Kurzweil K2000
Category: Products / synthesisers / sample synthesisers
Added: 18-Dec-98 | Author: admin
New price: discontinued | S/H price: S/H Cheapest (Low software version) 600-800 UK
Company Link: K-Audio
Kurzweil K2000
Well I love my K2000, and that about sums it up...I'm not a great programmer where synths are concerned...But the graphical layout, screen size, soft buttons (they change function according to the edit screen you're viewing) and alpha wheel for data entry make it surprisingly easy to work with the method of synthesis....Kurzwiel call it VAST.....Variable architecture synthesis technology...(!!)....and it is MASSIVE !!.....
Perhaps the most arcane part of this machine, and it's only not- so- good point is the output settings which can become a tad confusing.... however, I do use a very old software version...
The basic K2000, is 24 note poly, 16 part multitimbrel, has FX processor, and 6 physical poly' outputs....Left and Right, and 2 further stereo pairs. The basic raw waves from which the patches are constructed come as a 4 meg rom...which contains hundreds of attack transients, waves, partials etc.....a very useful and impressive pallete....Really the machine does the lot...I use an old version software, as I said, I'm not a great programmer...but even with this older more un-versatile software version, it is still easy to use, whilst at the same time, offering the experienced programmer almost unlimited potential....
Kurzwiel claim that it is the most complete synthesis of any keyboard....able to reproduce any form of synthesis.....well It would be impossible for me to even brush the surface of what this machine can do....but suffice to say sounds are created with first raw samples...next edits...next these are combined as layers, and finally the layers are combined to form patches...and between all this the editing is almost limitless......Let's put it this way......It comes with a bloody instruction video as well as half the British library worth of manuals !!!!
The K2000 utilises algorithms as on the dx range....You choose from 32 available algorithms....then you can choose to install different functions within the parts of the algorithm...This allows the machine to produce an excellently varied pallette of sounds,....and with 999 storage locations before even going to disk, you just grab a preset, tweak it...and save it...no problems !!...although it's obviously a very good idea to save edits to disk regularly, as the internal battery goes down eventually, and this machine is so feature packed from an editing point of view, that often it's impossible to reproduce a sound....The permiatations are literally endless.....
When it comes to midi control, this machine is the bollox....There are so many available midi control functions, It takes ages to scroll through them all even with the alpha wheel....there are lots of pedal sockets, 2 wheels, and a data slider... midi functions can also be assigned to just about any part of the synthesis chain.....
Kurzwiel sounds are lush......the strings are phenomenally sweet and epic, pianos are fine, and there are some excellent Jupiter, Juno and Moogy patches as well......programming twiddly stuff is piss easy, and there is a massive selection of sine, square and sawtooth waves to use....I've come up with some steaming harsh clavi/analog type key stuff quite easily.....and you can create 303 type sounds which move with harmonic overtones that immeadiatly get people saying..." Yeah....Interesting, different sounds in that track ..."
On the drum front it's the usual synth drum selection, but there is some cool percussion on the standard rom......However when it comes to expansion....the old K2000 takes off again......
These are the basic expansion options........
- Accepts 2 additional 4 meg roms......there's a classical rom and a contemporary/dance rom
- Upgrade to a full blown sampler with the sampling option....You can expand the memory with 30 pin simms to 64 meg..... Also the K2000 reads Akai, Roland and Ensonique disks....so you get access to a massive library.
- Comes with SCSI as standard so internal/external drives are simple
- The O.S is software based so upgrades are easy.....V3 and above come with a full function sequencer.
- The fan kit....an option necessary to stop the thing melting with all that power going on..!!!
So all in all it's just one totally awesome synth/sampler etc....which honestly could, if fully loaded, function as a total solution/workstation.......I heard a rumour that due to it's quality & cross-sample reading ability, Peter Gabriel had his studio complex fitted out with 6 of them all wired on a SCSI network to a central sample/data storage system...I wouldn't be surprised if it's true....
It will do TV/Film/Soundtrack/Atmosphere stuff......Twiddly analog stuff...Fat analog pads and sweeps...as well as very passable sax's and other imitations....and like I said...the strings...oh the strings......lush, lush, lush.....In fact, I went to buy a Korg Wavestation SR off a guy who was selling it 4 weeks old.....when I asked him why the quick sale, he replied that he did alot of soundtrack stuff, and was selling the Korg to get a K2000.....
Anyhow....better not ramble.....It also looks wicked.....has various modes for performance...(where you can arrange sounds for a song into mini banks for easy switching)......Loads of layer and split options....so with all the midi control...a massive screen, (with the option at the flick of a swith to display the bank/patch details in 4 inch high letters)...(FX included)....it is also an awesome performance keyboard as well......and don't forget, you can just plug in an Akai disks, and Roland or Ensonique sample disk i think with higher s/w versions (?) ....Also, I think I'm right in saying that the newer software versions also read WAV, AIFF and Dos samples as well....(I know the K saves it's samples as a dos format), ...or, with SCSI as standard, it's a snip to add a CD rom.
Lastly I'll say that the older non-sample-option-fitted versions are available at about the cost of several mid-upper 1000's priced 'dance' synths, and that also some people want a sampler too, or at least the ability to create specialised dance drums , loops maybe etc........
the K whilst being percieved as 'posh-synth'... gets real raucus if you programme it raw tho.. it can be harsh & simple regardless of it's massive synthesis.....she can be 'scary-synth' !!...
Also the K2000 takes standard simms, so you can take it up to 64 meg for less than 16 of special Akai S1000 ram....and...remember it reads 4 different sample formats.....you can fit the ram without the sample option....So what I did was, sling in some more ram......then I got a copy of Resample Pro, which is � 100......I sample stuff on the PC, then formatt it as Akai or Kurzwiel....load it in, and hey presto...a sample player for � 100 for the S/W, or load akai format, there is stacks of akai format cdroms with all the stuff on you want.........
(Resample also provides a cheap solution with the Akai S1000 Playback as well).. it's a bit dodgy sometimes.. i know i should update the s/w and it'd be wickedly good... sometimes samples get misread and fuck up, but it works most times..
Finally, the K2000 looks really cool and is incredibly light, small and compact too, with it's wicked impact-resistant type plastic shell........check one out...And bear in mind, that this is a review based on a unit with a 8 year out of date operating software and it's polyphony is less than a soundcard... but it's got character.. and so versatile..!!!!.......one of the few synths I can get a wicked original sound out of without spending a week or even 5 minutes reading the book !!............You can draw up so many waves & partials & stuff, at the most basic... grab a saw wave from a variety of tons, and add a filter.. sweep it...add some boost ... yum !... it's got character for sure...
Product Manuals or Files
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Product Resources
Audio demo?
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Category: Products / synthesisers / sample synthesisers
User Comments
Product: Kurzweil - K2000
Name: Martin Cote
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: part-timer
Date: 20-Jan-99
This synth is GOD!!! Fill it with ram and the sampling option and nothing on the market can even DARE to come close. The
thing has almost limitless capability, It can faithfully reproduce analog pads, wierd-ambient noises, and even 303 emulation... If
you can afford it, its well worth the cash!
Product rating out of 5:  |
Product: Kurzweil - K2000
Name: Tap
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: part-timer
Date: 20-Jan-99
could yoou tell me more about the yamaha a3000
| Product rating out of 5: |
Product: Kurzweil - K2000
Name: Brian Marcus
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: Hobby-ist
Date: 20-Jan-99
I'm looking for a used, cheap Kurzwiel that has Nine Inch Nail like settings and Techno settings.
Product rating out of 5:  |
Product: Kurzweil - K2000
Name: chuck pitre
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: Professional
Date: 20-Jan-99
the k2000 is the best synth/sampler ever made, I've had one for 5 years and I've bearly scratched the surface on
the power of the K2000
| Product rating out of 5: |
Product: Kurzweil - K2000
Name: eric
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: part-timer
Date: 20-Jan-99
The Grosse tutorial (available through the k2k
Programmer's Corner) is a must-have for a newbie.
The Kurzweil site is also stacked with free sounds.
Wonderful synth!
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Product: Kurzweil - K2000
Name: Steve Gualdoni
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: Professional
Date: 20-Jan-99
Don't forget the K2500- doubles the polyphony and and adds a few small thingslike controllor capabilities. Also cool is the later versions of the s'ware. I think that 3.18 is the latest on the K2K and 2.52 on the K25. The K2K gets a new disk system (if your system is not too complex it can share SCSI drives with your sampler) and I think it will import *.wav filez. The K25 imports them stock as well as being able to speak SMDI which is a way of sending audio over SCSI. If you have Soundforge you can send samples back and forth from the pc to the sampler via SCSI (read FAST!). I have a Pro studio and this this thing is like my right arm! It cost me about $2500 US, which was a great price, But you would need a large number of other machines to replace all it's goodies with! I AM STOKED by this thing even after using it for 2 1/2 years!
| Product rating out of 5: |
Product: Kurzweil - K2000
Name: Mattias
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: part-timer
Date: 20-Jan-99
OK, OK it's powerful but not without negative
points. I used to have the K2000R for years but
I got fed up with it. As soon as you use the
builtin FX the noicelevel is increased. I had it
serviced but the importing company told me that
it's a common problem and nothing could be done
about it. Second thing. I've got a huge library of
Akai sounds and sure you can load them but try
transposing a sound. If it's sampled at 44.1 kHz
it's only possible to transpose it upwards a few
notes. It makes a lot of the patches sound really
strange since the upper part of the patch is not
transposed.
The K2000 is really wicked if you want to screw up the sound.
It's like an analog sampler and everything you
put into it gets a special sound. Sample something
into an Akai and it sound the same. Put it into
the K2000 and it changes completely ie very good
for techno/goth music.
Another negative aspect. The upgrades are really
expensive. The sampling, internal program RAM etc.
Sure you got 1000 patch locations but the machine
runs out of memory after a few hundred of them if
you don't buy the P-RAM option that is not cheap.
The analog emulation is good, maybe not as good as
a ANX1 or a Nordlead but sure a lot better than
most digital synhts of today.
| Product rating out of 5: |
Product: Kurzweil - K2000
Name: JACK LIS
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: Hobby-ist
Date: 20-Jan-99
Hello! I had a K2000 rack with 10 meg ram, and a floptical drive connected to it... Unfortunetly 2 months ago I was forced to sell my K2000 do to financial problems.. Right now I'm looking for something that will replace the K2000 for me... But unfortunetly after trying out most of the samplers" EMU64, ESI4000, and whole bunch of other keyboards I realized that nothing comes close to the old good K2000.... It's one of the most versetile units out there.. I would recomend it to everyone who wont's proffesional results from one box.. I also got an EPS16 which i use to sample stuff on and than send it to K2000 where i did all the editing... K2000 is one of the easiest machines to work with, and sample editing is so simple, I think anyone can do it without to much knowledge about sampling.. Right now I think that I'm going to get the K2500 with 64mg Ram plus a nice shiny
Korg Z-1...
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Product: Kurzweil - K2000
Name: Mark
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: Hobby-ist
Date: 20-Jan-99
This is my work horse! You can do anything you want with a K2000 and then some! I have the rack version with the sampling option (RS)and it is the only box that I use on every track. Works great with Recycle! Truly VAST. Please everyone buy something else like a EMU or Akai. This is too much power to have in just anyone's hands.
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Product: Kurzweil - K2000
Name: eric
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: Professional
Date: 20-Jan-99
best piece of gear i ever bought!
| Product rating out of 5: |
Product: Kurzweil - K2000
Name: NICLAS
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: part-timer
Date: 20-Jan-99
The k2000 is simply the best.have had many diferent synths before but none like this
I wonder where i can find some drumloops to download.
| Product rating out of 5: |
Product: Kurzweil - K2000
Name: glenn
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: Hobby-ist
Date: 20-Jan-99
I dont own one but I have used a friends and wow!!
The most powerful sample based synth I think I will ever use.Absolutely brilliant dsp's,loads of features,I will get one soon-or e-mail me if you need to sell yours.
| Product rating out of 5: |
Product: Kurzweil - K2000
Name: Levis
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: Hobby-ist
Date: 20-Jan-99
Very, very good
I`m happy!!!!
| Product rating out of 5: |
Product: Kurzweil - K2000
Name: STUBBER
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: Professional
Date: 20-Jan-99
I am a K2000 user, and have been for around 5 years. I first saw it in a shop if Sheffield, England, about 6 years ago whilst at University. I had a play, fell in love, and as soon as I left Uni, and got a job I bought one. I am now in a progressive metal band called FIFTH SEASON. The very flexible way you can configure the K2000 easily for each application is such a benefit for me. I have multiple complete setups saved on disk. The sounds on their own would be enough but the K2000 gives so much more. When in my home studio, I use it in conjunction with ACID, CUBASE VST & Soundforge V4 & a JV-1080 to create dance/ progressive stuff. I also write scores for movies. In a live situation (with FIFTH SEASON)I use the K2000 (again with the JV-1080) both as a master keyboard and a sample playback unit (The samples being prepared using the K2000 and soundforge). Since buying it my life has been so much easier. The K2000 is soooooo cool.
| Product rating out of 5: |
Product: Kurzweil - K2000
Name: Subtexx
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: part-timer
Date: 20-Jan-99
I own the K-2000RS and I really love it..! it is a great synth and sampler but one problem I have is that when I save my sounds/samples to disk and reload them they sound all distorted and crackly.
How can I solve this problem? also I just picked up the Boss Dr groove Dr202 which is a great very low cost drum and bass sequencer..I am very happy with it
| Product rating out of 5: |
Product: Kurzweil - K2000
Name: Mike Clarke
Email: Email supplied but hidden
http://www.fromwithin.com/
Activity: Professional
Date: 25-Apr-99
What is now a very old synth still stands as one of the most powerful today. Very logical and flexible architecture leads to some incredible opportunities for making sounds.
It can emulate many other synths, and the amount of free sounds available on the net is incredible.
A number of times I have wished it could do something only to find that it can. It seems that they implemented everything they could possibly think of.
Amazing.
| Product rating out of 5: |
Product: Kurzweil - K2000
Name: low
Email: Email supplied but hidden
http://www.io.com/~low/
Activity: part-timer
Date: 28-Apr-99
good studio keyboard...better to use more specialized synth for writing techno
Product rating out of 5:  |
Product: Kurzweil - K2000
Name: Jan Rambousek
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: part-timer
Date: 30-Sep-99
Hi,
I'm just about to buy K2000VPR + Roland XP 30 for making dance music.
I've had K2000 for 3 years before and it works amazingly.I thought,that there could be something better for making new,weird sounds,according to many
advertisments which claim really high,but there is NOT ! I've got to know
many machines,but there is nothing comparable to K2000 at approximatelly same price.Thank You Young Chang Aki.
| Product rating out of 5: |
Product: Kurzweil - K2000
Name: StannyP
Email: Email supplied but hidden
http://www.mp3.com/tsdp
Activity: Professional
Date: 29-Feb-00
K2K is definitely not just another synth. It can do excellent DSP synthesis + it's an excellent sample player which can be expended to full blown sampler. To me it's like Virus-Triton combo with more character than either. Love the sequencer and the O/S. I just got it three days ago, and I already got a track half way done. You can mix samples with DSP models in one preset, is not this techno? The control soft keys are awesome.. everything is just meant to work and it does damn it!!! Wait till my track is ready, I will send an .ra with dace track produced on one K2K only wirtually without any external gear.
And the leads... I need to go play. CU.
| Product rating out of 5: |
Product: Kurzweil - K2000
Name: Eelke Jager
Email: Email supplied but hidden
http://www.partyvibe.com/lytrix
Activity: Professional
Date: 15-Apr-00
Well, I just have a second hand K2000R without sampling option, but with 16mb ram and a scsi hard drive installed. I first heard the K2000 in real action with a band called Front 242, they made almost an entire album with this instrument alone. So that was a point where I thought...This MUST be a wicked machine. So I put an advertisment on the internet and a half year later I got a reaction from a guy who desperatly needed the money...it was a pain to his heart to sell it. :-( But luckily for me I got a hand on the dream machine for a reasonable price. :-) I first used the factory presets (which are ok) but when I took a dive into the operating system VAST...wow! You can make this digital baby squeak link a FAT analoge synth, like no synth has ever done. This is because of the ability to link distortion, with lo, hi, bandpass filters with sine waves with shapers (found on Korg), You can control all the parameter via midi, for some wicked filtering, or pitching ro even waveshaping! It´s just all you want to control or create, you can do it, just by diving into VAST. It´s indeed massive. Listen to some of my tracks on my homepage to hear what this baby can do with some creativity and you´ll shiver...Especially The latest two CDs are all done by a K2000.
Keep Rockin!
Eelke
| Product rating out of 5: |
Product: Kurzweil - K2000
Name: Defector Z
Email: Email supplied but hidden
http://www.defectorz.com
Activity:
Date: 23-Apr-01
Okay - I've had my Kurz for about a month now, and I have had the opportunity to play with it, program it, get used it etc. I am missing the ver3 manual, so I haven't tried to delve into the sequencer yet, but I'll give some impressions on the sound, and the editing.
First - the editing is very logical, but not easy. The interface makes perfect sense, but the lack of any assignable knobs makes tweaking labor intensive. Unfortunately, the layout of the synth engine prevents the ability to assign 1 thing (I have a pocket control) to a part of the k2000. All the layers in a program can have a different algorithm, and some algs don't have filters. So, trying to control the k2000 with the knobs of my Pocket Control is pointless to try. Unless I wanna reprogram the PC for every patch. PAIN IN THE ARSE! So, you're stuck to programming using the menu. Again, logical, but not quick and easy.
The k2000 is tremendously warm and fuzzy. The presets are excellent, demonstrating the power of the synth. It is crisp, clean, and nasty. No complaints on the sound. Just about every aspect of the makeup of a program is midi controlled, and it is an amazing thing, that. As a controller it is lovely, as a synth being controlled by something else (like Cubase), it is lovely.
The keyboard is very easy to play, and the keys are very sensitive. Velo, AT, mod wheel, sust pedal and data slider. More controllers than appendages. Unless you count your nose.
Built like a tank. FX are excellent, although they are only delay type fx, like chorus, flange, etc. No distorsion, or anything like that. I don't have the "sampling feature", but if you can throw a sound onto a disk, and you have sample memory, you can use it as a sampler. So hooking it up to a computer is great. A little bit slow, but effective.
That's my story and I'm sticking with it.
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Product: Kurzweil - K2000
Name: miguel
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: part-timer
Date: 24-Jan-04
Thanks for the info, but is there a possibility to play the midi file disk straight from the keyboard?
Product rating out of 5:  |
Last added comment
Product: Kurzweil - K2000
Name: Carey
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: Hobby-ist
Date: 01-Sep-04
It is cool, but how do I sequence? I am trying to lay down nice tech/trance/house beats, but find it hard. I have the S model, with the daughter board and contemp rom installed. Any suggestions on how to fully use this toy?
| Product rating out of 5: |
'Kurzweil K2000'
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Total stars: 103 | Total votes: 23
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