Kaiwa Vox: new Kraftor firmware and Kaiwa Designer
Kaiwa Vox has a new Kraftor firmware and a dedicated browser-based Designer. Turn Japanese phrases into a robotic voice, shape their delivery, and play them from a MIDI keyboard or sequencer.
The release pairs Kaiwa firmware 1.0.2 with Kaiwa Designer 1.2. It is made for Kraftor fitted with a Kaiwa Vox board.
Write the words, shape the voice
Open Kaiwa Designer in Chrome or Edge on a desktop computer and connect Kraftor over USB. Enter Japanese in romaji, using Latin letters and the AquesTalk phonetic notation, then press Speak to hear the hardware.
Four controls change the delivery: Speed, Pitch, Accent and Vowels. Short phrases can become clipped robotic speech or slow, stretched chants. The Heart Sutra example in the user manual is a starting point for exploring the longer vowel settings.
Build a phrase bank and play it over MIDI
Edit 20 temporary RAM phrases, or store up to 100 phrases with the optional RC256 FRAM. Fill a bank from pasted text and print a MIDI reference sheet for the saved phrases. USB MIDI or Kraftor’s TRS MIDI Type B input can trigger playback and control the voice.
Clearer limits and explicit FRAM formatting
Designer 1.2 checks the phrase length after vowel elongation and shows the highest Vowels setting that fits. If a phrase would exceed the chip’s 127-byte limit, it suggests reducing Vowels or splitting the phrase.
Firmware 1.0.2 preserves unrecognized FRAM data at startup. The Designer’s Format FRAM button lets you explicitly create an empty Kaiwa bank when switching firmware. Formatting erases the existing FRAM contents, so back them up with the original firmware first.
Open Kaiwa Designer · Download the Kraftor firmware · Read the user manual