Kurzweil K2600X

E

East Villian

New member
Kurzweil K2600X ($3,500+)

- 88-note weighted keyboard
- 48-voice polyphony, four deep
- 12MB of sounds expandable to 44MB
- 438 superb factory sounds
- VAST programming
- KDFX effects

Sequencer: 16 song & 16 arrangement tracks, advanced editing features, sequences can be triggered in realtime from the keyboard.

4 plugin ROM expansion board slots. Back panel has 8 1/4" balanced outs, 2 master outs, headphone jack, 4 footswitch & 2 continuous controller jacks, breath controller jack, 2 SCSI ports, MIDI in/out/thru. User switchable international power supply.

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I'm considering saving up for this keyboard, this would be my first keyboard. I'm not saying I'm gonna buy it, but I'm considering it. I wanna know about it first, then Ill head into town & play with it in the music store. I'm into hip-hop, r&b & soul music. I also wanna get my own PC for my room so I can sit down & make music all of the hours Ill be awake if I get one. Well, I dont know that much about production & engineering (I'm 15). But, from what I know I think the K2600X looks amazing. I was thinking about getting a Triton, but everybody has one & I wanna stand out (That is, if the Kurzweil can convince me to buy it! LOL). But, Ive created a list of songs that I like & what I would like sound like when I start music production, which'll be very soon I'm hoping.

1. Dr. Dre - Chronic 2001 (Album)
2. Alicia Keys - Songs In A Minor (Album)

These are the ones I would like to be able to imitate, but still be able to create my own stuff & keep some extent of originality. I'm not in any rush to go out & buy one, so go ahead & shoot with ya knowledge HR. Thanks again, Peace.

East Villian
 
I'm not a keyboard player, so when I was doing the research for tthe board I needed, I asked a working pro keyboard guy I know who plays all styles, who has a Kurzweil, and is the band leader for an internationally famous female singer . He can afford anything out there. His view on my situation was:

Kurzweil is the best board out there if:
You need a great piano sound,
You play piano,
You need great 'real' acoustic instrument sounds

There are better choices out there if:
You need to sequence
'Real' instrument samples are not your main sounds


With his agreement, he suggested Motif or Triton. He said either will work for me, and he was right.

As for 'Everyone has a Triton, therefore I won't get one' - don't kid yourself.
The reason 'everyone' has one is because they do the job.

As for you saving up to get this mega board - my suggestion to you is to start small, learn what things do and what you like, then you'll be much better qualified to make a good decision for you.

Good luck to you, too. Let us know how you're doing.

foo
 
Thanks!

Thanks foo, I wasnt thinking right. I know I should be looking into smaller, less expensive & extensive equipment. Appreciate the reminder, I'm looking into smaller equipment now. I'm having alot of trouble choosing what I want, and I dont have a music store around my area that carries production equipment so I cant just go out & test them out. But, thats not stopping me. Ill be sure to let yall know what I decide on, but until then dont be surprised to see alot more threads with questions from me. Thanks, Peace.

East Villian
 
The k2600 is overkill for you, I have a feeling. The best, most fun, most affordable keyboard you could get is an ms2000. You won't be sorry.
 
Subtractor, you must have smelt me on your ass!!

The MS200 is an extremely flexible synth that requires little knowlege, but offers plenty to learn! Awesome sounds! Do all these explanation marks give you the idea??!!

It might pay off better to get this freaky synth for like $800-1000 and have cash left over for a good MIDI sequencer in a few months. Yamaha QY-70 or 700's, Akai MPC's and many others to choose from.

http://pub86.ezboard.com/fjoyelectricfrm13.showMessage?topicID=157.topic
 
An ms2000 for $800 - $1000?:confused:

That's how much I paid for mine when it was new! Are they that expensive in Hawaii?
 
Yeah that's how much they are new everywhere I guess.

No I don't see many used. Haven't checked since I have one.

Used IS always an option.
 
They're as low as $600 new now. $500 for a rack. They're going for $300 - $400 on ebay. Fucking incredible deal! I paid $1059 + tax for mine and wouldn't sell it for that if I couldn't get another. It really is the fattest synth for the money available!
 
There is an important distinction being expressed here that should be made more clear. The Kurzweil you asked about is a Sample based instrument. That means that there (basically) digital recordings of instruments that are then controlled, played, manipulated, combined etc. by the instrument not unlike a small computer. The Korg that was recommended is an Analogue style synth, actualy Analogue Modeling I believe.

Analogue modeling takes the old style of analogue synths known as subtactive synthesis and imitates it with newer digital components. Subtrative synthesis basically is exactly that. It starts with an ocsillator that ouputs the entire spectrul of sound with a basic on/off enevlope and no particular filter settings or other sound manipulating applications. You then carve away, tweak and sometime re-route throuhg modifiers of sourts the sound until you get what you want. Old Anaolgue synths worked this way and, in fact, the old modular synths required that you physically patch in each module for the sound manipulation you wanted whether a filter, ring modulator or what have you.

The main point is that analogue synths produced very distinctive sounds. They were and are very electronic and not at all like traditional real instruments. If you did want to imitate, for instance, a french horn, or an oboe or a clarinet, you could imitate them but never sound like exactly like them. Usually though, analogue synths are more likely to be used for electronic type sounds more of what you might hear in typical dance or trance music.

Now the sample synths such a the Kurzweil start off sounding like the real instruments. They not only imitate them they are reproductions of the exact sounds with varying degrees of success. The Kurzweil is knonw for is remarkable degree of success.

Therefore, apples and oranges have been compared here. If the Kurzweil is what you wanted, the Korg 2000 is NOT the instrument for you at all. It will not, for instance, sound like an acoustic piano or an electric piano. It will sound like a whirling zippy thing that honks and bleeps or a mellow and smooth sound or wome otherwordly ethereal sounds.

Now for the most important part. Both of the albums you mentioned rely more on real instrument samples than on electronic, analogue sounds FOR THE MOST PART, though productions like those tned to have a bit of both dictated by the needs of the song or the feel or the producers concept or whim.

At best, it could be said that a basic understanding of synthesis would be helpful for someone of your age and therefore the Korg would be useful not only for that but for the great sounds it makes. However, for basi tracks with drums, bass, keys, strings, horns you can pretty musch forget the Korg, it will not happen, ever. You must get the Kurzweil or Triton or Motif or whatever sample based instrument you choose to have those basics.

Since you want to produce, you should probably get the sample based instrument first. Learn how to make your tracks well. Then you can simply add a module like a proteus or such from EMU that now costs less than $500.00 and you will have all of the bases covered. This is my opinion, take it for what its worth.
 
EV, is here.

Thanks 'Kracken. That reply really helps me out. I've come to the conclusion that I don't need analog synthesis right now. I should buy something sample-based. I'm looking into some of them well trusted workstations. Like the Karma, Motif & one I'm really into is the XP-30. I'm opening up a bank account in a few days also, so I can start putting away money for some equipment. I'm gonna go pickup some SM58s, Cubase & some other software apps when I can afford it also. I think I'm finally down with what I want, I want to pickup a new PC for myself also so I can put it up in my room & just sit in there all week & work on my music. Thanks all, Ive just came to the final decision of what I'm buying. It took awhile, but I am there now. Thanks HR, now I'm off to contemplate. :)

Live aka East Villian
 
Kurzweil-VA

Besides the 48 sample voices in the Kurzweil K2500/2600
many algoritms add square/sinus/saw sounds to the sound
your programming, there are also very decent sampled waveforms
in keymaps. Together with the available hard sync, PWM, subtractive, ampmod, oscmod & resonant filters that makes for
many good analog sounds. Additive synthesis is managed through the 32 layer program structure in the drumchannels
(all channels in the k2600 BTW).

So it is posssible to program a virtual analog sound with as many
as 32 x (1 + 3)= 128 different components, many of which can use their own Free/not free LFO, ASR, envelopes(X3 ). These can
influence each other through so called FUNs (arithmatical formula's) not to mention the RandV1 and RandV2 randomizers,
which can make your sounds just as unstable as the old stuff of
yore....

Oops, I've forgotten to mention the possibilities of the KDFX unit,
which adds a lot of other filters with the aforementioned capa-
bilities.

ISPdeRuiter,
Amsterdam

PS. BTW FYI they throw in an FMsynth (www.dlnsound.com), a
advanced sampling editor , a librarian/database, an effective
sequencer, a ROMpler, a vocoder, LiveMode (mangling your whole
studio through VAST+KDFX), a two track RAM recorder (resample your sequencer or your samples) and a B3 emulation mode with
9 drawbars etc.etc. Not to mention a good natured and educative
community on the net (www.sonikmatter.com and The Kurzlist).
As always I'll end mentioning the sound to be solid, smooth & with
3D depth.
I don't work for them, don't consider this spam. I'm just as adamant about this synth as the other average Kurzweil KXXX
series user.
 
Since this is your first keyboard, K2600 is overkill. I totally agree with PhilMckracken get a sound module which has expansion cards and a midi controller keyboard. If you still would like to go the Kurzweil way, then simply get K2000 with midi controller and spend the money on something else. You mentioned that a PC would have to be involved, then why not get a decent sound card, midi controller and Gigasampler, you can start with small library and expand with time. That's if your PC can handle it.

Cheers.
 
East Villian said:
Ive created a list of songs that I like & what I would like sound like when I start music production, which'll be very soon I'm hoping.

1. Dr. Dre - Chronic 2001 (Album)
2. Alicia Keys - Songs In A Minor (Album)
Click to expand...

Incidentally Alicia Keys used a K2600 for most of that album.
 
Yo, Live...

My buddy's first gear was a K2500 and he's STILL in love with it (many, many years later). He makes the same kind of stuff you mentioned wanting to produce. That being said, it's probably too much juice in areas you don't need at this point, and perhaps not enough in others. The Korg MS2000 is phat as hell, but by itself, trust what Phil or whoever that was said: It will NOT serve your purposes by itself (though I don't think i'll ever be parting with mine, either, subtractor!!)

I think a really phat setup to get started and grow with would be something like this:

Emu MK-6 (about 500-600 beans), and if you can afford it, an MS2000r to go with it. It would give you a decent variety of sounds - many "targeted" for the genres you mentioned, a bit of expandability within the board via cards - and all just for a taste over a grand... No sampler in this scenario, but you'll live fine until you can afford/decide which best suits your needs... You can even dump the MS2000 and for well under a g be making phat sounding shit...

Or the "workstation" scenario...

Yamaha Motif (over the Triton due to "real sounds" and WAAAAY better sampler intergration) - that'll run you about $1800.00 or so ( i don't remember how much mine cost - say no to drugs)...

Or, the "groovebox" senario...

Yamaha RS700 (which I can tell you all about), plus a midi keyboard controller (which you can find for mad cheap and add whenever the hell you feel like it - or not), or the new Roland MC 909 (which I can only give you my opinions on based on what I've seen heard and read...

Tell us how much loot you think you can realistically spend - maybe you'll have 500 or so come in Christmas gifts (or get the whole fam to pony up together for one joint) or whatever, in which case I would say don't wait, get what you can make good music with NOW, or maybe you got a charge card at the local music shop or live with daddy warbucks. Who knows? I don't, but if we knew what you was working with, we could help make all the garbledy-gook make a little more sense to you... And if you really got 3500 solid to spend, then maybe you should be asking what the best way is to make your own personal studio. Do you wanna record vocals, or just tracks and do vocals elsewhere, and so on... I suggest you think small and strong... By the time you begin to understand what's really going on, you'll have already made some (hopefully) dope shit, and know better what you need or not FOR YOUR PURPOSES...

P.S. Fuck what Dre & Alicia Keys used... Better to do a Missy Elliot:

work it
lemme work it
PUT MY THING DOWN
FLIP IT & REVERSE IT...

Oh, and if you really wanna stand out, use "what everybody else is using" and freak that shit. Don't be a gear bitch, make the gear YOUR bitch.

knock 'em out da box...

Flo' Dolo
 
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