Dave Weiser

I did a ton of research into EPs when I worked for Kurzweil...and I'm pretty sure I remember Queen's Best Friend being a Hohner Pianet. It's often mistaken for Wurly as the sounds are very similar - sometimes very hard to distinguish. Listen to the Zombies' She's Not There - it's a Pianet but could easily pass for a Wurly. The giveaway is that usually the Pianet is even brighter than the Wurly, with less overdrive (unless it's being run through an amp with some drive.)

Sorry to hear about the headaches! First thing to do when something like this happens - hit PANIC. It's likely that the problem zones are being affected by MIDI volume in some way. Panic should clear that out. Of course this is just triage. Getting to the source of the problem will be a bit more tricky. My guess is it's settings for the sliders or the expression pedal that's causing the issue. In most factory multis (the starting point for user multis), the first 4 sliders control volume. They have entry and exit values. Same goes for the expression pedal - it has entry and exit values. Having the exit value set to "none" can cause problems. With exit value set to "none"... If you move the pedal down to zero, and then switch to another multi that has the expression pedal disabled, you'll lose volume without any way of getting it back, since the pedal is disabled. It's easy enough to test if the sliders are causing the problem - if you lose sound in a zone, just wiggle the sliders and see if sound comes back. I would recommend NOT disabling the exp pedal whenever possible, but it you do, be sure to set an exit value on the last multi that has the pedal enabled. Be sure to check in over at the PC4 Facebook group, lots of helpful folks there who can offer more assistance. https://www.facebook.com/groups/1541708299314501

I think we all have a lot of questions. It looks like they each have a small amp at their feet.

And their legs are crossed the same way. That and their stone faced expressions kind of freaked me out.

D'oh right! My goldfish brain was confusing your handle with someone else.

For anyone who was craving some extremely weird sh*t today... behold!

In my experience, if you have a non-stereo program with a stereo keymap, you're just getting one of the two "sides" of the stereo keymap (left by default, I think). On previous models, you would have to select L or R version of the keymap, which to me makes things more simple. I believe the PC4 uses a "smart" system that knows what to do with both sides of a stereo keymap. Regardless of L/R label or not, if you set the program to mono, you're just getting the left side of the sample. I'm pretty sure it's not summing two keymaps under the hood. The mono program uses half the polyphony of a stereo program. Also, if your rig is stereo, a mono piano can be useful if you don't want the stereo panning, with higher notes on the right side and lower notes on the left. A mono piano will been even across the keyboard. That's the main reason why I would use a mono piano while gigging. I don't need stereo piano panning when I'm on a rock gig... or really any live gig. Regarding the ACL Reed EP... I have no idea. Side note: I hate the "Reed" and "Tine" names that they swapped in, in place of "Wurly" and "Rhodes". A while back, some idiot was suing companies over the use of "Rhodes" in preset names. Kurz management got spooked, and had their soundware people rename all the EP presets in their current boards.

Shoot me an email and I'll send you my PC4 sound set. It includes some pianos that you might find useful. weiserdav@gmail.com

This might be tricky for two reasons: 1. Not many people own the SP7 as it's a newer addition. 2. The SP7 isn't built on the same VAST engine as the other Kurz pro boards, so comments from other Kurz owners might not be quite as helpful as they'd otherwise be. The PC3, Artis, SP4, SP6, Forte, PC4 and K2700 all share a common legacy and are built on the same concepts. Of course the newer boards (Forte, PC4 and K27) include bigger samples and more/better features, but the foundations are similar to that of the PC3 era boards. I believe the SP7 draws from the same sample set as the PC4, but the programming tools under the hood seem to be more simple. (Note - programming tools are not just for geeks like myself. They also allow Kurz programmers to make more detailed factory patches.) The SP7 platform does seem to have some cool goodies, like touchscreen and vocoder capabilities. I'm looking forward to learning more about it. You might want to check out their PC4SE - it's basically a stage piano (on steroids) based on the PC4. https://kurzweil.com/pc4se/ All PC4 audio demos should apply to the SE. As with the PC4 and SP6, the enclosure is plastic, with a Medeli hammer action, but the build quality is good. Lots of advances have been made in plastic manufacturing over the past two decades. (I believe the MOD boards use a plastic enclosure as well.)

Note the SP88 was their entry level stage piano from the late 90s, and really can't be compared to the newer stuff. Even their boards from 10 years ago were light years ahead of the SP88.

This was my take as well - sounds like an MS issue and not a Forte issue. Keep us posted. Also - Dave Osoff - shoot me an email and I'll send you my custom Forte sound set. weiserdav@gmail.com

Very cool! But not as cool as former attorney general John Ashcroft singing Let the Eagle Soar in reverse. Behold!

Thanks for posting! Also, who the hell can play like that while casually talking to the audience??

Check this out...very cool but less conventional synth bass. It's got tasty stuff all the way through, but the synth bass really has its moment starting at 4:10.

The PC4-7 is a gem of a board, lots of bang-for-buck and the weight is amazing.

Honestly, I think my experience as a teenager lusting after this amazing high-end (and at the time unattainable) board colored my opinion and prevented me from thinking critically/objectively. My boss (the guy who later developed Ivory) merely pointed out something that I'd overlooked in my enthusiasm. I'd been planning on using it for work on the K26 Vintage EPs ROM option, but once I noticed the "endless squish" problem, I couldn't get past it. My buddies at Kurz and I did have a blast playing with the poly AT though - very cool for controlling synths. (I also loved the poly AT on the old Ensoniq boards like the VFX.)

Regarding the MIDIboard... When I was teenager in the 80s (with my head buried in Keyboard Magazine) I used to daydream about having one of these. Years later, I worked for Kurz R&D, and I owned a MIDIboard for a few years. One day, I was talking to my boss, the head of the sound dept, about the instrument. I was gushing about the action, the aftertouch, etc. He said "the thing with that aftertouch is, it affects the feel. Press down on a note and notice how it never stops - it keeps squishing in." He was right. I'm sure some folks can live with this, but I couldn't. I sold it a few weeks later. Also, it's worth noting that the MIDIboard's enclosure wasn't metal, and the particular kind of plastic that they used doesn't age well. It's still a cool piece of keyboard history, and some folks still love it. But for me, the legend was better than the real thing. In my own experience, I've found that my *memory* of how older keyboards felt and of their build quality usually exceeds the reality of when I happen to encounter one these days. The one exception (again, in my experience) was a Synclavier that I ran into in Benny Anderson's (ABBA) studio in Sweden a few years ago. The action and build quality on that sucker could make a bishop kick a hole in a stained glass window. For $200K, it damn well should feel nice! One thing I noticed during my time at Kurzweil was that newer actions tend to be more reliable than older ones. This is based on data from customers and QC testing. This goes for Fatar as well as Medeli (the guys who make the actions in the PC4 and PC4-7). The newer actions tend to have far fewer defects and hold up better over time. I can't speak for the actions used by other companies (Korg, Roland, Yamaha, etc) but I suspect they have similar results. I believe this is simply due to advances in manufacturing and tooling over the past 30 years. I'm sure the very cheapest boards probably use sh*t actions; I'm talking about mid level and higher end models, anything over $1500 or so.

The SP76 was before my time at Kurz R&D... and I worked there from 2000 to 2013. So this sucker is not only old enough to drink, it's old enough to have kids in middle school! Seriously though, it's not possible to edit the sounds in the SP76 as far as I know.

Good question - why doesn't the flagship K2700 use the full samples from the Forte? My educated guess is that they couldn't get 16GB to work with the K2700's 256 polyphony. I remember dealing with similar polyphony vs sample memory issues in product meetings back when I worked for R&D. I know that if they COULD have done the full sample set, they WOULD have. BTW anyone here can feel free to hit me up for my custom sound set for Forte, K27 and PC4. I've got some nice tweaks to the pianos, some for playing in a dense mix, some meant for solo playing. The set also includes more/better EPs, lots of analog synths, more/better strings and a few sounds that I made for big rock acts and Broadway shows. weiserdav@gmail.com

Don't know how I missed this live album when it came out...

Killin' it!

Right??

The entire thing is amazing, but 2:00 and 7:10 are especially good.

Dark on Netflix was amazing!

A friend sent me this clip earlier today and I just can't get enough of it. Great song choice as well. I love to see these old precursors to modern synths, and I marvel at the work that must have gone into them. Enjoy!