K1v allows loading of new patch banks, too.

K1v: Finding and Loading Sounds

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In this post, we’ll take a look at finding and loading sounds that are built-in to K1v, and work through the step-by-step process of loading new sounds from System Exclusive (or SysEx or .SYX files), which makes K1v a highly useful sound source for your music-making.

We will:

  1. Look at the included banks in K1v
  2. Load a “found” Kawai K1 bank and load it
  3. Reset to our Factory Banks

K1v Has Tons of Built-in Patches

One of the brilliant things about K1v, in addition to its near-perfect emulation of the Kawai K1, is the fact that there are almost 1000 sounds built into the VST. A few years ago, Kawai open-sourced the entire K1 patch library, allowing it to be downloaded from their site. As Nils developed K1v, he decided to include those sounds from the start, and make them available for users of the VST. These are easily accessed by pressing the small triangle under the “Select Bank” label on the front panel.


The Factory banks in K1v are:

  1. The K1 Factory Sounds
  2. ROM Card A1-01
  3. ROM Card A1-02
  4. ROM Card A1-03
  5. ROM Card A1-04
  6. ROM Card A1-05
  7. ROM Card A2-00
  8. ROM Card E1-01
  9. ROM Card E1-02
  10. ROM Card J1-01
  11. ROM Card J1-02
  12. ROM Card J1-03
  13. ROM Sounds from the Kawai PHm Module

Here is a a PDF that contains all of the patch names in each bank.

As Nils detailed in this blog post, he was also able to do a bit of reverse engineering of the firmware of the Kawai PHm, a half-rack module based on the K1 synthesizer engine. K1v also has those 200 or so single presets.  The total patch count is more than 30 banks of single patches, plus multis available in K1v. That’s a tremendous starting point for a VST. 

Loading Banks Found on the Internet

I have some disappointing news – there are very few (meaning hardly any) free banks available from download sites around the Internet for the K1 anymore. I admit, this was surprising to me. SoundEngine offers a collection of System Exclusive (SysEx) files collected over decades in our SoundEngine Rebuild: K1 library. We also offer commercially the K1 ProSelect bank from Technosis/Mike Peake – a collection of professionally programmed K1 sounds. Including the Factory libraries, that’s probably everything that is or ever was for the K1.

That said, don’t give up hope. With K1v out there, more 100% compatible K1 and K1v sounds will be published by folks who want to show off their programming skills. For our work in this post, I’m publishing one of the banks that I found probably a decade ago – SEFOUNDSYX. We’ll use that for loading into K1v.

Loading K1 SysEx is simple and drama-free since K1v uses K1 SysEx files as its native file format. 

Take these steps to load the bank:

  • Download this file from SoundEngine
  • Launch your DAW and load K1v onto a track, opening up the synth
  • This file is a “Bank” file of SysEx Single patches. There are other files for the K1 that you will encounter.
  • To load this bank, press the “IMPORT” button under the BANK section of the front panel, then navigate to the file that you have downloaded. 
  • Press “Open” and the Bank to import into the currently selected patch bank in K1v. You will still see the previous bank name – in this example, Kawai K1 Factory. Also, note that all of the patch names in the bank have an asterisk (*), showing an external sound loaded into that slot.
  • You’ve now loaded a new bank of sounds into the K1v VST. 

K1v Behaviors with Imported Sounds

K1v has some fundamental differences in how it handles patches from the hardware K1. These differences are mainly in the process of saving sounds. On the K1, K1m, and K1r, there is a dedicated WRITE button and a WRITE PROTECT feature that protects from accidental saves. On K1v, the behavior is different.

As far as I can tell, changes an adjustments to sounds, including loading them, are automatically stored. Importing a Bank of Singles into K1v, as we did above, automatically stores them in Memory. If you quit K1v and your DAW, those imported patches will still be there. As we get into patch management and editing sounds in K1v in future installments, we will have to keep this in mind. In the meantime, just know that the sounds you import are saved automatically, and you can always return to the K1v default sounds for any given bank by resetting it.

Once you’ve imported patches into K1v and want to reset, simply press RESET next to the Bank / Single / Multi you want. The factory defaults will be restored for that group of items.

Finishing Up

That’s it for loading a new patch bank to K1v – it’s straightforward, and very little can go wrong. I hope you enjoy the new skill, searching for new sounds, and the bank from SoundEngine. Please take a look at the Technosis Bank and our SoundEngine “Rebuild: K1” for more new sound opportunities – you will probably find something there that you like. 

The next stop on our K1v Road Trip will be touring the synth’s patch programming parameters and making a few adjustments to get a feel for the process. Thank you for reading!

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