New Kurzweil K2061 and K2088 keyboard workstations spotted at NAMM

[Franz Schiller]

16 hours ago, Dave Weiser said:

 

They've said that the sound set will include old K2000 programs and will be synth-heavy. Otherwise the spec will be just about the same as PC4 - polyphony, sample memory, MIDI control, etc.

 

 

I hope there will be a way to get any cool synth programs for my PC4-7.

 

 

[YashN]

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).

[UnderGroundGr]

13 hours ago, zxcvbnm098 said:

Dave, do you think Kurz has abandoned 76 key versions?

They would never abandoned 76 note models but 61...Until K2061, we had a 61key model since PC3...

PC4-7 is a 76 note model.

Except Forte 7, all 76 note models made by Kurzweil was semi-weighted...

 

[YashN]

5 hours ago, Franz Schiller said:

I hope there will be a way to get any cool synth programs for my PC4-7.

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.

[Franz Schiller]

1 hour ago, YashN said:

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 know 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.

 

Yeah, I program my own programs all the time! I love VAST and have several K2000s (one is broke, of course) in addition to my PC4-7. I've had one Kurz or another for twenty years.

 

However, I figure if they're going through the effort of probably hiring people like Dave to program some killer synth sounds for a new model, then some of those programs are worth having!

[Pipe]

I love synth , Rhodes and Piano sounds from Kurzweil. I would like improvements in acoustic sounds. Articulations, above all. That would be a big difference

[YashN]

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.

[Franz Schiller]

53 minutes ago, YashN said:

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 wasn't simply a personal assumption of YOURS; Dave Weiser heard from people who work at Kurzweil that "They've said that the sound set will include old K2000 programs and will be synth-heavy. " He said that on the first page of this thread. That's pretty strong evidence! 

[YashN]

3 hours ago, Franz Schiller said:

 

It wasn't simply a personal assumption of YOURS; Dave Weiser heard from people who work at Kurzweil that "They've said that the sound set will include old K2000 programs and will be synth-heavy. " He said that on the first page of this thread. That's pretty strong evidence! 

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.

[Radagast]

So when are they going to tell us the price?

[YashN]

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.