Full Bucket Music has announced the release of its free FB3 software instrument, simulating the classic Kawai K3/K3m synths from 1986.
It started life when developer Björn Arlt noticed increased traffic on his website, and discovered he’d been linked to from an Espen Kraft video showcasing his plugins. Making contact, they ended up collaborating on a Kawai K3 plugin, with Espen Kraft sharing sounds, samples and insights from his own hardware K3m (the module version of the K3).
FB3 is a decent simulation of the original hardware plus additional features such as increased polyphony, a decent parameter editor grip, User Wave import and so on.
Features
Describing it as “close enough”, FB3 has the following features:
- Simulation of the original wave generator unit
- Original factory sounds
- Up to 64 voices polyphony
- User interface can be used to edit the original K3/K3m units
- SysEx and User Wave import and export
- Resizable user interface (not “N” version!)
- Supports MTS-ESP by ODDSound dynamic micro-tuning
- MIDI Learn – all parameters can be controlled by MIDI CC
- Plug-in supports Windows and macOS (32 bit and 64 bit)
- No AI tools were used, except for a few stylistic improvements to the English in the manual
