Kurzweil K2600X

Anyone that has programmed roland or korg products will find this product just as easy to use, and actually makes more logical programming sense. with a little practice, this machine can be a programmers dream. I have 4.0 OS on both boards, the presets are awesome, and patches can be quickly edited. the manual is not for the meek. It is much better if you have a training video or other training material if you are unfamiliar with this axe.

Keyboard action is great, and the polyphony can not be beat. Lots of stackable FX on individual programs, setups, and even on individual notes when splitting the keyboard into multiple zones. The sequencer is good, however I choose to do my sequences using Sonar and either a laptop or desktop workstation.

Varying levels of velocity and aftertouch, along with assignable parms to either of the wheels, or ribbon controllers, make this unit extremely flexible and very expressive. The addition of pedals which can be programmed to also bring in sounds, control filters, and add special fx is one feature that other vendors do not have in their products.

So far, I've had no problems with either unit. Although I wold trust these units to be fine at gigs, I always carry a backup keyboard just in case something goes wrong.

I've dealt with district sale managers and technicians, and they have always been very helpful and willing to stand by their product in a pinch. Never needed to send one to get repaired yet.

The one thing that I would add to this unit, especially for use on stage, is stereo XLR outs so the unit can be plugged into the snake without the use of DI boxes. The sound on this board in the band is absolutely incredible. It has blown away all other keyboards I've owned and has the most realistic sounds for cover material, and great "home grown" sounds for original material.

I have owned this for about a year and a half, bought it on close-out from Sam Ash for $1200 (!!) Put $600 into it with all daughterboards, all ROMs, and added memory. Totally tricked for $1800...
Very impressive sounds.

Love it, but it does have some issues.
Manual's a hog, but you have got to read it.

Polyphony is not what it should be, tons of effects, but not easy to remember. The weighted keyboard is better than the Korg any day, but the Korg has some newer/ cooler sounds.

The samples are impeccable. Great feel, great to play

I have had zero problems with it and when I originally bought the add-ons, the Kurzweil folks bent over backwards to get me the best prices, even beating out on-line auction houses!
Good folks.

I have heard some stories about tech support though.

See above

Love it, but if I lost it, I might buy a Triton.

I've been playing keyboards for 20 years, i work in the I.T. and I think this Keyboard is really hard to use. When I bought it they gave me the K2500 telling me that the new one will arrive in "one or two months"

Kurzweil tries to convince you that this stuff is equipped with a 32 track sequencer. This is crap... you can get to 32 tracks only "overlapping" two different song. The only real 32 track sequencer remains the Yamaha QY700. I payed it 3400? and the keyboard wasn't even equipped winth a single mb of ram for managing the samples!!!!

Nothing to say... this is the only good thing of thi keyb. The piano is amazing, the string is wonderful. Quite good on the hammonds (Triton Rulez!)

I have only possessed it for a week.

In italy the support is really looooooooooooooooooooong...

I sold this "thing" after one week and bought a Triton Studio. If you like Kurzweil sounds buy a PC2X and forget about this swindle. Final rating.... Bleah!!!!

The K2600X (88 key) and K2600 (76 key) are both very easy to use. However, if you wish to get into the programs and modify them, expect to spend a couple of weeks learning how VAST and KDFX work (the manuals are 800+ pages combined!!). The good thing is YOU DON'T NEED TO LEARN every single VAST parameter. And the K2600 is laid out beautifully from an operations stand point. Sure a touch screen or a few more buttons would be nice, but don't fret about it. This is a super board w/ lots of power and relatively good ease of use.

There is nothing this board can't do. F&&!&^ing amazing! Better than MOTIF, Korg Triton Studio or Roland's Fantom. (Though I will say I think the Fantom is a close 2nd for composing/sequencing).

Everything out of this board is a 10 except for:
Piano (unless you get the Piano ROM, the acoustic piano is A- )
Hip Hop style instruments (not well represented)

Very reliable. Built very well. Heavy duty. The numeric key pad feels a little flimsy to me, but no worse than most other synths.

Kurzweil is A+ They will get back to you in 1-2 days every time.

I could not be a musician/composer without a K2600... it is essential. There is no keyboard that sounds better, however as of 1/2003 there are many keyboards that sport more features and better cosmetic appeal. Dark blue is sooooo '90's

VAST technology is most excellent but is complicated to program at first. There are lots of tutorials available and the manuals are well put together. The sounds are amazing but the polyphony needs to be increased.

Probably the most complete workstation available but lacks in polyphony. Most presets are not going to be used but make good starting point for designing your own sounds. The key action on the 2600X is very responsive to expression. The KDFX and tripple modular programs are very flexible and sound terrific. Plenty of sliders and controllers and all are easy to set up.

The VAST technology allows you to setup the kind of expressiveness and sensitivy to velocity and aftertouch. The sliders and controllers are easily accessable while playing. The quality of the sounds generated whether or not KDFX are used is quite impressive. The VAST archetecture allows for quite a lot of experimentation with sound creation.

Never any serious problems with dependability but quite large and heavy for gigs, this is not a portable keyboard. Also would worry about possible damage to sliders or display during transport.

Never had to seek customer support.

Overall this is the best keyboard that I own. Would replace it in a heartbeat but would get the sample option the next time (more for the live mode than sample input). Having used an old Moog with plenty of patch cables, when I looked at the VAST archetecture it made a lot of sense. Plenty of programs and setups are available free from various sources on the internet and lots of programming tips are available for those intimidated by the programming. This instrument can help you make interesting and entertaining music.

Sounds are good, very bad product. Manual is pretty easy, but deep.

Sounds are good, but very had to use. Buy a roland or korg.

Effects are good.

I don't depend on this. This thing has the most problems.

Customer support is horrible.

I work at a local music store, and we carry the entire line of Kurzweil products. Let me just say that this company needs to get their act together. They are using cheap parts in all their keyboards. In the past 3 months, we have sent back our K2600x and our pc2x 2 times already. They seem to play static/noise after a few months. We turned on the unit one day, and a blast of static sounds when you play it. I have never heard a keyboard do that, even twice! I highly recommend buying a Triton, or a Roland. This company is really bad, and they don't realize it. I'm having complaining customers and lots of repair work. If you pay $2000-4000 for a keyboard, it should last a very long time, right? Since they are using cheaper parts(Fatar), this makes they products less in value. I have even talked to the Kurzweil rep, but he just blames the repair center. Okay! Anyway, Roland and Korg last a life time, so look into those. I am very disapointed in Kurzweil, can you tell!

I am using version 3.0 which I downloaded from Kurzweil. The presets on this are excellent! There is a wide variation of sounds from pianos and B-3's to synths. Editing is simple but difficult. Say what? Well it's user interface is very good with a large 4 line window that is well layed out. However; this is a complicated and highly programmable synth which is where difficult comes in. If you understand synthesizers and you have no problems with terms like DSP and alogorithm then you shouldn't have a problem. If those concepts are intimidating, then programming will be to you. The manual I think is very good and very thick. This makes my old Rolands (A90EX, XP30) look like a toy. The sounds are great!

The keyboard action is great! I tried the K2600 keyboard the 2600X's keyboard. I could actually play faster with X's. I like it's action much better than the A90's (it is lighter) and I find it's expressiveness much better. This thing is very expandable which is one of the reasons I bought it. For example I just bought the sample card but haven't tried it yet. Try the preset "Touchy Orchestra". This is really good example of aftertouch and touch sensitivty. I have never seen another synth this expressive. It has a sequencer, input for a Yamaha breath controller a couple of peddals and 4 switches. It has 8 sliders usable on midi, presets or as drawbars in the KB-3 B-3 mode. This mode is fantanstic! You can totally tailor the sound of your B-3 with items like the amount of key click, number of tone wheels, which tone is percussion, percussion volume, volume of organ after percussion... in short just about every aspect! Fantastic!

The pianos, strings, horns, saxes, B-3s all are killers! This is the best sounding synth I have heard. The samples in this thing are second to none! The KDFX effects are so clean and beautiful. I had a PC-2X for a few days and when I took this home and played it through my system I immediately heard a tremedous difference in the effects and samples. The PC-2X had nice sounds too, but the 2600 sounded so much better! I think the big difference was in the quality of the effects. As I stated about this thing is very expressive. It really responds to me and that is all programmable for guys with a heavier or lighter touch.

I don't know yet on this. I haven't had a problem.

I asked these guys a question via email and they didn't blow me off even though the question would have been blown off by most customer support people I've dealt with. They had my answer the next day.

I would definitely buy another one. I can think of no other unit that can even come close to the sound and versatility. It is very expensive but worth every cent!!!!

i PLayed this in a store (1 and 1 half horrs, that good!) and man, the piano sound is pretty damn good, bright, but easily modified.

48 notes of polyphony, man, that's short, especially when you play sustained classical. but not THAT bad. it only happens when you play ALOT. just don't play Flight of the Bumblebee. but, piano keybord is great, almost feels like my great grandfathers steinway, almost. but editing sounds is pretty damn difficult,but can't say much else, i only played it in a store. :(

piano is good, bass is OK drums are better than average,but i love the organs!!!!!!

i mostly use this to play Classical, some jazz, and a little pop. but when i played the organs, it sounded good, even better with some editing, piano sound is pretty god *&^*& good!!!!!! i like the xylophone alot, good luck.

i dunno.

i really want to get it,but it costs alot ($3495) and, ihave to ask my little old father for it for X-mas, pwease dwaddy? I nweed it!

I purchased my K2600X about 6 months ago, essentially as I needed an "all in one" workstation to pull all my music together in one place. The main reason for choosing Kurzweil was the quality of the sound, particularly the piano which is really very good. The pre-sets are very simple to use & there are hundreds of programs & 1000's available on disc. Unfortunately only about 30% of the factory settings can be defined as "useable" the rest are more "effects" than playable sounds. When I eventually figure out how to program this beast I am sure that I will be able to create hundreds of "my sounds". The VAST programming is complex & if you are new to programming you are going to have fun. The manual is fairly readable but unless you really have nothing else to do, it's going to take some reading - I am still ploughing through it 6 months later, the video is handy to get you started, but the problem is that you can't watch it without wanting to ask questions that are just not covered at all. They really could do with a series of detailed training videos to help you get the most out of it otherwise you're only ever going to just scratch the surface

Moving up from a Roland D-50 (pause for emotional sigh) with it's 8 voices, I foolishly though that with 48 voices I would be laughing! Sadly this is not the case. OK, it's quite a lot of voices, but most of the sounds you will want to use are composed of a number of "layers", & it's not uncommon to play a program with 4 layers. This means that you only have 12 voices of polyphony. Astute readers will realise that you only have 10 fingers anyway, but this is not a "synth", it's a full blown piano keyboard & if you play it like one & hit the sustain pedal you soon run out of notes. I suggest 96 as a minimum should have been the polyphony for this flagship keyboard.

The sequencer is the guts of the machine as far as I am concerned, & it does do the job well. If you plan to use this you must get the memory upgrade as without it, it gets quite slow to program particularly when you are working near the memory limits. Each "song" can only be 64K, so for a complex composition it is necessary to string a number of "songs" together. I have noticed that if you have a lot of "events" occurring together & this is mentioned in the manual, you can get a tiny timing anomoly between song parts - not that the casual listener will notice - but it's enough to annoy me!

Having said that it is fairly easy to use & I have been impressed with my results to date.

The Polyphony problem is exaggerated with the sequencer & I have had to carefully edit work to ensure that all my notes are sounding, as by the time you have say a 4 layered vamp going, + bass, drums, solo's & effects it doesn't take long to use the 48 voices up

Piano sounds are excellent, I really like the keyboard action - I had been warned that it was not good, but frankly if you are a piano player you will really like it.

I noted prior to purchase that all the demo's seemed to be up beat techno rave type stuff or strictly classical piano virtuoso playing !

My music is basically 70's instrumental prog rock (sorry - what else can I say?), but I find that the sounds work well for this. I do miss some of my old D-50 sounds I had created which don't really have equal programs on the Kurzweil, but as I say I remain convinced I can recreate them when I eventually figure out how to program this keyboard.

One of the complicated features I would say is the effects processing. It is very flexible indeed, but what I was really disappointed with was that although each individual program can have it's own effect (reverb/ chorus whatever) assigned to it, as soon as you enter the sequencer mode, you have to allocate one track (say track 1) as the "effects channel". It is the effect allocated to this track that is the effct for all the other tracks too !!!. What a nightmare. For example if you allocate a sound with a big reverb to track 1, & want a drum sound on track 2, you get the drums "playing in a large cave" sounds - if you follow me. There is a way to create a "studio" that means that different effects can be routed to different tracks but they don't really explain in laymans terms how to do this - particularly hard if programming is new to you.

Ah - having bought my dream, it crashed within 2 weeks. Sometimes over 15 times a day! - I have to say that Kurzweil & Arbiter the distributor were keen to swap the unit, but said it was up to me to deal with the shop. Eventually I managed to convince the shop that it wasn't "me" & there was a problem, but they wanted to repair it! Well you don't really want to part with this much money for a repair to be essential within 2 weeks. After considerable arguement (& I cannot stress this enough) they did eventually agree to swap for new - although I will never trade with them again.

I have used it to gig, athough from photohraphs I have seen you can see the "fear of crash" panic on my face!

Clearly I have ben scarred by this experience & although the replacement unit has been as good as gold I can't help but worry slightly when I switch it on. I would rate the 1st unit as 1, & the 2nd as 10, so an average of 5

When I was first looking at Kurzweil, & uncertain where to turn, I made the mistake of emailing Kurzweil direct & got a responce from US sales rep who said it was nothing to do with him! - But then again customer service anywhere these days is usually rubbish so what did I expect - I only wanted to give his company $4K ish after all... (note that the keyboard is a lot cheaper here in the UK)

The response I got from Arbiters (the distributor in the UK) when the 1st machine went wrong was very helpful.

I would like to get a few upgrades done, but need to find another shop in the UK near me to do it, as I will not use the original one for reasons above

At the end of the day I love it & would buy again of stolen. I have been playing for 30 years (I'm 36) & have loads of other keyboards, guitars etc.
I was looking at Korg, but decided on Kurzweil. I just wish there were advanced training video's available. Perhaps there are!
I listen to my old demos recorded with my Roland & Memorymoog on a Fostex A8 recorder which I always thought were good, but compared to the same music recorded on my 2600X - well the new stuff is... - well CD quality, 10 times as good!

Lastly, it's very heavy!!

I am using OS 2.0, which comes with Triple Modular Processing, some other new features and which washes away a few bugs (like the floppy disk problem, etc.).

The sound is really great, even though I think for analog sounds, the virtual analogs still do better, which is kinda logic. But for the rest, it is a great overall synth. The presets could be a bit more useful, I mean, more practically oriented sounds than sounds that only demonstrate the skills of the synth but which can never be used.

Editing patches on this synth requires experience with analog synths and a lot of patience because VAST is damn complex, not to mention what complexity is added with Triple Modular Processing or KB3. If you are a beginner in programming, you will be lost in all those features and only use preset sounds; unfortunately, that is not what this synth has deserved. A patch editor does not make a difference, not even the realtime controllers, the system should offer a beginner's screen and an advanced mode screen, however, the Flash ROM is too small to be wasted up with such features, sad but true ...

I agree that this synth could use some better overview in its structure, something like more illustrations in the manuals and so on. The latters are great but they are still theoretical, I would find it much better if the manual would analyze a few sound examples, such as a piano / organ / strings etc., so that the basic principles become clearer.

The 48 voice polyphony is big marketing and financial mistake by Kurzweil. How do they expect selling a device with such few power in a big price category ? 64 is already standard, 128 will be so in 2 years, how do you people from Kurzweil expect that this synth will survive at least 4 years ?? There is no excuse for such a "mistake". With Triple Modular Processing (where each note uses 3 voices at least), this becomes even more ununderstandable. The keyboard action is great though, big problem is the weight though. Therefore, I am trying to sell it and to buy the rack version together with a light master keyboard (later more on that point).

The KDFX is just wonderful, there could be more PAUs (can be seen as the actual power of the unit to produce a certain number of effects at a time), but on the whole, THIS has been a great decision. Too bad that the P-RAM (internal program memory) has not be upgraded, and it is still too expensive as an option.

Moreover, expandability is also a very new characteristic to the K2600: up to 44 MB ROM samples, 128 MB sample RAM, 8 Gigabyte harddisks, lots of audio/digital in- and outputs, big Flash ROM, easy and fast upgrade by the user himself, e.g. for the ROMs or the P-RAM, (except for sampling options and some rarely used features) and much more.

No need to mention that the K2600X is a perfect master keyboard, okay, no channel's aftertouch, but you have got already enough other controllers, the problem is to know where to begin.

I mainly use the on-board sequencer because that way I can work quickly without system crashes and without MIDI problems. A few sacrifices have to be made but it is more than enough for me, I am more the live performer anyways. It is easy to use, still flexible, has got many features and can export MIDI format, so it has got nearly everything you need ...

The instruments sound very realistic. The pianos are good, even if a synthesizer will never be able to reproduce the charme of a grand piano (i.e. resonance, full sound, etc.); but it can be seen as some of the best to be in the market. With thousands of sample CD ROMs, an SCSI CD-ROM and a K2600, you can be sure to always have the latest trendy sound available.

With Triple Modular Processing, even complex analog sounds become very easy and realistically to reproduce on a Kurzweil synth. Just amazing how it sounds. Finally, it becomes a universal synthesizer, for nearly any style. KB3 is also very great, even though I use it less, as a (still) non-Hammond playing keyboardist. As already said, the FX are excellent, you will never miss anything.

I hope there is more to come in that direction. No, I bet there is more to come.

You can definately rely on it. If you cannot rely on a Kurzweil, what can you rely upon ???

I did not make that good experiences here. Since the beginning, the F2 sharp key had a problem, so I sent it back to Kurzweil Europe (I live in Europe, just for information). It came back, unrepaired, because they claimed that everything was okay, but it wasn't, the problem came back, a few days after. So again, I sent it back, and finally they decided to do the necessary repairs. Since then, it seems to work.

However, why do I have to convince them as a customer that the product has a physical problem ?? In the USA, such a behaviour would probably provoke some "restructurations" in the personal department. My dealer was really disappointed by that customer service from the part of the Kurzweil Service Center Germany.

I'd the K2600 again. It is a great overall synth and is the best among the standalone workstations. It could use some upgrade in polyphony, that's all. I would never buy the X version again though, because it is too heavy. Moreover, during live play, you practically need no controllers, except for the ribbon, the pitch bender and the sustain pedal.

I'd rather buy the rack version and a light master keyboard. I don't care anymore if the keys are weighted or not, I own a grand piano, used to practice there for years, so as long as there are 88 keys or at least 76 keys I am happy. The SP series by Kurzweil becomes interesting from that point of view.