Full Bucket Music will soon release FB3, a free software emulation of the Kawai K3 hybrid synthesizer from 1986.
I first saw the news on Synth Anatomy, run by my good friend Tom, and the first proper look comes from Espen Kraft’s video based on a beta version of the plugin.
FB3 is not publicly available yet, so this is a coming-soon article rather than a download post. Still, as a massive, massive fan of Full Bucket Music synths, I had to mention it.
BPB readers may have noticed that already, especially since I included Full Bucket Music’s Fury-800 as one of the two required instruments in the first BPB Monthly Music Challenge. Fury-800 is Björn Arlt’s free Korg Poly-800 emulation, and that probably says enough about how much I trust Full Bucket Music when it comes to free synth plugins.
Normally, I associate Full Bucket Music with Korg emulations because Björn has made so many of them. FB3 is a nice reminder that Full Bucket Music does other things too, and this time the inspiration is the Kawai K3.
I used to own a Kawai K1 module a long, long time ago. It was one of the first hardware synths I got, and I have to admit I was too new to music production back then to appreciate it properly. I sold it, and I regret that now. It was actually very cool for pads and digital textures.
The K3 is a different and more complex instrument, but it sits in that same broad family of interesting Kawai digital/hybrid machines. The original Kawai K3 combined additive/wavetable-style digital oscillators with analog filtering and envelopes, and FB3 follows that general architecture.
According to the preview, FB3 includes two oscillators with the original 32 digital waveforms, oscillator balance and range controls, plus coarse and fine tuning for oscillator 2. It also includes a resonant low-pass filter, a high-pass filter, two ADSR envelopes for filter and amplifier, and an LFO with delay that can be routed to the VCF and VCA.
Velocity and aftertouch are included for both filter and amp, and the plugin can load Kawai K3 SysEx patches. Espen Kraft also points out that the beta can import additional waveforms, although the original K3’s harmonic user-wave editing does not appear to be implemented in the beta.
The video sounds very promising already. As expected from Full Bucket Music, FB3 looks like another excellent free synth is on the way.
Full Bucket Music FB3 is expected to be released for macOS and Windows in VST, VST3, AU, CLAP, and AAX plugin formats, with native Apple Silicon and Intel Mac support.
More info: Full Bucket Music (FB3 is coming soon)
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Last Updated on July 27, 2026 by Tomislav Zlatic.
