It's the Kurzweil K2000r! The rack mountable version of the K2000. Waaaay back in 1991 Kurzweil Music Systems/ Young Chang developed this groundbreaking instrument. This thing could do it all! It's not the first of it's kind, though. In fact, Fairlight and E-mu were in the game as well. The first for Kurzweil was the K250....
It's conception was 1982 and its debut was at the 1984 NAMM show. It went on the market for about $10,000. (1984 money). It was one of the few synths at that time that was sample based rather than analog and the quality of the samples in this machine blew peoples minds. Orchestra, pianos, guitars clavs all sounded so real that the industry standard had changed forever. A lot of big minds went into the conceptualization of the K series...Stevie Wonder, Alan Pearlman (founder of ARP Instruments Inc.) and Robert Moog...and we all know who that is...Not to mention the amazing team of technicians hired by KMS.
The K250 sported 12 voices of polyphony with 12 oscillators per voice. That's a lot by todays standards. If you have a truely analog deck with 4 oscillators your pretty much styling! It also had a 12 track built-in sequencer, 16 part multitimbral at 12-bit resolution, layered keyboard capabilities (up to 6 zones deep). Again, by todays standard thats massive. There are too many other features to address here and this article is about the K2000. Shall we?
The K2000 was released in 1991 with a starting street price of about $3,000.00 before upgrades. It's size was the first obvious change from the K250. As amazing as the K250 was, it was a console...a piece of furniture, really. The K2000 was of a normal synth stature with 61 non weighted keys with aftertouch (or monotouch..Kurz speak), 24 voice polyphony, 3 layers per voice, (32 Layers can make up a program) with up to 96 oscillators!! WHaaaaaaaa??, a 16 track built-in sequencer, optional sampling module with digital ins and outs, xlr and High Z inputs, and most importantly the introduction of V.A.S.T. technology. A proprietary synth engine design that, once again took everyone by surprise. It also had expandable RAM (up to 64mb) and Pram (program memory) capabilities.
V.A.S.T. offers a few angles here. You can alter the sound of wav samples by using algorithms. Each algorithm (there are 32 available) allow four user assignable DSP blocks to route the signal through. Some of them are filters, pitch, amplitude, even oscillators etc...Head spinning yet? Yeah well, each DSP block can be controlled by a myriad of control sources. Either by midi controllers like knobs and faders or by internal control sources like LFO's and filters.......It's a lot to take in. The 500 something page manual proves it. And if you have Version 3 as I do, you will have another large manual to contend with. I won't lie. The learning curve is steep! I havent even touched on FUNS or ASR or any of the other Kurzweil-isms that you find deep within the dark caverns of the programming menu.
Another awesome advancement was the Digitech effects chip they used for the on-board effects processor. It's fairly limited and a bit murky compared to the KDFX processor used in later K models, but I actually enjoy it just the same. It should sound dark. It was the 90's! BTW, the effects were control source programmable as well. Again, not to the extent of the KDFX.
I feel as though there is so much to talk about with this model. Yet, most electronic musicians won't bother with these anymore. They are dated. 24 voice polyphony, SCSI interfacing, Floppy Disks, low memory and the absence of software editors is something most folks aren't interested in these days. Best left to the romantics....
And the presets on these are pretty dated. Not to be rude, but a lot of the time people buy synths for the presets simply because they aren't proggie types and some are looking for the most (typically) current sounds (ie: dubstep wobbles). You CAN do all of that and more with these synths. You just have to understand V.A.S.T. and most people don't want to invest themselves. I like to really dig into gear and make my own sounds. The K2xxx's ARE more about programming. I absolutely love mine. I also own a K2500xs which I will discuss in another blog. The programming possibilities are rich and the sound is lush. If you want to make it sound modern or retro, it's all there. Gentle or purely satanic? It's all there!
I aint ashamed!!
Ok. So, I did a lot of writing and feel I've left out a lot of features. So, based on that AND the fact that finding resources for these machines on the web is becoming more and more a challenge I am going to include a section of links that I plan to update regularly as I find them.
http://kurzweil.com/
http://www.vast.cunka.com/index.php?PHPSESSID=c282d2aa35b33dd96464253f076a32cb;wwwRedirect (anyone who owns a Kurzweil should join this user forum)
http://www.tangentcats.com/index.htm
http://www.creativebits.net/k2000/
http://www.synthzone.com/kurzweil.htm
http://www.sweetwater.com/k2000/b-cowell/
http://www.ebay.com/sch/backlights/m.html?item=271057465604&pt=Keyboards_MIDI&hash=item3f1c48b104&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2562
(these are a must! Those old LCD's aint what they used ta be.)
*Here a few pics from when I replaced mine*
Before:
This job was very simple to do. Once you have the chasis open, you disconnect LCD's power and interface clips from the motherboard then loosen the screws that fasten the LCD to the frame. Detach it and on the left side are 2 soldered copper wires. De-solder them and slide the light tape? ( I guess that's what it's called)..out. Slide the new one in, re-solder and put everything back together...done.
Some Vids!!
Here is some of my own music I've done with this synth.
This one is actually a K5000 on the lead and the Roland JV-1080 on the backing tracks.
I will be adding more links and vids continuously as I am currently using this synth in my studio kit.
