plugin – nilsschneider.de

Nils‘ K1v: Version 1.19 released

I’ve just released an update for Nils‘ K1v, now at version 1.19. This is a maintenance release with the following fixes:

[Fix] Dropped midi events caused notes to be hanging or not played at all in some hosts
[Fix] Neither SysEx send nor receive worked in Mac AU version
[Fix] UI did not update if single parameter was changed via MIDI SysEx
[Fix] Pitch Bend changes were processed even if turned off in global settings

Please head over to the product page to download the latest version.

Download

Thanks a lot for your ongoing support! 👍

Nils‘ K1v: Version 1.12 released

I just released Nils‘ K1v at version 1.12. It contains two bug fixes and one important improvement, as I mentioned earlier in my development blog: Velocity Curves now very closely match those of the Kawai K1 hardware.

The release is available for all platforms and can be obtained from the Download Page

Changes

[Fix] One-shot waveforms (drums & others) were played looped
[Fix] Mac AU version crash when saving the plugin state (100% crash in Digital Performer 10)
[Imp] Velocity Curves are now properly implemented and very closely match those of the K1 hardware. If you are interested in details, feel free to visit the K1 development blog

Nils‘ K1v now available as Mac/Linux VST & official approval by KAWAI!

Finally, after waiting several weeks, Kawai reported back to me that they have no issues with me developing a Kawai K1 emulation. This is great news for me personally as I was still concerned that Kawai could respond in a way that would bring me in trouble. But they did not! 👍 They even sent high quality Kawai logos that I’m allowed to integrate into the plugin, I’m impressed, big thanks to Kawai!

Furthermore, there are now Linux & Mac versions of the VST. For Linux, there are .deb and .rpm packages in both 32 bits and 64 bits. The Mac version requires a 64 bit OS, minimum version is OS X 10.9 Mavericks.

For Mac, an AU version will definitely come. LV2 for Linux, too! Stay tuned.

Special thanks to all donators and to all testers at the KvR forum, a lot of people helped making the plugin available for Linux & Mac by testing on their machines.

Kawai K1: VSTi released!

During past weeks, I worked a lot on the User Interface. For faster iteration times, I did the layout in Unity3D and wrote an exporter to create an xml and bitmaps for VSTGUI. This allowed me to do adjustments to the layout very quickly:

The first layouts that I posted some time ago had to get some updates. I forgot a section to set the name of a Preset and the Play mode page had to get some additional buttons, plus a search box to find presets quickly.

Some people pointed out that it would be better to have all sources on one page for faster editing. I tried it, but it just didn’t fit on one page properly. I didn’t want to ruin the design completely and the editing functionality is already really good in my opinion.

For the emulation engine, I had to do some minor finishing touches and fixed some bugs:

Ring Modulation didn’t behave correctly when being set to reverse mode
Fixed ring modulation caused envelopes to be applied twice, resulting in wrong decay & release behaviour
Implementation of Poly 2, Poly 1 and Mono modes was still missing
K1v will now correctly respond to Sysex messages, just as a real K1 does
Support to mix Source levels with the Joystick
Some code fixes to support 64 bit compilation
Midi: Pan, Main Volume, Program Change including Bank Select, Hold Pedal, All Notes Off
State serialization to make it possible that the state is saved as part of a DAW project
Wrong key scaling curve 4

And lots of other smaller things! 👍

If you want to support me, feel free to donate:

The product page is located here: Nils‘ K1v

Product Listing on KVR: Nils‘ K1v

Kawai K1: VST features, differences & UI mockups

I’ve got many questions about the VST plugin, so I wanted to give some more & updated information about it.

VST Version & Operating System Support

Initial plugin will be a VST 2.4 plugin (VST3 later)
Two versions will be available from start, x86 and x64
As I don’t own a Mac and I’m not familiar with Mac programming, I can’t port it easily to a Mac AU. I have a colleague that could help out here, don’t expect it too soon though.

Features

Instead of the original voice limit of 8/16 voices, the plugin will have unlimited voices
It will contain the K1 factory bank, the K1-II factory bank and all ROM cards, giving a total of 768 Single presets. Multi support is not planned for the first version.
Full editing capability (see UI section below)
SysEx import & export, which will basically make the plugin become a possible editor for a real K1
All Single parameters can be VST automated + the Source Mix Stick will get two automatable parameters

MIDI

The plugin will support all MIDI messages that the real K1 supports such as program changes, Midi CCs, receiving Sysex is supported as well:

All Data Block Dump (i.e. a full Bank of Singles)
Single Data Dump (one Single)

I extended the MIDI feature list compared to a real K1 to now include support for the following additional midi messages:

MIDI CC 10 (Panning, which the K1 did not support)
The K1 Source Mix stick will be mapped to two Midi CCs
Bank Select – Used to switch between the various factory banks and ROM cards. As usual, Bank Select must be send before a Program Change
Pitch Bend wheel will use full precision (K1 is limited to 8 bits)
Most of the Single parameters will be mapped to Midi CCs so they can be edited via an external Midi Controller

UI Mockups

I’ve received a lot of feedback for the very first UI mockup, which wasn’t even finished. I continued working on it to clarify some things. My intention was to have something that someone instantly recognized as being a K1. But of course, at the same time I always wanted the UI to be functional, including full editing capability.

Below are the two editing pages (Common + Source) and the „Play Mode“, where you can browse through the banks / singles.

Hope this clears things up a bit 🙂 And yes, the VST window will be resize-able, maximum resolution is 2560 x 1440