4 Feb 2010
The Kawai SX-210: Does it sound as cool as it looks?
Well here’s something different. In a sea of Roland Junos and various polysynths from Korg and Yamaha there were some other lesser known contenders from Kawai, Crumar and various other European and Japanese companies with a lot of similarities and a few key differences. I must admit when I hear the name Kawai I think of either entry-level home keyboards or upright pianos. The company was started in 1927, and made guitars and pianos, sometimes under different brand names. In the 80s they started branching more into the “pro – level” market, introducing synthesizers both under the Teisco brand and their own name. I really should give Kawai props for actually making the classic “one knob for all the different functions” concept actually easy to use. You just hit the parameter you want to edit and twist the knob. (Much like the Moog Source) A lot of the others tried to do this, but you usually have to punch some stupid parameter number in and squint at a little chart. Personally I blame Yamaha’s DX 7, which after an industry changing debut in 1983 became the standard against which all other synthesizers were measured. (Actually the SX-210 came out the same year) People started looking at instruments like the Prophet – 5 and the Oberheim OBXa and saying “That thing’s got too many knobs! Why doesn’t it look futuristic like the DX-7?” Also, manufacturers like to save a buck whenever they can, and by eliminating as many knobs off of the front panel as possible they save money. Most people didn’t care anyways, because they would just use the pre – programmed patches. Lazy, lazy, LAZY! Another unique feature of the SX-210 is the large (by 80s standards) LED display. While some other synths just displayed numbers of patches, this is a full alphanumeric display so you can name your patches. So how does it actually sound? Pretty darn good I think. It’s actually a very warm sound; being a former Juno 106 owner I found this one to be darker and mellower sounding. They’re definitely two very different animals. It can’t touch my OB-8’s fatness, but nothing that has DCOs really can. Apparently there is also an SX-240, which is a similar deal but with another DCO, internal sequencer and MIDI. Now THAT would be the one to get! Here are some sound examples. The first is the “Strings 3” preset with the ensemble effect on, next the “Harp” preset while using the parameter dial to tweak the filter cutoff, then the patch named ”B-II-2” (not really sure what that means) and finally a patch called “what?”