Espen Kraft Unleashes the Kawai Q-80EX: 32-Track Mayhem from the 80s

Let’s get it out there: the Kawai Q-80EX isn’t just another 80s sequencer gathering dust. Espen Kraft wastes no time flexing its wild 32-track muscle—a number that absolutely dwarfs the Roland MC-500’s eight and the Yamaha QX3’s sixteen. If you want to layer MIDI drums like it’s a rave in a phone booth, this is your machine.

But it’s not just about track count. The Q-80EX also comes packing a battery backup, so your ideas don’t evaporate the second you power down—something the competition can’t claim. Sure, the buttons aren’t as chunky as the others, but they’re tactile enough for fast hands, and Kraft’s had zero issues. It’s a classic case of brains over brawn, with a dash of practical 80s wizardry.

Here’s where the Q-80EX starts throwing elbows. Kraft demos the ability to repeat individual tracks independently—a trick neither the MC-500 nor QX3 can pull off. Want two bell lines looping while the bass does its own thing? Sorted. It’s the kind of flexible sequencing that lets you break free from rigid patterns and mess with structure on the fly. For live heads and experimentalists, this is pure gold.

Quantizing usually means flattening your groove into grid-shaped boredom. Not so on the Q-80EX. Kraft shows off tolerance settings—quantize before or after the beat—to keep things loose and human. If you want your hats to swing like a sledgehammer in a tumble dryer, this sequencer’s got your back. The other two simply can’t compete here; this feature alone could save your tracks from robotic death.

Here’s where things get spicy. The motif feature is like a primitive clip launcher, decades before Ableton Live. Record a bass snippet, call it a motif, and throw it around your song without gobbling up precious memory. Kraft notes the Q-80EX lets you stash up to a thousand motifs per song—yes, a thousand. In the floppy disk era, that’s borderline witchcraft.

Motifs are channel-agnostic too, meaning you can drop them in wherever you fancy. None of the other sequencers in this shootout have anything quite like it. If you’re sick of hauling floppies just to juggle variations, the Q-80EX gives you a fighting chance to keep your live set lean and mean.