Kurzweil ME-1

The Led only display is a bit cryptic. The trade off with this unit, and all the other half-rack wonders like the (JV1010, etc )is they are not gig friendly unless you control them from a controller that's got some muscle, or do your programming at home. The Me1 is capable of lots of control but the manual is no help. I've been able to glean a lot of it's control features by reading the manual for the pc2 (available free online) and by sheer experimentation. Kurzweil was a little ADD in this regard: e.g.: sometimes a filter can be opened by controller 6 on one sound then it's controller 13 on another.

The value is in the sound. As stated by others polyphony is weak, and you will have voice robbing if you do layers or lots of multi parts.

I bought the ME hoping to use it as a poor man's PC2x with a wieghted action controller. In a given week I could playing solo piano, top 40, jazz combo, or with name act oldies band and doing session work.

The big mistake I made was that
I programmed lots of great sounds and combinations in the ME-1 that sounded killer in my headphones. Once I brought the unit on a gig, it was horrible. My 10 year old pc88 had better clarity, and overall life and playablity.

I've conceded that this is a great box as long as it's run in stereo. It's great in the studio. I also play in a hi-profile worship band, and with thier sophisticated stereo monitor system, the me1 sounds great. Problem is most of my gigs I run in mono for simplicity sake. (Should be noted, my mono system is either Bag End or Barbetta so the fidelity is there.) And in that scenario the Me1 is not all that pleasing.

As to the sounds themselves: The pianos , e-pianos and strings are really great, and the brass, pads etc very usable. I'm looking at using this as a synth module in my live rig if I can make those sounds work in mono. I considered trading up to the PC2rack but at that price point you might as well get a dedicated keyboard.

so far so good. The wall wart is at least a lump in the middle kind, which I can tolerate much more than the pregant plug kind.

Young Chang must be paying attention. I emailed some questions regarding accessing some estoric midi funtions and got a very detailed repsonse. I was pleasantly suprised. As always, a little kindness goes a long way to getting help from these guys.

I've always wished I had the Pc88's very nice string/piano layer sound in an easy to get to format. I've tried to recreate that sound with my k2600 and could never get it quite right. So I had to resort to dragging the heavy pc88 into the studio. ( I use the pc88 for gigging) The Me-1 at least gives me that sound and lots of other very usuable pianos. For session work it's a great little piano/utility box. I'm going to keep it for that purpose, and possibly for some of the synth sounds live.

Would I buy it again?, well the older I get the more I want a responsive digital piano that feels like an instrument. ( if I can't use the real thing that is). I've used and loved Kurzweil stuff for many years, and I always request the pc2x when I'm on the road. However, I recently tried some of the new yamaha stuff (p120/p90/S90) , and I'm starting to feel the Kurzweil sound comes up a little weak in the sensitivity area. In a live band context or thick studio track the Kurweil piano sound is wonderful, but in a solo context that "boxy" sound that Kurzweil is known for can be a little less than inspiring. I find myself doing more solo and small jazz combo piano gigs these days and for that purpose I'm starting to like the Yamaha sound better. For those of you not brought up on a piano none of this will make any sense, and the me1 will be just fine. But old guys like me who have been doing this for a while tend to be more picky. Let your own ears be the judge. the review below had an incredibly useful link that let's you hear many of the pianos playing the same file. Thanks for sharing that!!!

Bottom line: take it home and play it. take it on a gig. At least most music stores let you take stuff back.

How long have I been playing?, since back when amplifiers were steam powered......

The presets are available just from the turning on, by using the rotary knobs. No edition of patches is available, this meaning that you are sent back to factory defaults when you switch on the module. Anyway, this is no big deal, as most users will want this gear to be used along with a hardware or computer sequencer. You can do editing by Control Changes and eventually SysEx from your sequencer.

Polyphony is only 32. Not much for a complete set/mix of timbres, but enough if you use the Kurzweil for just e.g. the cool piano track on your mix. Built-in effects are basic reverb and chorus, and they are easy to select and tweak. No onboard sequencer.

The pianos are the best I've heard. Overall sound very high quality for the price and the complexity of the hardware. You get that cool, highly-aclaimed Kurzweil acoustic piano sound without going for an expensive board as Kxxxx series or the PC2x. Samples are the same as PC2x series, some have noticed that you get the superb-quality piano from the famous Micropiano, but without the excessive reverb levels that used to form the Micropiano presets. There is a wide variety of acoustic piano presets, but maybe the difference between them you'll only notice really if you make wide dynamic changes (meaning velocity changes while playing). I've got a superb piano sound with some of the patches, even they sound better with a bit external EQ. I use a small, practical Behringer MX602A 4-channel mixer, and using 3-band EQ (non-parametric) the pianos from this module sound sooooo good, amost the best I've heard. Oh of course you can go for extensive, gigabyte-sized piano samples out there but, believe me, I've listened to the e.g. Holy Grail Piano platinum library, and I've got to think that Holy Grail sounds mostly the same high quality as the Kurzweil ME-1, and even with that, the dynamics of Holy Grail seem somehow less controllable than Kurzweil's... maybe after all, hardware makes some difference and you can't 100% depend on soft gear... although I must admit, I would have had to tweak some more on my Gigastudio software sampler (e.g. modifying velocity switching to my taste) to be fair to the Holy Grail library.

The best point about Kurzweil's high quality piano sounds is that you can enjoy playing those patches, even the same patch you choose, for HOURS literally, without even getting tired of the sound. Your ears really get along quite well with the sound, and the sound is GREAT as I said.

In what regards the electric piano patches, like Rhodes or Wurlitzer... oh they sound soooooo great too! I was really impressed, considering as I said that there are only 32 MBs into the gear.
I'd highly recommend this module for manatics of great piano sounds. Believe me, I've been searching for the most close to a really "Holy Grail", and well, for the price this gear has, it's almost a bargain!

Case is metallic and seems hard to destroy, without throwing it out your 12th floor window :) `Nuf said. External power supply (AC-AC) could be problematic in some setups, there are people out there who prefer built-in transformers but hey, you don't want this unit to weight a lot, do you? And having power sources apart away from the digital domains makes it even more Signal to Noise ratio, because there should be less interference probably. So no big deal really. Oh btw, the noise level of this unit, some users could find a bit too much. My "trick" to get around that was, first put all knobs in your mixer to a minimum. Then raise ME-1 output volume knob as much as 70-80% or so. Then being increasing sensitive input gain controls (NOT the faders) up to the highest point you can afford without the input noise showing, keeping all the while high output level in your headphones or PA system. Finally, you can turn out the faders and begin tweaking your EQ in the mixer while selecting your favourite patches on the ME-1. Following these steps, I garantize 100% you'll get the most enjoyable and great piano you've heard so far...

Didn't have to contact'em yet.

I would buy it again without thinking not twice, even ONCE! hehe.
I own quite a bunch of gear, either new or used.
I love the piano sounds, both acoustic and electric. Also some strings are very nice for superb, sweet, clean pads.
I compared it to other piano sounds from quite a lot of synths and modules--see http://purgatorycreek.com/pianocompare.html and listen for yourself---a very comprehensive comparative, indeed!
I wish it had patch editing means built-in, but no big deal as I said.

couldn't be more straight forward than this. turn it on, select the soundbank, select the actual sound, and play. it's really easy to use. the manual is okay, but some information is missing, e.g. the drum mapping which is NOT general midi like. but i found this information in the PC2 manual pdf on http://www.kurzweilmusicsystems.com

polyphony: 32 voices. this is not what you'd expect from a unit built in 2002, but so far 32 voices were more than enough for me - okay, i just use it for live gigs and use only 1 sound at a time. if you need to playback complex arrangements with the me-1 this could be a problem.
effects are okay, especially the default settings are more "moderate" than in the micro-piano, were some preset were sort of drowning in reverb...
i wished the unit remembered the last chosen sound & bank before it was powered down, maybe they change this. at the moment you're always at factory reset state after turning it on.

those kurzweil acoustic pianos are the ones i like best of all. i compered this unit to the roland rd-700, to the kawai mp9000, to the yamaha s80 and so on, and it blews them away imho. this alone justifies a rating of "10" in this category.
as i'm mainly into jazz and soul, i like the rhodes & wurlitzer patches a lot too, though i avoid playing the higher notes on my 88 key masterkeyboard as they don't sound too realistic.
i don't really use the rest of the sounds a lot, but all in all they sound very good to me, except maybe the guitar presets. and yes, organ sounds aren't really rocking, but maybe that's a matter of taste...
unfortunately, the me-1 doesn't allow to change the velocity curve any more (the micro piano did!) - so if a use a keyboard which doesn't have this option like my fatar studio 900, you can't change this at all :(
but for me the default velocity curve works well, so i'm kinda lucky :)

solid. small. hard to destroy. i've had about 50 gigs with it so far & no problems occured.

i've bought the me-1 from www.kurzweil.dk because there was no german distributor in mid-2002. the guys there are very friendly & fast, and cheap to.
luckily i haven't had to get it repaired so far, & i guess i won't in future...

i had been using the micropiano since about 1996, and the ME-1 is exactly what is was waiting for! it's really easy to use.
even better is the PC2/r/x of course, but considering its price, the ME-1 is a killer.

btw, for those Steinberg CUBASE users out here: i wrote a patchname script file for the ME-1, which is freely available at my page, www.alex-nagel.de --> "stuff"

Very easy to use. Great as a stand alone module.Unfortunately no real editing capabilities, and no editor as of yet. Once the unit is shut off every thing goes back to factory reset.Using version 1.0. Presets are like those in the PC2r, without the KB3 organ sounds, though the internal organ sounds are good, but no leslie effect.

Thirty two voice poly. Great reverb and chorus effects. Some of the sounds have effects in the raw sample. Like pressure sens. Wah Clav etc, phased rhodes yada yada.No expansion capabilities, just a neat half space rack unit, which blows the micro piano away except for some of the micros organ sounds.

The triple strike. just as sturdy pianos are great. Strings are up there also. Rhodes is a little weak in the upper registers when using an 88 note controller. Sax is second to my Vl-1. Vocal sounds are from the Take Six group . If you like the Pc2r sounds you will love these. All the sounds are there, except no editing and no combinations.

Well built. A much better version of the micro piano, with 256 sounds instead of 32 . if you aren't into tweaking programs, and want a compact unit with great sounds, this is it. No ned for a back up.

A great item for someone doing midi computer stuff, weekend piano/synth gigs, or to just add to ones midi arsenal. If you are a tweaker, programmer like me, this might not be the ticket. However for the price it blows any piano/synth module out of the water for sheer versatility of sounds. Spend a few extra dollars on this unit, and forego the micropiano, oberheim piano module, etc... You can even hear the wood strike in the upper register of the piano. I have played pro for about 20 years, and had tons of gear.