Kurzweil PC4

[felis]

I hope it works better than the editor does. Unless I'm doing something wrong, the editor is very glitchy on my end.

[Fleer]

Meanwhile, I wonder if there"s more information on the difference between the MARA (in the Forte) and LENA (in the PC4) chips, particularly whether the PC4 holds two of those FPGA semiconductors and if that would be of any importance. What does LENA have that MARA has not, the latter possibly crippling Forte"s upgrade path?

[Al Coda]

According to THIS post,-

Lena is an FPGA w/ equivalent of 2x MARA DSP power.

So when there are 2 Lena inside PC4,- in theory that should be 4 times the DSP power of the MARA ASIC chip.

 

But I dunno if that´s really true.

From where comes the info there are 2 Lena inside PC4 ?

 

A.C.

[hipogrito]

Hi,

 

The P in FPGA means Programmable. Lena is programmable and it evolves. The CPU and the rest of the system also matters on what's possible to do for the keyboard, by the way.

 

As of today:

 

The PC4 has a Lena that is capable of doing 256 voices of polyphony + 32 units of FXs for programs + global FXs.

The SP6/Forte SE have a Lena that is capable of doing 128 voices of polyphony + 32 units of FXs for programs + global FXs.

 

Each of our voices has 4 DSP slots for things like a filter.

 

Last, these are Flashplay (Patented) voices. We don't need to preload the samples in RAM in order to play them. We can play them straight out of NAND flash.

 

A lot of power in one single chip.

 

And tomorrow could be different.

 

Regards,

Fran

[Fleer]

Thanks guys!

[Theo Verelst]

I didn't know Lena wasn't a "custom" chip anymore. Sometimes in EE it is usual to run a chip design intended to be made into a ASIC, in a big FPGA first in this case apparently the progress in FPGA technology made it possible to use a FPGA at good pricepoint with enough juice.

 

T

[Fleer]

If you understand Italian, this vid discusses the updated Forte SE, bringing it closer to the PC4:

[felis]

The SOS magazine PC4 article is online now: https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/kurzweil-pc4

[drawback]

The SOS magazine PC4 article is online now: https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/kurzweil-pc4

 

Since the article was written back in March, has the latest update addressed the out of tune pianos?

[dongna]

The SOS magazine PC4 article is online now: https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/kurzweil-pc4

 

... The PC4's Multis are of the least sophisticated and most problematic kind, which is to say that they only contain references to individual Programs, and don't store program data itself. If you have five multis, say, that all reference the same program, and you one day happen to tweak that program (or indeed mangle it out of all recognition), all five multis are affected. ...

 

Just read the review and this section really stood out for me (and not in a good way). Can anyone confirm that this is actually the case?

[rockinredeye]

The article says two things that aren't entirely accurate. As to your question about Multis storing Program data: the solution, which I use with my Kurzweil, is to make a program for each Multi. If a factory program is altered, it is saved in a new slot with a new Program number; the factory Program is not overwritten unless you force it to be. I rename my altered Programs to reflect the Multi with which it is associated. I've had mine for over a decade and have not run out of storage for altered Programs.

 

The article says that when in Quick Access mode, that "...it does not appear to be possible to step through..." the Programs using a pedal. I'd be surprised, if after all this time, Kurzweil abandoned this very useful feature that they've had for years. Part of the back story of the PC3, supposedly, is that Andrew Lloyd Weber "picked up the phone" and asked Kurzweil to come up with a replacement board for the ones used in all of his musicals, as the old ones were wearing out and hard to find parts for. The pedal step-through feature was used all night long in his productions. As a matter of fact, I believe that when a company bought the score, they also got a memory card with the Programs and Multis laid out ready to step through by pedal.

 

The last OS update was March 20, 2020 and the Release Notes do not mention the piano tuning problem.

[felis]

About the multis - if you've got 10 different multis that use variations of one sound, you've just got 10 different programs with variations of the same sound under different names and numbers.

 

Seems like the right way to do it, otherwise if you changed one, they would all be goofed up in the other nine multis. Besides, there's over 4,000 slots to save programs and multis.

 

I don't see a problem with it.

[dongna]

Well, yeah, you wouldn't want changes made in a program for one multi to affect that same program in other mutli's.

 

However--

 

My Yamaha S90ES (circa 2005 or so) allows edits to be made to a program within a multi to be saved with and apply to that mutli only-- without having to save a second copy of the underlying program. And every multi that uses that program can have it's own modifications to the program that are saved with the multi. As the SOS review stated: the way the PC4 appears to handle this is distinctly 1980's.

[Tom Williams]

I think this is on-topic: Does anyone know if the half-damper KP-1H pedal is compatible with the standard Kurzweil CC pedal? I would love to use that on my PC3.

[felis]

Well, yeah, you wouldn't want changes made in a program for one multi to affect that same program in other mutli's.

 

However--

 

My Yamaha S90ES (circa 2005 or so) allows edits to be made to a program within a multi to be saved with and apply to that mutli only-- without having to save a second copy of the underlying program. And every multi that uses that program can have it's own modifications to the program that are saved with the multi. As the SOS review stated: the way the PC4 appears to handle this is distinctly 1980's.

 

Am I understanding this right? You make a multi and modify one of the sounds and save it, but you can only use it in that multi?

 

With the PC4, you make a multi, modify one of the sounds and save it, but then you can also use it (or the original sound) in any other multi.

 

That way seems more flexible to me, unless I'm not getting something.

[Tom Williams]

every multi that uses that program can have it's own modifications to the program that are saved with the multi. As the SOS review stated: the way the PC4 appears to handle this is distinctly 1980's.

Am I understanding this right? You make a multi and modify one of the sounds and save it, but you can only use it in that multi?

Not exactly. Using my PX-5S as a comparison: On the Casio, when you select a patch to be part of a multi, the entire patch is copied in, so you can edit the patch to fit the multi. So, if I brighten the piano on the Casio, the original piano patch is unchanged unless I re-save it. And even after I save it, other multis that use the patch already have their own copies, so they don't change unless I re-include the changed version.

 

On VAST, when I brighten the piano patch, it will automatically be brighter on all multis that access it.

 

In my opinion, it's potayto-potahto. I think the SOS reviewer is accustomed to the Casio style, and has confused "I prefer A over B" with "A is better than B."

[AnotherScott]

Using my PX-5S as a comparison: On the Casio, when you select a patch to be part of a multi, the entire patch is copied in, so you can edit the patch to fit the multi. So, if I brighten the piano on the Casio, the original piano patch is unchanged unless I re-save it. And even after I save it, other multis that use the patch already have their own copies, so they don't change unless I re-include the changed version.

 

On VAST, when I brighten the piano patch, it will automatically be brighter on all multis that access it.

 

In my opinion, it's potayto-potahto. I think the SOS reviewer is accustomed to the Casio style, and has confused "I prefer A over B" with "A is better than B."

 

I think Korg and pre-Montage Yamaha are kinda like Kurzweil, but Yamaha changed to the PX5S style with the Montage/MODX. The reason I said "kinda" is that, yes, any change to the original program will be reflected in the combi/performance, but the combi/performance can also store some of its own additional tweaks (tone adjusts/offsets) so, to some extent, they have their own version of the underlying sound BUT a change to the underlying sound will still affect the version of it in the combi/preformance.

 

I think you're right that there's no inherent better/worse here. For people like the SOS reviewer who think the PX5S/Montage approach is better, consider this scenario: You have 20 multi-sound setups that use your favorite Rhodes sound. You go to your favorite Rhodes sound by itself, and manage to tweak it so that you like it better. In the Kurzweil approach, all 20 of your setups now have your improved Rhodes; in the reveiwers' preferred PX5S/Montage approach, you'd now have to copy that new Rhodes individually to each of the 20 setups. So now which is the better approach?

 

If you WANT a PC4 multi to have its own, dedicated version of a sound, as alluded to, you can save that version as its own Program (and unlike some other boards, there are plenty of empty slots for you to save your custom Programs into). So actually, you can really have Kurz operate either way (shared or multi-specific individual sounds). Which in a way does make the Casio/Yamaha approach worse because it ONLY operates the one way (there's no way to change a basic sound and have it updated in all the multi-sound combinations that use it). I guess you could be bothered that there are more steps on the Kurz to give a multi its own version of a sound instead of a shared one, but I think that's a minimal extra effort which itself is offset by also letting you create multis that use shared sounds, which is something you couldn't do if each multi could ONLY use its own private version of a sound.

 

Another wrinkle is to think about employing seamless transitions between multi-sound combinations within a song. If you have programmed in some multis where you specifically want a given included sound to not change when you switch from multi A to multi B, that's easier to do when you can assure that any change you make to the particular underlying sound is automatically carried over to both multis, instead of having to be changed for each one.

[miden]

..................You have 20 multi-sound setups that use your favorite Rhodes sound. You go to your favorite Rhodes sound by itself, and manage to tweak it so that you like it better. In the Kurzweil approach, all 20 of your setups now have your improved Rhodes; in the reveiwers' preferred PX5S/Montage approach, you'd now have to copy that new Rhodes individually to each of the 20 setups. So now which is the better approach?

 

.

 

haha, not quite Scott. If you modify the underlying program to a new one. You then need to revisit ALL the multis using it to change the program to the new EP sound (because the newly modified one actually has to be saved to a new slot that is NOT automatically referenced by the Mulit.). As far as they are concerned they are still using the previous EP program

[Tom Williams]

You then need to revisit ALL the multis using it to change the program to the new EP sound (because [font:Comic Sans MS]the newly modified one actually has to be saved to a new slot[/font] that is NOT automatically referenced by the Mulit.). As far as they are concerned they are still using the previous EP program

Does the PC4 prevent saving the edit to the original slot?

[miden]

Yes (for factory data) and further - if you tweak the effects on a program you have to also save that effect to a new effect slot, then save the program (even if every thing else is the same) to a new program slot using the tweaked effects. Essentially, ANY change made to ANY factory parameter requires you to save to a new location. It's why there are so many available slots hahaha!

 

It's not all bad news....if you then setup all your multis using all your own created/edited programs, THEN if you use those programs in multiple multis any change to said programs will then be the same for any multi using it.

[AnotherScott]

..................You have 20 multi-sound setups that use your favorite Rhodes sound. You go to your favorite Rhodes sound by itself, and manage to tweak it so that you like it better. In the Kurzweil approach, all 20 of your setups now have your improved Rhodes; in the reveiwers' preferred PX5S/Montage approach, you'd now have to copy that new Rhodes individually to each of the 20 setups. So now which is the better approach?

 

haha, not quite Scott. If you modify the underlying program to a new one. You then need to revisit ALL the multis using it to change the program to the new EP sound (because the newly modified one actually has to be saved to a new slot that is NOT automatically referenced by the Mulit.). As far as they are concerned they are still using the previous EP program

Ah, yes, I guess this would assume you use a user-modified sound in the first place. Or that you save a factory sound as a user sound before making it part of a multi. But the point remains, at least you do still have a way to do that, if you would find it a useful, and it's something that can't be done in the alternate approach.

[miden]

Yes, true

[felis]

I like the way Kurzweil does it.

If you edit an already edited patch being used in multis,

you have the choice of whether you want those changes reflected in the other patches (just hit save using the same name and patch number),

or to just have it pertain to just that one patch in that one multi (hit rename to give it a new name, and then save it to a new patch number).

[RandyFF]

To the argument that K provides plenty of places to save thousands of Programs, I say patch management gets crazy stupid complicated to manage. Perhaps I'd have a different opinion if I actually used it.

 

I love the way it's implemented on the Korg Pa1000 arranger. All the editing on the patch level is done in a dedicated Sound mode, the number of editable parameters is surprising, it's almost a full blown synth, you can program on the oscillator level, of which there can be 24 for each Sound!

 

Once you get into Style mode, the place where most people will play their music, each of the sounds have a shit tonne of offset parameters, like a crazy amount. For many boards this would the full extent of their sound editing capabilities.

 

I love this setup- you can go crazy deep if you want to in Sound mode, and those edits will change all the Sounds/programs that are based on it. But most of the time I'm happy to just do offsets to a Sound, gets the job done well and quickly. Minimal amounts of patch housekeeping to do.

[Fleer]

Interesting keybed difference between PC4 and SP6:

https://www.sweetwater.com/insync/keyboard-action-and-key-weight-experiment/

[dongna]

Maybe it's just me, but all this recent testing of keyboard actions with weights seems misplaced, or at best, incomplete. It seems to me it's not just about the minimum weight required to depress a key. It's the resistance a key gives when pressed at velocity.

 

Think of a volleyball and a bowling ball sitting side by side on a floor. The bowling ball is clearly much heavier. Yet to get either ball moving very slowly along the floor would seem to take a similar amount of force. But if asked to propel each ball as fast as possible against the far wall, it would be far easier to flick the volleyball than it would the bowling ball. Put another way, if I were to attach a spring scale to each ball, I think I should be able to get each ball moving with minimal displacement of the spring. However if I were to yank hard on the spring, wouldn't the bowling ball measure a much greater resistance?

 

To me, moving the balls slowly seems equivalent to depressing keys with weights. Flicking the balls at velocity seems more equivalent to actually playing the keys. Are these not two different measurements?

[AnotherScott]

Interesting keybed difference between PC4 and SP6:

https://www.sweetwater.com/insync/keyboard-action-and-key-weight-experiment/

Yes, interesting. The PC4 has aftertouch but I wouldn't expect that to matter here. I wonder what the source of the difference is. I wish they had included a Forte for comparison.

 

I also wish they had included a MODX8. When I played a MODX8 next to a DGX660, I thought the DGX felt nice and quick, and the MODX8 felt sluggish. Though I wonder if it's a model-to-model variation or a unit-to-unit variation.

 

Though I am also a bit skeptical of some of what the chart shows. They showed a Hammond SK1 as requiring more weight than a Nord Stage 3 Compact, and my experience is that the Nord is the heavier feeling board (i.e. more more resistance). Unless one of them has made a change in recent years...

 

ETA: Further on, they note that the PC4 and SP6 required about the same force to trigger a note (76-77 grams), the difference came only when they needed to *sustain* the note. To me, that implies a bit of "bounce" such that just barely hitting the sensor to turn the note on could easily result in a bounce up that turns it back off. Though again, it's odd that it happens on one but not the other.

[Lady Gaia]

I am glad we're seeing more sites get into data-based journalism, aiming to provide quantifiable information to complement the qualitative side of things. Sadly, that also means wading through some bad information while a whole lot of journalists learn a lot more about setting up meaningful experiments. Even in the brief overview, Sweetwater's tests demonstrate placing weights at different locations along a key's surface as if these were equivalent. They're not. It also neglects to meaningfully distinguish between action where inertia is a factor, as when moving a weight, and those where it is not, as when pulling against a spring. Actual piano actions are, of course, quite complex and can't be properly modeled by just lifting a weight or pulling against a spring.

 

There was a thread here evaluating different actions that I thought was more thorough and consistent in its methodology. Tracking both the initial static application of weight to trigger a note as well as the weight a key will overcome in returning to its original position was quite interesting from my perspective.

[AnotherScott]

It also neglects to meaningfully distinguish between action where inertia is a factor, as when moving a weight, and those where it is not, as when pulling against a spring

Yes, combining hammer and non-hammer actions in the same comparison was kind of pointless, they don't behave the same way.

 

And a possibly particularly egregious error is not accounting for how different pianos handle a Note On velocity of 1. Some pianos create a sound at velocity value 1, others do not (permitting a silent keypress that still activates sympathetic resonances for other keys). The latter would need more force to generate an audible sound, but not because of a difference in resistance (or the force required to depress a key). I would have selected an organ sound rather than a piano sound, which would probably sound at full volume at any velocity.

 

Another possible variable could be implementations of escapement simulation, where you may have to overcome a point of additional resistance by design, which does not necessarily equate to a heavier feeling action overall.

[motionmindz]

The backwards compatibility is not as it should be: https://www.gearslutz.com/board/electronic-music-instruments-and-electronic-music-production/1258509-kurzweil-pc4-73.html

And other PC4 users here, can you check and verify this very issue please?

See: https://www.gearslutz.com/board/electronic-music-instruments-and-electronic-music-production/1258509-kurzweil-pc4-74.html

Quoted: "Can someone check: start an empty patch with a blank keymap. Editing the keymap on a given key. Start from sample 3300 onwards which is Applause. From there on every next sample is wrong or not sounding at all..."