The Kawai K1 was my first “real” synthesizer. Prior to that I had only ever played with my Casio MT-18 and compared to that, the Kawai K1 was endless palette of awesome sounds. It began a long love affair with Kawai synthesizers and ultimately I’ve owned all of them at some point in time. They’re all gone now, replaced by other synths with better interfaces and features but my love for the sounds the Kawai K1 produced has stayed strong over the years. So, prior to selling my last Kawai K1r last year, I took the time to sample each of it’s single cycle waveforms, single shot samples and loops. 256 samples in all.

They are all presented here as 44.1khz 24bit wave files along with a PDF file of a document that came along with the original K1’s detailing all of the samples. Enjoy.

DOWNLOAD HERE FOR FREE

If you dig these samples and want to contribute something for my efforts, I’ve released a ton of music I’d love for more people to hear. Buy a record and you’ll make my day!
You can find most of my releases on Bandcamp here:
Chvad SB (solo releases. ambient, drone, noise)
Controlled Bleeding (Industrial, noise, pro, free-jazz, ambient, power electronics)
THINGS OUTSIDE THE SKIN (Industrial, rock, punk, noise)
Blood in Vain (Industrial, noise)
Tongue Muzzle (experimental, improvisational, spoken word, noise, industrial)
Mutant Yarmulkes (quirky, experimental, Residence-like)

NOTE: The first 204 samples are single cycle waveforms are VERY VERY SHORT by nature and must be looped to sound like anything other than a short click. Most samplers can deal with this rather gracefully but I personally love using the TAL-Sampler if you need a place to start. You can load up to four samples at a time much like the K1’s ability to have four sources and with an external MIDI controller you can mix in between those sources just like on the full-sized Kawai K1 (the K1r lacked this ability as it had no joystick and lacked MIDI control over those parameters). It’s affordable, easy and well supported.

NOTE NOTE: Special thanks to Kawai Japan and Kawai America for permission to post these samples. As this is not an official product, Kawai Japan and Kawai America do not, in any way, offer any support regarding the use of these samples.

NOTE NOTE NOTE: These samples were originally linked from my personal music site at http://www.chvad.com/kawai-k1-samples. This is the same sample set as presented there and if you left a comment on that site showing your love for these samples, they are still posted there! Cheers and thanks! -C