YashN

There's an improved Leslie somewhere in a late OS + Objects update for the PC3 line.

Being more studio-bound than live gig oriented and synth-oriented than classic keys and acoustic-oriented, getting a flagship board is less important to me. Case in point: in Kurzweil V.A.S.T. land, the flagship would be a K2700. The synthesis platform though, is the same for V.A.S.T. on even a PC4-7, so I can do with that one. And actually, I have been working on a K2500 with KDFX for a good while now. There are still a really large number of architectures that aren't being fully explored on this platform, especially with Live Mode (even minus KDFX but even more so with). I agree with the poster above mentioning PC3 vs PC3K: here, if you aren't going to be using a lot of external samples, the PC3x for instance, is a rather powerful synth in itself. Bear in mind that nothing prevents you from creating your own 'samples' out of the internal ROM Samples, then your own Keymaps, and from there, mangle those to no end with longer existing V.A.S.T. chains of of your own creation (Cascade + Dynamic V.A.S.T.). This is also possible from the K2000 itself thanks to how the ROM Samples are built and addressed in V.A.S.T. This isn't leveraged enough IMO. If your focus is heavy on Pure DSP synthesis, then a PC3 line is already quite capable. The main difference in the V.A.S.T. section is the newer lines include a DX7-compatible engine that can be also used with V.A.S.T. processing. However, you could already build your own FM patches or more from the K2000's V.A.S.T. DSP Blocks. In fact, we were doing this already when the K2000 launched. This is another thing that is not used enough. Of course, the newer lines increase polyphony and have more KDFX/KSP8 DSP units to use and that is not to be underestimated. I estimate (based on work done myself) there is probably less than 10% of the full capabilities of the original K2000 that is being exploited even today. Capabilities increased massively with Live Mode and Vocoder Mode, born on the K2500, then increased further when KDFX was made available on the K2500 as an add-on. There was a further massive increase when Triple Mode was released on the K2600 which included KDFX by default. A lot of what makes the K2500 and K2600 special is unknown and unexplored as to this day. After that came the 32-layer Cascade ability on the PC3 line, & Dynamic Edit, which totally frees us from pre-patched signal interconnections among blocks(!). So basically, I can still find a lot more use out of a K2000, a K2500 and a K2600 to this day. There's a lot more to cover on the latter two. This said, Cascade & Dynamic is the ultimate in V.A.S.T. flexibility, so combine this with the K2000 branding for the new K2061, with synth-orientation and synth action, and this is a very tempting proposition. We might need a hand, maybe from Dave, to materialise this as Canadian distribution still seems to be non-existent AFAIK. It's the depth of V.A.S.T. here that interests me, so I can do without the flagship. I could do with the ability to load user samples, as I do use that for some interesting things. There are definite advantages with the flagship if you're gigging though, as a K2700 seems more robust compared to a PC4. OTOH, the PC4 weight is also something to consider. It's no fun having to lug a K2500XS or an 88-note K2600. Keybed action: I definitely miss the synth action of the K2000 when I play my K2500XS (synth-orientation needs for me), so the K2061 is looking really good if finances allow. If not, I'd be very content with a PC4-7 too, maybe even the smaller PC4 ones or even a PC3!

V.A.S.T. has very extensive internal Controls - it suffices to either use the on-board controls which can also be paged, or if you still need more, use a MIDI Controller (something with several knobs and/or faders and switches) to map additional ones.

VL-1 is one of a kind. The Anyma Phi & Omega synths might be interesting along this vein but I doubt they are as advanced. Any patents have expired by now for the Stanford/Yamaha kind. They were being licensed through Sondius XG. Korg also was a licensee, as some other companies - Seer Systems by Dave Smith too I believe. Software-wise, I heard good things about SWAM, Pianoteq for classical sounds but to me, the more interesting outputs of the original VL1 and VP1 were the Syncoustic sounds. It is not just the tone generation, it is the expressiveness that is a big draw for me, as is the Uncanny Valley effect of hearing what is definitely an Instrument that has Acoustic Expressiveness, but one that clearly doesn't exist. I'd love to see Yamaha make new VL1s or new VP1, especially since the latter are unobtainium: there are probably less than 20 worldwide is what I've read.

Starting from PC3 actually. Not everything VA-1 has been ported over, Dave would be able to give more details, but a lot of the important things like the improved Ladder filter, anti-aliased oscillator and other blocks. And they managed to give us these things with up to 32 layers of Cascade and Dynamic Edit too. The integration of those within the rest of V.A.S.T. and in a workstation like a PC3 line or Forte or PC4/K2700 and soon to be K2061/K2088 is fantastic enough not to have to lust after a VA-1 IMO. Incidentally, seeing the start of this thread, one of the first things I created was emulations of my D-10 which also does Linear Arithmetic Synthesis (the little brother o the D-50 although it's not an exact match) on my then new Kurzweil K2000. I wasn't held up on the actual D-10 ROM samples: there's no need for that when you have far better PCM samples to play with on a Kurzweil and far more ways of processing those in real-time, and also excellent filter implementations for the Synthesis part of the Samples + Synthesis engine. Results: the two reproductions I did sounded way better on Kurzweil. Personally, I'd rather re-create most architectures in the Kurzweil rather than use software these days.

Good to see you still active around Kurzweils too, Dave.

Until Specs are finalised, I wouldn't expect any price. I figure the K2061 will probably be priced somewhere between the PC4 and the K2700.

Fairly sure he's around the forums, including this one. Then again, maybe he's busy working synth sounds for a forthcoming synth of interest? (merely speculating, I have no insider info)

Very good then, because I only remembered something like reworked K2000 library from the official Kurzweil news piece. Synth-heavy is definitely going to change perceptions around V.A.S.T. big time.

Always good to have more than one Jim is a man of many talents. I saw his Kurzweil demos on YT before I saw his tech skills here.

I keep thinking of this, and now I am wondering whether my assumption that the K2061 and K2088 will have a synth-oriented soundset is wrong. It is the mention of a re-work of the K2k library, the synth action of the K2061 keybed and the synth-oriented sounds available for the K2700/PC4 line that made me think this, but I might be totally wrong. There was a release of the K2k with a synth-oriented soundset. I forgot what the version was but I do remember the first sound the first day I turned my K2k on: "3rd World Order"! On later releases, the Objects provided changed that to the first sound being a Piano. The explanation was that these were the sounds that people were looking for in stores, so the company adapted in this direction. Those first impressions count. On the other hand, it also explains why a search on Youtube gives results where 90%+ are demonstrating the acoustic and electric pianos and orchestral sounds. I will reiterate this: there is a tremendous number of people in recent generations that do not know anything at all about the deep synthesis abilities of V.A.S.T. for non-acoustic sounds. They can read about it in a forum, but when they search on Youtube, it's all pianos, strings and acoustic and they will tell you as much. This is all good for all the folks looking exactly for those types of sounds, but the Electronic music folks want something different. BTW, this is less an issue with K2500 onward for a user at home as the workstations are totally customisable because you can flash your selection of objects. I believe even on the K2k you can set up a Macro to auto-load other sounds at startup. However, how many people actually do this? Not many. Business imperatives might still necessitate a focus on those acoustic sounds... These marketing folks are clever, they got me thinking and yearning. Launching Forte as a Stage Piano before announcing full V.A.S.T. editing was very clever too. That clever marketing might cost me. If I had that K2061 under my hands, I'd be exploring that engine endlessly. It is without exaggeration, easily the most powerful Synth-building and Effect-building platform on the planet.

You found a replacement main board, Mike?

If there are no K2601-specific parameters, the architectures should be the same or very close, so sounds would be easy to load. If not, you can probably except some compatibility work a bit further down the line or instructions on how to adapt these. Then again, the P4 is a massively powerful synth - you should really dig into V.A.S.T. editing, save your work, reload and continue to make your own patches... The PC3 line itself already had Cascade and Dynamic Edit Modes and improved DSP, so there hasn't really been a need to wait for the synth sounds on the K2061 to appear to make them yourself since around 2010 or so or whatever the release date of the PC3 is, haven't checked. Now of course, not all people like to Synthesize for various 'reasons', even though buying such a powerful synth to just use it as a preset box is quite a waste IMHO. Several find V.A.S.T. difficult. It is that segment of the population (as in a NEW segment that knows little about Kurzweil V.A.S.T. and its synthesis abilities), with a special interest in synth sounds, that could be interested in the 'new version of the K2000' I think. There are sounds for the K2700 that could load in the PC4 I believe.

BTW, someone coming from the original K line (K2000 up to K2600) and who is synth-oriented will surely benefit greatly from further enhancements in the DSP Processing side: - Better Anti-aliased oscillators - Internal Triple Saw - 4-Pole Ladder Filter Model - Improved Osc Sync - a set of mixers, including with inverter, additive gain block and cross-fade block that are necessary for merging Cascade signals A lot of these were sourced from the Kurzweil VA-1 which was never released, so a unicorn. Dave has one and I know Sweetwater's Daniel Fisher has one. How many are there? I don't know, probably a handful or two only. What does that mean in practice? Greatly improved emulations of traditional subtractive mono & polyphonic analogue synths! Since the Forte and PC4/K2700 line, the DX7-compatible FM engine is also added (however, you can still do FM with V.A.S.T. 1.0 in a K2000 if you know how), and that can be processed pre- or post- or in parallel by V.A.S.T. too if that's what you need. What about effects side if you come from the K2000? Well, the K2000 had the Digitech chip effect. Considered a bit noisy, this can be mitigated by changing the internal Dry Level and then reducing the Wet/Dry ratio. It's not as good as KDFX introduced as an extension for the K2500 but for emulations of analogues and a sound closer to the 70's or 80's era, it does the job. KDFX was and is a Masterpiece. Some of the Reverbs are literally jaw-dropping and for good reason: they were developed by one of the G.O.A.T.s of Delay and Reverbs. Sadly, we lost him a few years ago, but his legacy lives on in Kurzweil gear and in KSP8 & Rumour. 4 Stereo Buses in the K2500 if you installed it & K2600 and 4 main DSP FX units as well as a 3-DSP unit for the AUX effect, this has since been greatly expanded in power since the PC3 line: 16 units, with a Pre or Post pair of AUX effects, and expanded even further in terms of DSP units in the PC4/K2700 line. Combine Cascade Mode and Dynamic Editing, new DSP processing as described above, greatly improved FX chains, Layers, FUNs and FXFuns, synth action and synth-oriented Factory programs for you to modify and/or study, and you have one of the most powerful synths of all time (my desire of still getting Live Mode shouldn't distract from this but that would be an amazing addition as it is in the K2500S and K2600S lines).

Thanks for the info, Dave. This is looking good indeed: synth sounds orientation, synth touch, Cascade Mode, Dynamic Mode, DX7 FM Algs, and also one thing not mentioned often enough: the insane work done on improving Arps in between the K2600 and the CP3 and onward. I do have some doubts: I don't think we'll see Live Mode come back here (from the K25xxS and K26xxS era), but if we do, that would be AMAZING. Also amazing would be the incorporation of the Vocoder, but here again, not sure that will happen. Some people want the Sampling ability, but for me that is less important nowadays since we can load user samples from the computer, which definitely seems to be in the specs list so far. Give us good SysEx docs too. All in all, I hope this makes a big splash with the synth-orientation: more people will demo the synth sounds of new V.A.S.T... There seems to be at least one whole generation of people who don't know the abilities of this platform as a Synth-builder or Multi-Effects-builder! I feel things are about to change.

For hand built prototypes, these look insanely great already!

I believe Awave is solid. Should load fine. There's another alternative I didn't mention... because it is painfully slow: MIDI SDS (Sample Dump Standard). For large files, forget it. For a small number of much smaller files like Attacks, it can work OK.

Yes, preparing smooth transitions for each partial can be resource-consuming. The newer Kurzweils do something like that over two multi-samples by a setting in V.A.S.T. although I'm not sure what your process is, whether it's power-shape based on other things but the default idea would be zero-crossing for a waveform, for Partials Phase-based I think.

How did you write that .KRZ file? Success, me? Never! Here how it should work: - I should have kept my old SCSI CDROM drive, then I'd probably be able to write that file to a CD from another drive, then transfer it over via the SCSI Drive. However, I left behind the SCSI CDROM drive when I moved. - An alternative would be to have several empty HDD floppies at hand, then find the utility to split that single file over to several floppies and write the floppies from my external USB-to-Floppy drive that I got second hand from a nearby store. However, I don't have enough empty floppies, nor can I find the external floppy drive, so... - ...since I will need that external floppy drive ability for a few projects, I ordered one from Amazon a week ago with two more small things. Amazon somehow automatically tracked the order, only to tell me a few days later that they found a 'technical error' had been made in that order and they auto-refunded the purchase. They did tell me to keep it all if it were delivered. Nothing was delivered though. - I should have one of those modern SDCard to SCSI emulators, and done the transfer from that, assuming my K2500 has enough SRAM (I think it does not but that isn't a big issue, I have another machine to test it on). I still don't. I am planning to though. That last one is my best bet, so I should be able to test it when I get one. I did manage to have a look at the structure through Awave that supports .KRZ and its Sample structure. Let me know If I got this right: Multi-Sampled on 6 Keys Pre-processed with Bandpass for most if not all of them, Bands do not overlap Mapped so that you can easily Mix between two multi-sampled Keymaps per Band My test the other day on the K2500 required no external samples, I used the internal multi-sampled Keymaps, and required no external pre-processing: it's all done in real-time. I am thinking that the results I got which seem quite good for String machines is not only from the effect section but also the Phase changes thanks to the BPFs. Of course, it's not restricted to that in the Kurzweil as you can do all sorts of combinations of any 2 Keymaps, and in fact, it's really easy to extend that to 8 different Keymaps, and if I want to get crazy with it: up to 32 Keymaps and many more bands, all in real-time, and add even further processing if I want to. The little test I did, although it's not with your samples nor the full implementation of your approach, does already give an idea of the method though.

I believe I started synth repair through a Korg Polysix. You learn quite a lot from that one since troubleshooting that battery leak can force you to learn many things on the corroded PCB. You also learn to try and replace the whole board by a new one if possible with that synth and particular damage. Since then I worked on repairing or modifying a few others: Korg DW-8000 (+Mods), Alesis Micron, Roland JX-3P (+ mods), Alesis Tom Cat (mods only), Kurzweil K2000 (+mods), my own Kurzweil K2500... Did some work on Studio equipment as well: Soundcraft Compact Mixer, Soundcraft Delta Mixer and its PSU (+ mods for both), Lexicon LXP-15 (mods planned). Somewhere during that time I got involved quite deeply into Audio DIY & Audiophilia, so did a lot of design and modifications around a DAC setup, including a very low noise PSU (not my design but it has become a test-bed for further PSU research), better USB connection, various kinds of Filtering including USB and AC-side, low-noise and distortion designs for pre-amps, amplifiers, digital and analogue audio sections, Tube amplifications, etc... That's all a lot, and of course, time that could be spent to do synthesis and compositions instead... So at one point, especially with that very problematic Polysix board, I decided 'no more gear to repair and less mods'. That was at the time I was working on modifying the Akai Tom Cat. I was going to do individual Trigger Outs and a few additional mods, when a very affordable second-hand Behringer RD-8 showed up. I showed up too at the meet-up and met a very kind gentleman who had studied sounds design or composition or something similar in Berlin. And that was a nice reason to pack up the Tom Cat and stop working on it for individual triggers. You would have thought that as decided, things would stop here and more songs and great sounds would magically appear. Instead, I got another beast that turned up unexpectedly near me. Abandoned, abused, left-for-dead in a dark, dirty and damped place, it was all dusty and moldy and rusty, it even had a smell... This big boy is now receiving the attention it deserves. Whether I manage to fully revive him is another matter. If I had that Venom, I'd hack at it until I made it sound great.

Got it. Thanks

Some of the PCB traces may be corroding too. Otherwise, nice work.

Good job. Everything works? How do you like the sounds?

I get an 'access denied' on this link. Mono works too - a LAYER's Keymap in Kurzweil land works like this: - Default = Mono - Setting Stereo = On on the Keymap Page makes it a Stereo Keymap, so that you can choose two Multi-Sampled Keymaps and further Pan them differently. Both Keymaps here are routed into a single ALG in the LAYER Another way to do a Stereo Program on a Kurzweil is to use two different LAYERS, each one with a Mono Keymap, and then Panning each separately differently.

The original Behringer video didn't make a great impression, but d'Angelo is behind a host of very advanced Virtual Analogue VSTi by well-known providers, including Arturia's. He's also an active Researcher in the field, including component-level modeling which has inherent advantages regarding anti-aliasing, so worth checking out IMO.