why Kurzweil is NOT popular with reggae/hiphop/acid jazz producers

[ivealreadysoldout]

It seems that whenever you hear about reggae, hiphop or acid jazz, the first keyboard mentioned is the triton, along with the MPC2000.

But, while playing with a Kurzweil (i forget the model, but it was comparable in price & features to the triton) I was really impressed with its realistic guitar, drums, and bass sounds. Personally I thought it blew away the processed, gimmicky sounds of the Triton. And besides the touch screen and dual arpegg . . . they seem to have comparable sequencers and samplers.

Putting aside personal preferences for sounds, Is there a major Red Flag in the kurzweil design that has steered the above styles away from it?

 

I asked a Kurz rep why we never hear about their products. He said they have little to zero marketing, for example roland and korg gain publicity by giving away their products to famous musicians who in turn hype the companies.

Is this true? or is kurz only good for scores and classical music?

[CuzCutz]

I've also been aware of the absence of kurzweil products in the line-up of a lot of producers of hip-hop/reggae/etc. and I wonder why! I've used the K2000 since '92' and I've noticed that every keyboard that's come out since then incorporates something that Kurzweil has had for years, even the ergonomics start to resemble K2000/2500 more & more. As for the sounds... I've had the chance to "side by side" the K2000 with the Triton and I will say right away that the piano sound of the K2000 makes the Tritons'piano sound "metalic"& "clangy" instead of "warm"& "natural" as is kurzweil's. Plus the V.A.S.T. engine is capable of A wide range of sounds. I've had a number of clients at my studio that had no idea that the K2000 had that kind of range. I'll continue to use it.especially now that the price (of the K2600) is dropping I'll even consider up-grading to that. D. Cuz

[MusicWorkz]

The reasons you mention are why Kurzweil is not used heavily in reggae/hip-hop/jazz. These genres don't necessarily require "realism" (with the exception of the jazz piano, what other reason would a jazz musician need all the power of the K2600?). The drums, electronic basses, and vintage keyboards, for example, on the Triton shine in a way few modules do. I agree on the piano samples, but Korg piano samples on their keyboards/modules have NEVER been something to write home about. Because hip-hop is so sample oriented, there is no need for authentic sounding instruments...

 

The Triton sounds(and Roland stuff for that matter) are well suited for the needs of reggae and hip-hop-spectacular sounds, great interface and flexibility. The MPC is gritty and has a sound all its own. I agree that if my track called for a realistic piano, the ONLY thing I'd reach for other than a real one is the Kurzweil piano, hands down. The V.A.S.T. architecture is indeed impressive, but the interface, IMO, is clunky and cumbersome. I like to dig deep into the synthesis engine and have always disliked when I had to programm or find my way around a Kurzweil product.

 

I can't say that the K2600R would make my short list of modules to purchase, but it would be a good addition if Ihad some extra cash to spend. I'm not hating against Kurzweil, but they just don't come to mind first for that type of music...

[guestuserguestuser.com]

Re the acoustic piano in the K2000 and Triton:

 

If you're talking about the K2000, it's piano is no great thing, but the K2600 includes the Kurzweil "Piano Daughterboard", which gives it quite a good piano, which sounds much better than its 4MB size might suggest. This is not available for the K2000, by the way, only the K2500 and K2600.

 

BUT, the Triton has the EXB-PCM01 Pianos and Vintage Keyboards expansion available (and very reasonably priced, too!) which features a quite decent piano which could compete very well with the Kurzweil Piano daughterboard.

 

Take a look at the Triton Rack, which can take 8 expansion cards plus the MOSS (the Triton can only take 2 plus the MOSS board). The Triton is getting to have quite a nice collection of expansion boards available for it, including the MOSS physical modeling board, the Pianos I just mentioned, plus a Loops one, a Vintage Synths one, and now an Orchestral one. This makes it very attractive as a module. Also, even though there are certain design features of the Triton that piss me off, I have to admit that its user interface, with the big touch screen, is quite user-friendly.

 

The Kurzweil has some greate features, and I love some of its design features, such as the way "patch remain" works all the time in every mode, and its object-oriented design. But some of its drawbacks are that the user interface uses a small LCD screen, the base ROM is only 8 MB, (and it still uses the same base ROM that the K2000 used in 1992), although the K2600 did add the 4MB Piano daughterboard. Add to this that it costs megabucks, and you can see why people choose the Korg.

[marino]

From my Euro perspective, I'd say that the Kurz is very widely used for pop, techno, and dance productions, but, indeed, not so much for hip-hop and related genres. Maybe the answer is simple: Since hip-hop only requires a few specific sounds, people doesn't need the complexity of the Kurz, or at least not so much to justify the expense.

Also: The Kurz is an unknown beast for many musicians. The VAST engine is seen as something very complicated (it is, in a way). But many people simply don't know that there are more free quality sounds on the net for the Kurz than for the other popular workstations! I mean many thousands of them, the vast majority dedicated to pop or techno, but there's no lack of hip-hop, acid, house etc.

The Kurz, being the first integrated synth/sampler, would be ideal for hiphop IMO. But Kurzweil choose to address their potential buyers differently, so the seasoned pro was attracted, but the DJ/Producer was a bit intimidated. This is a drag; the Kurz OS is NOT difficult to learn IMO, given its complexity; and the display itself was considered very big at the time the K2000 was presented.

I don't know... I think it's mostly a marketing matter.

 

marino

[Geosync]

Many Rap and Hip Hop producers use Kurzweil K series boards alone and with MPC's

 

As for the artist.. Well here's a good example of a hip hop tour

 

Big Worm and I did for Raven Symone when she went out with N Sync.

 

We used a K2500 fully loaded to do all the music, sounds effects, we even flew in background vocals. We bounced the tracks inside the K2500 using RAM Tracks and saved the .WAV files to be burned on CDs. We did different versions with different instruments missing so that she could take different size bands out depending on the venue and more so the budget.

 

Anyway, we did this knowing that very few backline rental houses had fully loaded K2500s. So the parts missing would not take away too much from the sound. It didn't really matter that much what was on stage because the main parts were coming from a DAT or one of the various CD mixes we did on the CD We even did radio spots for her with the K2500.

 

The factory sounds were not used of course except the acoustic piano and the strings.