Dave Weiser

The ultimate interpretation of the song in question has already been released.

I'm envious that you got to play the 61! I wasn't at the show, but I spoke to Kurzweil's head of software, who was at the booth. He told me that while the K2088 action had been decided (TP40L), the 61 action had not yet been chosen, so I'm hoping that the stiff action won't necessarily show up in the final product.

I was working at Kurz R&D when the PC3 and Artis 7 were developed...no one on our end added springs or modified the TP8. That's just how it came from Fatar as far as I know. I know that you and a few others didn't like the springs, and I can sympathize. But do keep in mind, literally thousands of customers were/are fine with the TP8 as it is in the PC3 and Artis 7 (and the old PC2 and K2600). Finding something that pleases the majority of end users - or that doesn't bother any end users at all - is a tough challenge. Of course there's a whole separate crowd that prefers fully weighted hammer action 76 actions. (Big shout for my old KT76 from the 90s!)

The Forte's factory KB3 programs are basically broken - be sure to hit me up for my custom sound set, I've got a set of much better KB3s, including the "double Leslie" programs from the PC3/PC3K. Glad you like the EPs! Those are mine - that was one of the most fun projects I've ever worked on. But I made lots of improvements to the touch/feel of them, new versions are in my custom set. Anyone with a Forte (or any Kurzweil board) hit me up and I'll send you my sound set! weiserdav@gmail.com

I suspect there will be movement in the other direction - I think the K27 will go up to $3500 sometime soon. Its current price of $2999 is a good bit below that of other flagship workstations. I believe Fantom 8 is $3999 and Montage 8 is $4499.

As far as I know, the action for the 88 is definitely Fatar TP40L. Action for the 61 is undecided/unknown.

Just got this photo from my friends at the Kurzweil booth at NAMM... It's got a metal enclosure, large ribbon, and the specs should be similar to K2700, minus the drum pads and audio interface. It's got synth keys, but the action is unknown/undecided at the moment.

K26 to PC3K compatibility is not 100% perfect. It was meant to be used mainly for importing K series samples. K series synthesis parameters are different in many cases. The problems in compatibility come from the improvements that were made on the PC3K. The PC3K has better DSP, better oscillators and a slightly different version of VAST. These improvements mean that the systems are not identical, which means that compatibility is going to be imperfect. (The K25 and K26 DSP is identical, which is why the compatibility is 100%.) If you're importing programs that just use custom samples, they should sound mostly the same. If you are importing programs that use lots of synthesis, they will not sound the same - they will probably require you to do some editing. I worked at Kurzweil R&D when the PC3K was developed. Getting the backwards compatibility to work - as imperfect as it is - took nearly two years. It took so long that upper management was close to cancelling the project altogether. Honestly, it's a miracle that the PC3K can load K2 files at all. You can find some help at the Mastering VAST forum and the PC Series User group on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/groups/405409866182460 https://forums.godlike.com.au I know you must love your old K26 programs... but be sure to check out the 1000+ sounds in the PC3K that take advantage of all the improvements. The virtual analog synth presets are light years ahead of the old K series.

This one is tough, feels like losing an old friend.

A little bit of each. We did this one on our own over Thanksgiving. He's got a great ear, but I helped with the chord voicings, teaching him about inversions. He has a very hip teacher who covers guitar and keys, and is far more capable than me!

Very cool!

I had my son come up with some jam-friendly songs to tackle on keys and guitar... In addition to some classics like Come Together, Stay With Me, and Do It Again, he laid this tune on me, from the animated film, The Bad Guys. Great R&B jam with a nice Wurly part front and center. I take comfort knowing that the kids these days are getting the occasional dose of funky sh*t! Here's the boy's version of the chorus, with singing: https://www.facebook.com/david.weiser.73/posts/pfbid0LMPy2ePNuHtLLVrA5RmsxrVWdFqtuAcinCnuibDaH96pKu9hcb6g2X3jkCxi3yQkl (Thanks to Mike Martin and Casio for the PX-S3000!)

Come for the kickass synth bass. Stay for Dennis Chambers on drums. (Check out the insanity at 1:13)

My 8-yr old and I both just peed ourselves while watching this video.

D'oh! That's probably what it stands for, since I believe it's one of my presets! Back when I worked for Kurz, I created the Austin City Limits Wurly for PC3. Looks like the Kurz guys renamed it after I left the company. They went through a whole renaming phase after some wanker started suing keyboard companies for using "Rhodes" in preset names. They went through the entire sound library for current boards and removed almost all proper names. (For the record I am strongly against this policy, but I do understand why they got spooked.) For the Wurly sound, I didn't have any specific examples in mind. It just seemed like the kind of Wurly sound that you'd hear in an ACL show - sort of bright and mostly clean.

I'm hoping that the host's next tutorial will cover this tune: https://www.facebook.com/reel/1761092651004786

Apologies if this has been posted before... I searched and didn't see anything. Too good not to post here!

Very cool! And nice to see Jeff Lorber!

It was a stereo pan parameter. Set to zero, both sides of the stereo signal are centered. Turned all the way up, both sides are hard panned left and right. Most Kurz boards use MIDI values of 64 to -64 for panning, and that's what this knob does under the hood.

Of course, many of us worked on it, but I had a single inspiration for the front panel, one legendary synth whose UI I gave to the designers. It might seem like an unlikely source as it wasn't an analog synth at all. But the way the sections are laid out had always appealed to me and I thought it would work on the VA1.

Yes most definitely! The envelope section offered logarithmic and exponential options as well as a "punch" feature meant to mimic the clipping that occurs in a Minimoog's amp envelope. (See attached photo.) Many of the presets we created were specifically designed to mimic the imperfections of old analog synths, with quirks like oscillator pitch drift. There were two filter sections, each capable of 4-pole, 2-pole and 1-pole, including a Minimoog style 4-pole with feedback. The filters could operate in series or in parallel. There was also a "deform" block that came after the filters in the signal chain - this included all kinds of non-linear distortions, quantizers, bit-crushers, and digital mayhem. (It was usually disabled in most presets, but could be a lot fun.) There were 7 sound sources: 3 oscillators, 2 "misc" which included things like sub osc and ring mod, a noise generator, and external inputs (combo jacks with a mic preamp). The mod matrix was very thorough, with 6 possible sources per parameter. Three were fixed - velocity, Modwheel and keytracking, and three were variable, things like LFOs, joystick, and envelopes. Each parameter (filter 1 and 2 freq, each oscillator's pitch, envelope times, etc.) could have its own set of mod sources and depths. Even better, there was a second FM mod matrix that connected the filters to the oscillators. Both matrices are shown in the top right of the photo. It was a synth nerd's paradise! Definitely one of the most fun projects I've ever worked on.

Ah the good old days! I miss working with you man! Actually the project was not cancelled due to cost or the market. The VA1 was going to be priced at $2295, which was quite competitive compared to other flagship VA synths at the time like the Virus, Supernova and Nord Lead. The VA1 was cancelled because when Samick bought Young Chang/Kurzweil in 2004, they fired everyone at R&D except for five of us. They also cancelled the CLARA chip that the VA1 was built on. We languished for a year under Samick - 2005 sucked. Then in 2006, the Korean FTC broke up the monopoly that the Samick-YC merger had created, and Kurzweil was free to begin rebuilding. In 2006 we began work on the MARA chip, which was a combination of the prototype chips CLARA (a synth/sample playback engine) and MAGGIE (an FX engine). While the chip guys worked on MARA, we began hiring a new team and started mocking up the PC3 platform. Lots of the filters and oscillators from the VA1 made it into the PC3 and subsequent models. The anti-aliased oscillators were a big step up from the ones used in the older K series instruments.

Yes - it's one of 10 prototypes, possibly the only one that still functions.

I dusted off my VA1 back in 2020 and banged out this quick little demo. Thought you guys would get a kick out of it.

It shouldn't be an issue, if you've always got the pedal enabled for all zones on all multis. Where it can get you into trouble is when the pedal is disable on certain zones and multis. If you move the pedal to zero and then switch to a multi that has it disabled, you'll get no sound unless you had an exit value on the previous multi. On our theater shows, we keep entry and exit values set to NONE, which makes the pedal "live" across multis when we switch between them.