Kurzweil PC2X

Instrument is very easy to use. I had the PC88, so I found it familiar.

It has all the stuff I'm looking for, except the big huge downside. Read on.

Piabno is great. Rhodes is pretty good, as is the wurly.

This keyboard stinks in this catagory. Incredibly lousy. I took the first model I bought back to Guitar Center bacause 3 out of 5 times, the unit could not boot itself up when turned on. The second piece I got had a completey different problem. When pushing certain notes (somewhat random, but usually A flat, D flat and G flat) they would sound a number of times. It was as if the arpeggiator was engaging or something. Back to Guitar Center. Third time the charm? Nope, same problem with the note doubling, as well as a really clunky action. What the hell is this company doing? The guy at Guitar Center told me that I wasn't the first person to have so any problems with the PC2X. I think now I'm going to call Kurtzweil and tell them that they should ship me a unit that actually works. It is really frustrating to have to play a gig and not be able to rely on your $2500 piece of gear. Man I'm pissed!

We'll see...

No matter how easy it is to use something, or how good it sounds, you need gear that works. It is absolutely shameful for manufacturers to put our equipment that is not quality tested. Kurtzweil owes me an explanation, and an apology for the aggravation that they have caused me, not to mention the amounts of time I've spent dealing with this problem.

The controls are easy to use for programing. The only complaint is some programming switches require a double stroke.

It lacks no features I would want. The action on the PC2X is by Fatar and feels good, not too heavy or too light. HOWEVER: some of the black keyes are making an annoying clacking sound (right out of the box). So were some keys on the floor model at the retailer and also on my neighbors PC2X. The floor model at another retailers was fine, no noisy keys at all. An old Kurzweil PC88 (previous version of the PC2X) at the store was also fine. I also own a Fatar weighted controller and it was fine too, so I know what I am talking about. I recall Kurzweil had this same problem with many of the actions in the PC88 ( I know 2 pros that had their entire actions replaced oin the first months of purchase). Another friend experienced the clacking in his PC88 and had individual keyes replaced. It did not solve the problem. He had to buy and entire keybed action and installed it himself and the problem went away. He thinks it could be related to an alignment of the overall key action assembly and I have noticed when i lift one end of the bpard (causing a slight structural bowing) the clacking is greatly reduced on some keys. Another theory is that whne being shipped, the shippers drop the boxes and cause cracking in the plastic keys which contain metal weights. That is what Kurzweil claims.

I am a jazz pianist. The sounds are marvelous. The samples are all new and stereo samples! They are far better than the PC88 sample sounds. The piano sound had great presence, it does not sound distant as on the Yamaha P 80, or tiny or recorded souding. The piano sound is rounder sounding with a longer decay time (greatly improved) and not harsh as on the PC88 and Micro Piano. It sounds woodier and is smoother and easier to listen too. Chords seem to blend and harmonize more smoothly. The Rhodes sounds are a big improvement from the previous Kurzweil electric pianos. The organs are very good (sound fat and analog) the strings, voices , all are great,.

I thoink it's dependable except for the Fatar action is questioanble (see other comments)

This is where Kurzweil Co. fails pretty poorly. I have been waiting 3 months for a replacement unit due to the key clacking problem. They say it's taken this long (since May 2000, now Aug 200) to get another boatload (500) from Korea. Now that they are in, they are really leaving me hanging. Kurzweil keeps saying they are sending a call tag (picking it up) and I keep waiting by bthe door for many days and they never come. Call tags come 1 or 2 days later according to UPS, it's been 10 now since Aug 1, 2000. Thanks Kurzweil. I have called many times and the story keeps changing. They somehow need more time to issue a simple call tag. It's very upsetting.

The PC 2X is my favourite keyboard ever, aside form the clacking keys and customer service. I am a jazz pianist and have been witing for this style board for years. I only wish they put a bigger piano sample into it with even greater detailing (never enough!).
I rate Rolands RD 600 #2 (totaly diffenet sound, like a live piano with a mike shoved in it sound) #3 The Korg SG Pro #4 Yamaha P 200.

After owning a PC-88mx for two years, I am happy to say that Kurzweil has done a amazing job of improving usability of this keyboard. Over all, it's a breeze to play and use. The sounds are layed in to 16 groups (pianos, drums, bass, etc.) with 8 sounds in each group. the keyboard remembers which sound you last used in each group and you can hold one sound, switch sounds, and play the new one while the 1st one sustains, which is a wonderful feature for live performance. The 4 sliders are well used for various effects in different sounds and there's a general pattern to everything, so you don't have to remember what slider does what for all 128 sounds! Creating setups is far easier than it was on the PC-88, you can layer, split, and split layer sounds with the push of a button. The arpegiator is much more integrated in the layout of the keyboard. Many of the sounds have buttons deicated to the arp. and make it far more easy to use. My main compliant comes when you start using it with a midi sequencer and when you start editing sounds. If you use a sequencer, such as MOTU's freestyle with Freemidi, that doesn't recognize the PC2 and doesn't always even cope with the PC-88mx too well, you'll have to manually assign sounds to parts in the midi recieve menu and if you add a new part or go to a different program or the desktop while the sequencer is still running, you may have re-assign all the sounds again if it gets reset. this is no fun! Also, when editing sounds, you can't get out of sound edit mode without erasing everything you were just doing unless you store it. So if your editing a sound and you want to see how it sounds in mono and you get into the global menu and switch to mono, you'll return to find your sound gone. This can be a pain, but as long as you store things before you get out of sound edit mode, you won't have any problems. Lastly, the KB-3 mode is real simple to use. All the main controls for percusion, chorus, vibrato, and leslie are at your fingertips without getting into to massive menus. The only thing about it is the fact that you have to 4 sliders to control 8 drawbars, so making drawbar settings takes longer and sometimes it can hinder drawbar ideas. I guess it would have increased production costs to include 5 more drawbars, but when your spending $2,000+ on a keyboard, it seems like they could cut some more holes in the frame and add a few things to the software. All in all though, there's really no gaping flaws that make it tough to use.

Unlike the PC-88mx, all the sounds on this thing are included in the 64 voice polophony claim. that's nice! The KB-3 mode was actually the thing that made this keyboard stand out from the rest for me. The sounds are incredibe, but the fact that they didn't treat the organ like just another sound but actually made an entirely seperate mode for it is what sold me. Also, this bad boy is expandable. They're gonna come out with two more rom blocks and a 128 polophpny expansion. I'm looking forward to that. It doesn't have a sequencer, but the arpegiator can be used to make some really simple patterns that can be played over. It has two effects processors, one with only reverbs (about 30 of them I think) and one with reverbs, chorus, flange, phaser, leslie, distortions, compressor/limiters, surround effects, delays, etc. You get the idea. TONS of effects. One thing I love about this is you can dictate the wet/dry balance for each of the effects generators on each of the 16 multitimbral tracks. this comes in handy when sequencing. The key action, I think, is the best. I compared this keyboard to the roland RD-500 and XV-80, the Yamaha S-80, and the Alesis QS-8.1 To me, kurzweil has the best feel. I think there's two parties when it comes to keyboard action- the roland party and the kurzweil party. I guess piano players like Roland action better, keyboard players like kurzweil acion more. Personally, I've player piano for 11 years and I find kurzweil's action better. The edges of Roland's weighted keys bother me, especially for organ playing. It just feels unatural to me. Keyboard mag. went on about the yahama s-80's action, but I found it cheap feeling and to edgy like the Roland. Kurzweil feels rock solid and real... to me. Others would dissagree I'm sure. I wish it were a little lighter, it something like 50-60 pounds, but that's how they all are.

This is where this keyboard really shines! The pianos are, plainly, the best available. They have a certian organic feel to them that none of the other keyboard makers seem to catch. There's actually three different sampes at different velocity points, not just the same one louder or only two, like Roland. It's pretty convincing. It's still no piano, but it's enough to make you feel like you've got something 10 time better than every one else. The organ presets outside of the KB-3 mode are pretty useless, but the KB-3 mode sounds great. The leslie sounds pretty good. My main complaint is that you can't alter the rise and fall time. They must be trying to emulate a 50 pound rotor because it takes probably 10 times the time to rise and fall as the horn does. Also, the controls for speed they give you are strange. You control the slow speed in hertz and then the amount of change the fast speed induces also in hertz. Both of these can also go into negative numbers, maybe for spinning the other direction? The amount of possible combinations they give you combined with the obscure controls provided makes it difficult to create a good sounding leslie on your own. It takes a while to get used to, but once you do it sounds pretty good. I'm pretty picky about the leslie sound and this one is fairly good. It can sound a bit fake in the high range, but if you turn on the chorus as well you get a really fat, satisfying sound. The organ itself sounds good, you can control the quality of the keymap and the quality of the organ itself. You can control sound leakage between tone generators or whatever those spinning things are inside a real organ. Overall, the KB-3 mode rocks. The rhodes and wurlitzers, especially the wurlitzers are tremendous. They can be spanky or smoothe just by how you play them. They really sound good. The bass sounds are actually VERY realistic. There's a new synth section with some very usable sounds in there. You can be jan hammer or an underground european techno junkie with these sounds, it's pretty cool. The drums are wonderful. There's actually 10 different kits, ranging from rock, blues, hip hop, electric music, whatever. It's all there, except for a brushed snare. The cymbal samples aren't like others, they last a long time, no need for plate reverb or anything. The bass kicks sound real good. The PC-88mx kicks lacked bass extrememly, but these don't at all. All the snares are good. The strings are mouth-watering. Good clav sounds. Lots of percusion stuff. the Brasses are wonderful. There's a solo sax sound that blows me away in authenticity. It's kinda strange. The effects sound very good and there are tons to choose from. Most of the sounds play very well too. They don't play like a keyboard, they play like the instrument you're playing. It's amazing.

After having it for a day, I started getting low system battery messages. Maybe a bad battery, right? A week later, I was getting it again from the new battery. Also, I had a part of the plastic on the end ship off (a pretty large section actually) Luckily, I was able to take it back at guitar center and get a new one, not problems yet.

haven't had to use it yet

I've never had a keyboard I've been more content with, this thing is incredible. If it was stolen, I'd give up meals and get a new one. It's great! I've been playing for 11 years (since I was 5) and never has anything come along like this. Don't get the S-80, RD-600, XV-88, or QS-8.1. Save your pennies and get the kurzweil, it's worth it. Hopefully the price will come down, I found a good price @ 8thstreet.com and had guitar center match it, but it's still a bit steep. Never the less, with sounds and features like this that are easy to use, you can't go wrong.

I only have had this keyboard for about 2 weeks, and I have found it very easy to navigate. The presets are very high quality, and editing patches are fairly simple once you read the manual.

The polyphony is 64 voice, which is enough for me. There is going to be a polyphony expansion coming out, which will increase the polyphony to 128. There is also room to install 2 ROM boards which are also going to be released later.

I bought the 76 key lightly weighted keyboard version, because I hate playing B3 sounds on fully weighted keys. The semi-weighted keys is just right for me: not to light for piano, and not to heavy for B3.

The effects sound very good. The two effects processors are of the same quality as on the K2500/K2600 KDFX. The rotary, which is very important to me, sounds very, very close to my Motion Sound Pro-3T (Which I used to have until my apartment was robbed!!).

The MIDI and controller capabilities are of course great. It has 4 sliders, a pitch wheel, a mod wheel, 5 switch buttons, 3 footswitch pedal inputs, 2- CC pedal inputs, a Breath Controller input, Ribbon Input, and the MIDI thru can be switched to act as another MIDI out. It also has an arpeggiator. The only down side, is guess would be that it doesn't have a sequencer. But, no controller keyboard does.

The instruments are very realistic. The main reason I bought this keyboard was for the piano sounds. I compared every other keyboard out there and the only one that comes close or is equal to the PC2's piano is the Yamaha P-200. I thought the Roland RD-600 doesn't even compare. I think the Ensoniq ZR76's "perfect piano" is better that the RD-600, but still not as good as the PC2. Today, no keyboard can take the place of a real piano, but the PC2 comes very close.
All of the other sounds on the PC2 are great and I am very pleased. I especially like the KB3 mode, which emulates a B3 very well. The 4 sliders and mod wheel can be used to change the drawbar settings in real time. The 4 zone buttons are used to control the percussion and 2 of the switch buttons are used to activate and cycle though the vibrato/chorus settings. You can also change the type of B3 you play, such as a B3 in good condition, one that is fairly kept up, or one that is junky.

I have only had it for 2 weeks, but it looks and feels like a reliable machine.

I called Kurzweil once to find out if and when they would be coming out with just a ribbon (and no control box like the expression mate) to plug into the PC2 ribbon input. I left a message and they called me back in two days and said that a ribbon will be coming out soon for around $50.

I have been playing for about 6 or 7 years and have done a lot of research on keyboards and I found this one is the best for what I need, TOP QUALITY sounds (mainly Piano and B3). The last keyboard I had, the Ensoniq mr-61, was fairly good, but I think I spent more time on trying to get good sounds out of it than I made music on it. That's why I didn't even consider such keyboards as the Korg Triton. They have a lot of features, but the sounds are not top quality in my opinion. I guess it would be good for R&B or synth music, but I felt that keyboards like the Triton are more of toys than instruments.
In the Piano controller group, the PC2 is on top with the best features and the best sounds. That's why I would without a doubt buy this keyboard again if in were lost or stolen.

The last time I had to learn how to use a midi instrument was over 10 years ago. A lot has changed in interefaces since then. I found it took a few hours to figure out how to get the sound I needed, but the manual led me through the process very well. As I become more familiar, I recognize that a lot of thought was given to performance considerations and ease of use on stage.

64 notes polyphonic expandable to 128, although the expansion module isnt' out yet. 64 is fine unless you do a gliss or arpagio using layered voices, then the bottom drops out. I am really looking forward to the expansion module.

Best sounds I've ever heard. My wife, who hates electronic sounds, says it sounds better than our real piano, and we've just had it tuned. When I use the 12 string voices, she actually thought I had my 1970 Martin D-12-28 out playing it. For my current project, I need to be able to overlay piano and organ. The setup I developed allows me to sound meld piano into organ sounds for some impressive dramatic effects.

I've had this thing for a week and love it. Cannot comment on long term prospects.

No Clue, but the delay getting the expansion card out is not a good sign.

This is one awesome instrument!!!! I feel limited only by my own imagination and believe it will do anything I can think of.