The Audio Playground Synthesizer Museum

Advanced Additive Synthesis...

You've Never Been Here Before.

The heart of Kawai's Advanced Additive technology
is the additive Wave Set. A Wave Set consists of 64
harmonics, either #1-64 or #65-128 from the natural
overtone series. Each harmonic is controlled by its
own 5-stage, looping amplitude envelope.
Remarkably rich textures that evolve over extremely
long periods of time are easily created with this
system.

The timbrel character of each wave set can be molded
by our exclusive 128-band Formant Filter. This new
Formant Filter can be used to simulate naturally
occurring tonal characteristics (such as the tube of a
clarinet or the body of an acoustic guitar). Create
radically new sonic landscapes by using a 5-stage
looping envelope or an LFO to gently sweep or
violently rip the Formant Filter across the harmonic
spectrum of the Wave Set.

In addition to using additive Wave Sets, the user can
choose from 123 specially designed PCM samples
created to add "spice" to the sound. Choose attack
transients, noises and metallic tones, or even classic
analog synth waveforms. Another spice element is
Amplitude Modulation, where one source is chosen
to modulate another. AM can create amazing,
complex timbres and inharmonic overtones that are
unattainable through other synthesis techniques.

A single Advanced Additive "source" is either a
Wave Set with Formant Filter or a PCM sample.
Each source is further modified by a traditional DCF
and DCA, and by individual routing to any of 4
separate effects. Up to 6 sources can be combined to
create a single voice, or "patch". Finish off your
patch by adding reverb and tweaking it with a 7-band
graphic equalizer.