Kurzweil 1000PX+

I've got one of the last 1000PX+ that went out of the factory. I also installed everything possible available at the time : the V5 software upgrade and the two additional sound blocks available for the unit, making it exactly identical to the 1200 Pro 1 unit that followed in the subsequent years.

The presets coming with the stock unit are very well done and can be played as soon as you turn the unit on. Even today, very few synths can deliver strings, choir and piano as good as those units that were built fifteen years ago. In any case, the goal for most samplers competitors is to try to do better sounds than Kurzweil.

The manual is quite complete and explain everything. As most Kurzweil products, the Pro 1 or 1000PX+ with V5 software is quite complex and needs time, patience and a good memory if you want to master all its possibilities.

There are simply too many features to even try to explain them here. The entirely configurable MIDI channels and setups, program change possibilities and a lot of other things makes those units simply uncomparable.

The versatily of all Kurzweil units is simply limited by your imagination.

What's amazing with this machine and with most synthesizers as well, is that it can deliver a lot better sounds than the factory presets. That's the problem with most synth users : they only try the presets, change a couple of things, and that's it.

Of course, this unit's presets are so incredible, you can play and record compositions with them without changing anything for several years. But personally, as I always want to get the most out of my synths, I could succeed at creating incredible new sounds out of the waves included in the machine.

For example, I created the most distorted and screaming CryBabe Les Paul guitar with this unit, and using the last samples you would think of out of the 1000PX+'s long list. This is of course a matter of hard work, trial and error and a lot of patience.

I also improved the factory piano presets to something a lot closer to the realism of a true acoustic instrument. In fact, I never use the presets anymore, but only my own rebuild programs. Even today with their latest products, most synths builders and musicians are missing some key elements to achieve a true expressive and realistic piano sound (just to mention the piano).

So with hard work and knowledge of real acoustic instruments, I analyzed the presets, modified them, used different samples and changed a lot of parameters before I could end up with something you can't even recognize as a sampled piano anymore. I have an MP3 on my site to prove it.

Here again, it's as reliable and solid as a tank. I had a little problem with the power supply, which suffered from a couple of bad soldered parts, and I could easily fix that myself. Total repair cost : ten cents of soldering and ten hours to find the problem.

No need for customer support, unless you're missing the owner's manual.

No need to dream about a Grand Piano when you have this Kurzweil unit. And what's more, you get incredible other samples as well, something you don't get even with a 9' Bosendorfer.

And the 1000 PX+ weigths 10 pounds, instead of 2000.

1000PX+: engine 1.93, setup 4.00
1000AX+: engine 1.93, setup 4.10

Ease of use is the big drawback for these units. That can be good or
bad depending on your programming talent and patience. If you're just
cruising the presets then the only big problem is a small display that's
not very bright. If you want to modify presets or do your own
programming then be prepared to spend a lot of time reading the manual,
punching front panel buttons, and staring at that small dim display.

Programming is complicated because there's a lot you can do with the unit.
But the OS and display are big limiting factors. There was a third party
PC patch editor made for these units that's quite good (KURLE). But it
hasn't been updated to the modern (i.e., Windows) world.

The manual is good - good explanations and enough examples. But you
need to read it end to end several times before you can push the
unit to its limits.

Features vary widely by specific unit. There were several variations and they
can get confusing. First you need to realize that these units are
rack mount versions of the K1000 synth. They started out with three of them:

HX - Horn Expander
SX - String Expander
PX - Professional Expander (pinao, some strings & horns, basic synth waves)

I think that the originals were all 20 note polyphony. They all
had eight button interfaces (no buttons to go directly to presets).

The next generation included:

AX+ - essentially the HX and SX in one unit
PX+ - a PX with drums, 24 note polyphony, and few other extra sounds

All of the + units has 20 button interfaces which allowed direct
access to 30 presets (bank buttons A,B, and C, and number buttons
0-9). The plus series ROMs could be upgraded. Two upgrades were
produced - the A block and B block. A PX+ with a B block upgrade
is essentially a rack mount K1200.

All units have mono samples but can produce stereo output. Patches can
have up to four layers and each layer can use a sample or basic synth
wave (e.g., sine, square, or sawtooth) as it's source. Each layer can
be modified by a number of effects. The effects are low level modules
(e.g., LFOs, attack sustain release envelopes, mixers, inverters, and
amplitude enveleopes) that can be combined to produce what most people think
of as effects (e.g., reverb, tremelo, and chorus). The manual has
several good examples of how to build complex effects from the
building blocks.

There is also a set of "compiled" effects which are essentially mini
programs that preassemble the basic effects into more complex ones.
These include vibratos, choruses, tremelos, Leslies, and echos. Some
of these duplicate a patch layer thus halving the number of available
layers from four to two and the effective polyphony.

There are a lot of other high end features, a few of which I'll just list:
velocity maps, panning, midi ranges, and alternate tunings. One that I especially
like is the ability to chain multiple units together to increase polyphony. I have
two PX+ units that operate as a single unit with 48 note polyphony (each unit
only responds to every other MIDI note). MY two PX+s sound like
a real piano - partly due to the high polyphony and partly due to the high
quality samples.

All units are multimbral and can operate on all 16 channels at once.
They respond to pressure and aftertouch on individual notes. The string
patches on the AX and PX use note aftertouch to control delay vibrato,
resulting in a very realistic sound and high expressive control.

The samples are what you'd expect from a Kurzweil - great across the board.
The only minus is that they're mono - thought there's a lot that
you can do with the effects and layering to make good stereo patches.

One major minus with drums on the PX+ - the note mappings aren't Roland or GM standard.
You can use a PX+ for drums (I do) but be prepared to program a bunch
of note mappings into your sequencer.

When they were built (late 1980s) the units were a 10+ on features.
After a decade, they still hold up well though they're clearly
limited by their dated technology - thus my rating of 8.

These units are primarily sample playback synths though the plus units
(the PX+ in particular) have enough waveforms to make them usable
modular synths. The samples are uniformly good. Some samples are
more heavily interpolated than others (e.g., a single note interpolated
to 2 adjacent notes) but noticable bumps are few and far between.

The sample quality and expressive control make these units especially
well suited to reproducing acoustic orchestral instruments.
The pianos and strings are absolutely top notch. The horns and winds
are good to great. The drums are good, but basic. There are no good
guitars and only one electric bass.

There are about three dozen synth and organ waves on the PX+.

The dynamic range appears limited when you read some of the patch specs.
But keep in mind that many sampled acoustic instruments have very limited dynamic
range. That said, the unit does max out a 60dB of dynamic range
and that's achieved only with artifical sounds (e.g., synth waveforms).
On the plus side - the units are VERY quiet.

I sold a piano because I had moved from Albuquerque to DC and was about to
move back to Albuquerque (didn't want to risk two severe climate changes).
I bought my first PX+ because it was the closest thing to a piano in
a box I could find. I swore I'd have a grand piano "in a few years".
Eleven years later I'm still happily playing the PX+ twins through
an Alesis RA100 and a pair of good near field monitors - no regrets.

I bought one PX+ new and the other used. My AX+ was purchased used. None
of the units has traveled out of my home more than handful of times
so I can't speak to road worthiness. The AX+ power supply had to be
repaired a couple of years ago. One of the output jacks on one PX+ doesn't
click to grab the jack. I'm sure it's easily repairable, but I haven't wanted
to mess with it since the jack connection box is soldered to the motherboard.
Seems like a pretty good record to me for three units each more than a decade old.

I've had the covers off a few times and I know computer hardware.
They're built like tanks and there isn't a cheap part to be found.
But nothing lasts forever. Buy two, treat them gently, and
feed them well conditioned power.

When Kurzweil was bought out by Young Chang (mid 1990s) support for
older products basically ended. There was a loyal group of users
reading and posting to rec.music.synth throughout the 1990s. But I
gave up newsgroup reading a few years back so I don't know if that
community still exists.

Hard to say if I'd replace them if stolen. Good used units aren't
easy to find and technology has marched forward quite a bit since 1989.
I love them to death but their not as irreplacable as a Hammond B3.
Higher polyphony and better programming interfaces would be a powerful
inducement to buy something more modern. But I doubt anything that I
buy today would have more features or be of higher quality.

I've played piano for over 30 years and have several years of classical
training. I also play popular music on piano as well as guitar and bass
in rock and roll bands. I do a bit of composing - some orchestral and some
modern using my PX+ and AX+ units with a 4 track and with Cakewalk 8.

My biggest love with these units is great piano and orchestral
sounds and endless programming possibilities - but I do computers
for a living.

My biggest gripe is programming with front panel buttons and a small
dim display. If you buy one be sure to mount it where you can easily
see and touch it while seated in front of the keyboard.

They were the best of their breed in 1989. Using them today is like
driving a fully restored and well-maintained 60s Cadillac. They
still do what they were designed to do and do it very well. But if
you're looking for antilock brakes, air bags, and 20 MPG on regular
gas then you'd better look elsewhere.