The first software recreation of the Kawai K5000 advanced additive synthesizer. 64 harmonics per source. Six sources. Spectral MORF morphing. A 128-band formant filter. And a librarian for your real K5000 hardware.
$79 · VST3 · CLAP · Standalone · Windows · No subscriptions
Odd harmonics, decaying — classic pipe organ
Released in 1996, the Kawai K5000 gave each note its own 64-harmonic spectrum with independent envelopes — every partial could grow, shrink, and evolve independently over time. It produced sounds no subtractive synth could touch: impossibly rich strings, evolving bells, vocal-like pads. Then Kawai discontinued it, and nobody rebuilt it.
Until now. Spektra-5000 faithfully recreates the entire K5000 additive engine in software — and extends it with MORF spectral morphing, a 128-band formant filter, and 32-voice polyphony.
Each note has its own 64-harmonic spectrum with soft and loud envelopes, giving every partial independent control over time. Six ADD sources per patch, each with a completely different spectrum.
Morph between two complete harmonic spectra in real time — interpolate every partial independently. Sounds no subtractive filter can produce: bells that become strings, organs that breathe.
A 128-band vocoder-quality formant filter that sculpts the harmonic content into vocal shapes, vowel motions, and resonant body tones — the K5000's signature sound-design tool, fully implemented.
Every effect from the original K5000 — chorus, delay, reverb, distortion, EQ, rotary, compressor, and 30 more — faithfully recreated and chainable. Plus modern improvements where the originals had aliasing or noise.
Load your existing K5000 sound banks directly — .KAA, .KA1, and .SYX SysEx formats. Your 25-year-old patches load and sound exactly as they did on the hardware. Export back to .KA1 for hardware round-tripping.
The original K5000 managed 16 voices, taxed. Spektra-5000 delivers 32 voices of full additive synthesis on a modern CPU — enough for dense pads and layered performances without voice stealing.
If you've been maintaining K5000 sound banks for decades, Spektra-5000 doesn't ask you to start over. It reads the original binary formats directly.
Full bidirectional SysEx transfer · tested with 403 Kawai bank files
Every preset was designed from scratch using Spektra-5000's additive engine — not ported, not converted. 48 hand-crafted factory presets: evolving pads, glassy bells, rich organs, vocal textures, and sounds that don't have a category yet.
+ 43 more · Plus a built-in preset generator for endless variation
| Synthesis | Additive — 64 harmonics per ADD source, 6 sources per patch, per-harmonic envelopes (soft + loud) |
|---|---|
| MORF | Spectral morphing — real-time interpolation between two complete 64-harmonic spectra |
| Formant Filter | 128-band vocoder-quality formant filter with vowel/resonance shaping |
| Effects | All 37 K5000 effect types — chorus, delay, reverb, distortion, EQ, rotary, compressor, and more |
| Polyphony | 32 voices (up from 16 on the original hardware) |
| Modulation | LFO, AM, arpeggiator, DCF, DCA with per-source routing, velToEnv, LFO key-scaling, BP/Notch filter modes |
| K5000 Import | .KAA, .KA1, .SYX SysEx bank import · .KA1 export · hardware librarian |
| Presets | 48 hand-crafted factory presets — curated pads, leads, basses, bells, organs, strings, FX, MORF morphing, and filtered textures |
| Formats | VST3, CLAP, Standalone |
| Requirements | Windows 10+ (64-bit, x64) — macOS and Linux builds planned, not yet shipping |
| Build | JUCE 8.0.13 · 6,700+ lines of C++ |
No subscriptions. No iLok. Buy it, own it forever.
Perpetual license — buy once, own it forever.