At SoundEngine, we’re often fans of free synthesizers that make new sounds accessible to anyone. We’re big advocates of dexed, the free DX7 emulator. We also happen to be big fans of Nils Schneider’s K1v Kawai K1 emulation plug-in. It’s a spot-on emulation of the Kawai K1 synthesizer (and the K1r and K1m) from the late 80’s. Today, we will:

1. Download and get started with K1v,
2. learn a little history about the Kawai K1, and
3. step through the included sounds within the VST.

The beauty of K1v is not only its very accurate emulation of all of the synthesis parameters of the original K1 but also the additional built-in library of 1350+ sounds that are instantly accessible from the front page of the user interface. The real question is, why bother with an emulation of the K1, a comparatively underpowered synthesizer compared to its competition from the same era?

My History with the Kawai K1

The Kawai K1 was originally released in 1988, right around the time that the Korg M1 was released, and about a year after the Roland D-50. Since I was an employee of Sequential starting in 1986, the D-50 absolutely got our attention. I remember climbing upstairs at Guitar Showcase in San Jose, pressing C4 on “Digital Native Dance,” and thinking … “Uh-oh.” I can also report that the K1 was not on our radar at all. We didn’t have one in the lab, and no one was concerned about it. This is likely because it was considered a “budget synth” and was also considered reasonably low fidelity, the Sequential team.

The K1’s sound engine is built on 256 8-bit waveforms, no digital filters, and no built-in effects. Considering that, there’s really not much to work with in the K1. Somehow though, I’ve always been drawn to the sound. I’ve owned two separate K1rs and a K1m in my lifetime. I lightened the load a few years ago in the studio, reducing the amount of hardware I owned,  but I was thrilled to find the K1v VST. 

What’s Under the Hood?

Even though there are no filters and no effects, the inclusion of 256 waveforms- mostly additive-based, with around 50 being acoustic samples – provides plenty of options for the four oscillators per voice to generate interesting combinations of audio. There’s also Amplitude Modulation (AM) available for the oscillators to interact in mostly controlled distortion sort of ways. The factory ROM samples and the Kawai-suppled patches are what really make the K1 an interesting piece to have around. In my opinion, the noise from the 8-bit samples, combined with programming that stretches the limits of the hardware, is a testament to both the design and programming teams. In essence, it’s really synthesis at a fundamental level – acheiving new sounds by mixing audio samples and not having the “crutch” of a low-pass filter (LOL – when I programmed synthesizers in my day … get off of my lawn!).

K1v – it’s an excellent emulation

Nils’ K1v provides all of the excellent Kawai factory patches and extremely accurate emulation of the K1 synthesizer. As a VST, it offers the opportunity to increase the modulation options and add effects within your DAW (we’ll get into that in subsequent posts). The visual design of the VST looks a lot like a Kawai K1m, so it’s fairly intuitive. It’s also small in size but can take up an acceptable portion of your CPU during performance – something to monitor while you are working with your compositions – Nils even mentions this indirectly in the Change Log.

K1v is available for MacOS, Windows, and Debian and RedHat incarnations of Linux. From what I can gather from his blog, the original version of K1v was released in May 2020. It was steadily maintained, with several bug fixes and maintenance releases through September 2022, and appears to be stable at the moment. It’s my guess that development has paused due to this stability and perhaps that Nils is working on a K4 emulation he discusses on his site.

Where to find it

Nils’ K1v VSTi instrument can be found on his website: 

https://www.nilsschneider.de/wp/nils-k1v/

Here, he publishes a feature list and description of the synthesizer engine. It’s also notable that he has a “Donate” button on the site to encourage further development of the K1 VSTi and potentially a K4 VSTi, which he mentions in his read-worthy blog posts. If you do happen to read the blog posts, you’ll see an interesting history of his development of the synth, too.

The download links to the operating systems he currently supports are below the “Donate” button (yes, you may wonder, I have). I’ll encourage you here again to go to his site [LINK]  to get the latest links, as I know that sometimes there are reasons that they must change. He lists

• Windows VST (32 & 64-bit)
• Linux VST Debian (32 & 64-bit)
• Linux VST RedHat (32 & 64-bit), and
• Mac OSX 10.9 or later 64-bit VST2, VST3, or Audio Unit (AU)

Which one should I download for Mac?

That’s a good question. These days, many plug-in developers just install AAX (ProTools), VST2, VST3, and AU formats on your computer – I’m looking at you, UA and Arturia. They don’t offer the option to select which of the formats you want. [Prepared rant mode ON] this practice ends up consuming a lot of unused and wasted disk space if you never use these formats. [Prepared Rant mode OFF].

On the Mac, I recommend downloading the format you will use most often or do use most often for your other Synth VSTis. I consciously use AUs for instruments on my Mac because they work on both Studio One and Logic, my two DAWs of choice. However, if I were a Cubase user, I would probably go with either VST2 or VST3. 

It’s important to note however, that if you have aspirations to use K1v as a computer editor/librarian for a hardware Kawai K1, you’ll need one of the VST versions. AudioUnits do not have the ability to send MIDI data. I realized this while writing the article and decided to have undermine my own prepared rant and have two versions of K1v on my hard drive.

Installation

You can always bookmark Nils’ K1v page and install the version you need as needed. I’ll next walk through step-by-step installs for Mac and Windows. For Linux users, I’m sorry, but my attempt at walking you through this would probably be wrong and certainly fake—I know nothing about Linux. You Linux users are probably smarter than me anyway and know *exactly* how to do it without my guidance.

As I mentioned in a similar tutorial about installing the fantastic, free Dexed FM synthesizer plugin, when I first learned of K1v, I thought, “Great, a free plug-in!” then, when I realized that you didn’t actually buy it, have an installer process, and company support, I thought “great, a free plugin!” – LOL. The short story is that because K1v is a free plug-in, there is no traditional infrastructure for installation, downloading, and authorization for the synth. As we have shown, it’s slightly more involved than commercially sold plug-ins, but nothing you can’t handle.

Let’s download and get started with K1v.

Step-by-step Installation (Mac)

1. If you have your DAW open at this time, please close it at this time. K1v will not automatically be available in the DAW once we are done with the installation. Your DAW will need to re-scan all plug-ins before K1v is recognized
2. Click on the desired version of the plug-in that works best with your DAW
3. You will find the plug in your “Downloads” folder – double-click it to unzip. The result will be a file called Nilsk1v.component, an AU plug-in. Depending on which version you downloaded, you may also see Nilsk1v.vst, or Nilsk1v.vst3
4. Open another Finder window and navigate to [Your Computer HD Name] → Library → Audio → Plug-Ins.  Here you will see several folders, including CLAP, VST, VST3, and components. For VST2 versions of Nils’ K1v, drag the plug-in file, not the ZIP, from the Downloads folder to the VST folder. Similarly, for the VST3, version drag it to the VST3 folder, and for the AU version, drag the plug-in into the Components folder
5. Now, you have installed Nils’ K1v. Congratulations!

Step-By-Step Installation (Windows)

1. If you have your target DAW open at this time, I recommend closing it, because K1v will not automatically be useable in the DAW once we’re done here – your DAW will need to re-scan all plug-ins before K1v is recognized.
2. Click on the Windows version of the plug-in zip file and download it.
3. You will find the plug in your “Downloads” folder – double-click it to unzip. The result of un-zipping will be four files – two versions of the .VST3 and two versions of the .DLL (VST2).
4. For .dll (VST2) plug-ins on Windows, here are the usual locations they are stored:

• C:\Program Files\VSTPlugins
• C:\Program Files\Steinberg\VSTPlugins
• C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST 2
• C:\Program Files\Common Files\Steinberg\VST2
• C:\Program Files (x86)\Steinberg\VstPlugins (For 32-bit plugins on 64-bit version of Windows)

5. For VST3 plug-ins, the usual locations are:

• C:\Program Files\Common Files\VST3
• C:\Program Files (x86)\Common Files\VST3 (For 32-bit VST 3 plug-ins on 64-bit versions of Windows) 

6. Choose which one makes sense for your system and drag-and-drop the appropriate plug-in to that folder
7. Now, you have installed Nils’ K1v. Congratulations!

Pick a DAW, Any DAW

One difference between K1v and Dexed [LINK to OWNER’s MANUAL] is that K1v currently has no stand-alone version. Sadly, instant gratification of launching the app and playing sounds needs to be delayed until we launch our DAW, scan all of the plug-ins, and instantiate K1v.

In Studio One, getting K1v to work couldn’t be easier – drag K1v from the Browser window to the left to create a track that uses it as an instrument.

Navigating the Installed Patches

Selecting patches in the UI is simple—click on any patch name and select that sound. The small triangle to the right of the “Kawai K1 Factory” bank name provides a pop-up that makes switching between the included banks simple.

Nils also thoughtfully included a search window, so if you are looking for “Baltimore” from Kawai K1 card E1-02, you can quickly find it.

Conclusion

We learned a little history, downloaded and installed Nils’ K1v VST – a fantastic free plug-in that perfectly emulates the Kawai K1, and navigated its included patch banks. To me, that’s a good day’s work.

At SoundEngine.com, where we’re all about empowering you, whether you’re a professional sound designer or an audio enthusiast. Our mission is to fuel your creativity with high-quality sample packs and patch libraries that won’t break the bank. With decades of experience crafting sounds, we give you mix-ready sounds that can take your projects to the next level.

Our next K1v adventure, we’ll take a look at locating, downloading, and playing K1 patches that we’ve scoured on the Web. There’s a ton of them out there. In the meantime, don’t hesitate to browse around the various screens of K1v. There’s a lot of options in there, and we will figure out how to maximize them in future posts. Thanks for reading!