Kawai K1 II
A K1 with reverb and a drum section added. It fixed the two loudest complaints about the original.
Overview
The K1 II is the same multitimbral, sampled-waveform synth as the original K1. Kawai added a digital reverb and a separate drum section that runs independently of the other voices. Collectors keep coming back to the drums. They don't eat synth voices, so you can build a full arrangement on one keyboard without watching your polyphony vanish every time a kick triggers.
The K1 II carried a list price of $995. Kawai's Digital Products Group sold it out of Compton, California. It shows up in dealer stock lists of the period alongside the K4, the K1R rack, and the KC10, a full K-series lineup that retailers like Gelb were pushing hard in the early '90s. The K1 II wasn't a flagship. It was the working musician's version of a synth that was already selling well. By the mid-'90s it was common enough to turn up in readers' home-studio rigs, as one Sound On Sound (May 1995, p.12) correspondent listed a K1 II alongside an Alesis D4, a Casio VZ8, and an Evolution EVS1.
The K1 II inherits the K1 architecture: sampled waveforms rather than true analog oscillators, multitimbral operation, and a voice structure built for layering. The manual's parts list confirms a 61-key keyboard and a lithium battery for patch memory retention. That's standard for the era, but it matters if you're buying one used. The battery is decades old now, and a dead cell means your user patches are gone the moment the power cuts.
Per the service documentation, the internal layout splits the work across several boards. The MI-033 is a volume board. The MI-049 handles CPU, MPU, code ROM, tone RAM, work RAM, decode, buffer, MIDI, wave ROM, reverb, D/A conversion, system reset, amplification, low-pass filtering, line out, and hold power supply. The MI-050 covers velocity sensing, amplification, A/D select, and pressure. Two tone generator chips (KTG001 and KTG002), a pair of D/A converters (PD6355G), and SRAM for work memory round out the digital side. That's a lot of silicon for a sub-$1000 board, and it's how the K1 II does reverb and independent drums without a second rack unit.
If you want the K1 sound with more practical flexibility, the K1 II is the one to get. The drum section alone is worth it for anyone sequencing without a dedicated drum machine. If you already own a K1 and don't need reverb or drums, there's no reason to double up. If you're hunting a K1 II, check the battery first and confirm the reverb section works. Those are the two failure points that matter.
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