Kurzweil K2700

Then you guys can purchase the K power pathches by oscillator on YouTube and load them up !

Always recommend scsi SD solutions like zuluscsi over a gotek to improve load times and storage size. Benefits of the kurzweil units is you can bypass having to open it up by using something like this:

I use it with my k2000rs with a DB25 cable so I don’t have to reach to the back of the unit if I want to add images or disks to the SD card. Crazy fast load times!

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Started looking at Reverb… Wait. Floppies. No. No. I still remember bad blocks issues, nightmares :smiley:

Question: does it make sense to look for older k2000r/rs, k2500, etc when the k2700 are more available?
Is there everything OS/features from the older models included into newer versions or anything that is missing? Sorry if this was answered already, a bit not clear to me from the specs…

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I remember Sleazy stating in an interview how they were against presets… :rofl:

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With K2700, you get an update on practically everything, more particularly 5 times more polyphony, VA1 virtual analog engine, audio inputs as a standard and USB connectivity. The 88 key version is 10 kg lighter than legacy but still impressively heavy at 23 kg.

Compared to the legacy products, you lose General MIDI mode and form factor variety. Legacy series offered rack, 61 and 76 key versions. The most practical form factor was the K2661 in my opinion, i.e 61 semi-weighted keys with all the bells and whistles.

However, another thing that I’ve observed. K2600X, the 88 key flagship version, used to sell for an impressive 5 grant including the sampling, connectivity and ROM options 20 (!!) years ago.
Today you get the “same” at roughly 3 grant. So visibly costs have been cut dramatically in comparison. How this reflects on the K2700’s quality I would not know. But there has to be a quality cut somewhere or at least a lack of evolution compared to competitors. This said, VAST remains a powerful synth engine for sure.

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Cheaper alternative to K2700 is PC4 and PC4-7. Naturaly some features are missing (lower sample memory, some hw controls) but the V.A.S.T. engine, polyphony and FX units are the same. I’m not a keyboard player so when I got the PC4-7 I took the keybed out to make space for Linnstrument and the weight went down to sweet ~4.5 kg which is great for weekly rehearsals with band.

Coming from K2500R>PC3K6>PC361, PC4-7 is pleasant and evolutionary upgrade. Older models have some roughness in sound which I miss and might be the reason I’ll keep PC361 around. What I miss the most is the master multi-band compressor and EQ. These are dumbed down in PC4-7. Although one can work it around a bit in FX section of each sound.

In general, for me half of the fun with V.A.S.T. dwells in FX section. It can be used as inherent sound design part. I was able to apply some physical modeling strategies purely in FX.
Having 32 FX units (compared to PC3’s 16) is blessing and was enough reason for me to upgrade. Sound of PC4 seems smoother (32-bits vs 24-bits DAC’s of previous generation?) but it’s easy to sand it rough with sound design tricks.

Oh … and the FM is awesome! Full DX7 patch compatibility is great. And as always with Kurzweils, the sound of FM is full and beefy. No FM VST comes even close to it. I really enjoy to generate some randomized (ill sounding yet musical) patches with Synthmata, MIDI looped to Dexed to audition it, make a bank and import it to PC4-7 for further tweaking (MPE controls, FX etc.). And then comes the layering if there’s need for complex sounds.

Concerning user samples, I’ve only tried briefly some AKWF single cycles but it didn’t work well. Too few octaves are playable. It seems that the sample keymapping system can’t handle just one sample for complete note range. Need to try some break loops and multi-sampled instruments (hang drums and some exotic stringed instruments from E-MU sample collections).

Having two stereo outputs and stereo input invites for external send FX mix-in routing. Tried it with some pedals and it works great. DA/AD path remains transparent. And it’s possible to put dedicated FX chain on the input as well.

The only thing that bugs me is the way it slops when PC4 get’s MIDI clock slaved to external master. Praying for FW update that will sort it out.

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2700 can’t sample unfortunately.

If it can load samples from usb/sd this is ok for me. Did not use much the live sampling

Thinking about buying a K2000S here. The price is reasonable and everything seems to work (for now). I didn’t test the floppy drive. I don’t think anything on it is upgraded or serviced. I really enjoyed playing it. Is this dumb? What should I be looking out for?