiser. Creating correctly pitched drum sounds is a breeze in the XD-5, and this combined with keyboard tracking presents really cool options for percussive melodic parts in your tracks... Â HHâs, shakers, bongos, kicks and FX... Subtle to wild variations that are genuinely inspiring during the writing process are a few MIDI notes away. Thereâs also some handy velocity programming options, allowing limited but useful control of patch parameters that gives a meaningful variation to your grooves. Â These two features alone place the XD-5 as one of the few pieces of kit out there that youâll want to leave plugged in and ready to go (rather than just making a bunch of samples and loops and popping it on the shelf).
This is by far my most used drum synth, and it gets a full reprogramming session at least once a year...
LOVE: Â
The fuzzy wonderful sound...
The start delay ----> itâs a clicks and claps party...
The endless âbrand newâ patches you can get out of it...
The âlive useâ benefits via velocity and keyboard tracking.
The glitchy high notes that are just SO damn good. Man... *love XD-5*
Enough patch storage to keep me busy, but not so much that I forget about sounds... Â I get 6-12 months out each programming session.. and then start again from scratch.
WONâT COMPLAIN.. BUT(s):
No Inbuilt Power Supply - but I love this box too much... If I only allowed one wall wart, itâd be on the XD-5...
The horrendous front panel design and styling. Â Push button programming sucks anywhere, but again... Too much love for this box, and I legitimately enjoy my time programming it in depth too. Â In fact - itâs kinda cool looking, especially next to the K4 rack ---> like a 90s sci-fi film spaceship console...