Kurzweil SP-88

My daughter can use it and shes 11.

effects and midi channel select are ok.

Great. You can't beat kurz. triple strike piano. Sound better then alot real samples. I'm mean Stevie Wonder help design kurz.

no problem yet, had it almost 1 year.

never had to call.

great stage piano for church or basic set up.

No trouble here... Idiot-proof.

A handful of different sounds, pedal effects, blah blah blah

Hmmm... This keyboard is NOT made for gigging musician. It sounds terrible through large speakers or PAs in conjunction with other instruments. They laid the reverb on so thick that the keyboard clips out and sounds awful at loud volumes. No reverb control either. Ugh.

88 keys, semi-weighted, sounds like a piano through headphones, sounds like crap through an amp. Hmm...

It's simple to get to the sounds, Piano, strings, E-piano, organs, pads.. . It's a great control keyboard, once you master which button to press at which time. All in all, very good.

Unlike others, the polyphony has never been a problem for me, and I'm a classical piano graduate. What are you doing with it if 32 polyphony isn't enough?!
It's a simple unit, best used as a control keyboard, so if you want sequencers and huge libraries of sounds, look else where. This has a just the basic piano, organ, strings, e-pianos, pads. One or two of each.

I have enjoyed owning this instrument, and it can be very expressive. I think some people are a bit harsh on the pianos. Yes they're not the real thing, but they pass fairly nicely. I think the Kurzweil does well. E-pianos not that great however. The strings sound awesome.. I used them in a recording for U2 Beautfil Day, and they sounded like the real thing. The organs are nice, they have a small leslie tremolo emulator which sounds cool in recordings. You won't be dissapointed with the expressiveness of this instrument.

No problems. It's fairly strong , and looks great. It's purple! The only issue I ever had with it was that once it screamed at me when changing sounds.

I bought it because it looked exotic, and not many people have them, and I wanted something really great. I'm satisfied with it, have used it many times gigging, and in recordings.
If you're looking for a good, reliable, sturdy, expressive piano/control keyboard, this is the one for you.


**Buy with confidence, it's a great instrument.

This thing is pretty straight forward, actually. Being a simple model, that is to be expected. The manual is alright, I suppose. The presets are annoying. The reverb is on by default for the pianos, and it muddies the tone up. It was hard to figure out just how to cut that effect. Other than that, patch editing is fairly simple. There's not much to this 'board.

The polyphony is a dismal 32 notes - even worse than the K2600XS' 48 notes. This is just not gonna cut it these days, particularly for a primarily piano-oriented keyboard. Runs up the keys cut out noticably in the middle. The thing has rudimentary MIDI functions, and no expansion capability. There is no sequencer. The keyboard action is semi-weighted. This is explained in detail in the next section. The effects are decent at best, and are not too terribly difficult to use.

Let's get it out of the way straight away - THE PIANOS SUCK! It is interesting to note that this opinion is shared by several of the people in this thread, yet almost all of those who reviewed the upscale models (K2600 and all of its variations) rated the piano sounds very highly. THE PIANO SOUNDS ARE THE SAME IN ALL MODELS! I was particularly thorough in my discription of the piano sounds of the K2600XS, therefore my comments here will be similar. The sampling is simply bad, there is no other word. The sounds start off with a harsh and unrealistic digital-sounding attack, followed by a body of absolute mush. The notes are not consistent; there are some notes that stand out from the others. The extreme low-end range is actually pretty good, but it can sound mechanical at times. The ranges just above, however, are totally indistinct, and have an annoying and unrealistic tone quality. The midrange in particular sounds like there is far too much mid-EQ. No amount of adjusting can remedy this. The ranges from the Bb above Middle-C to the extreme high end ranges have attacks that are far too sharp and piercing, and also offer that irritating timbre mentioned earlier. The highest notes sound like a toy piano. I really don't know what piano they sampled this from, or how many samples they actually took, but they did a very poor job. It sounds like about three notes were sampled, and judging by a simple mathematical calculation, I may not be too far off the mark. On the K2600XS, there are somewhere around 450 stock sounds crammed onto 4 Mb (or 4096 Kb) of ROM. This equals just over 9 Kb per patch. Considering that the SP-88 is a budget model, I highly doubt that the patches are UPGRADED from the flagship model. Indeed, as mentioned before, the are exactly the same (as Kurzweil proudly proclaims); the K2600XS just has more sounds. By comparison, Roland generally uses about 1 Mb per patch (the RD-170, for example, has 64 voices and 64 Mb of ROM, plus a GM kit which takes up a negligable amount of space), and Kawai uses just over 1.5 Mb for its premier piano patch (21 sounds and 32 Mb for the ES3). 9 Kb is just not enough to produce a decent sound, though it is amazing that they were even physically able to pack the patch into so small a space. See for yourself - the Digital Piano Shootout website (www.purgatorycreek.com/pianocompare.html) is a very informative page which consists of a large collection of mp3 samples from a wide selection of brands and models. There are several Kurzweil pianos there, including this one. Kurzweil's piano sounds are supposedly sampled in several different velocities. This is almost hard to believe. The "hard" tones sound like mf notes cranked up to ff volume, and the other dynamics sound like the same sample with the highest EQ cut. The velocity transitions are sudden and abrupt, and the medium to soft dynamics are fuzzy and dull. Also, the decay times are WAY TOO SHORT! The Middle-C on an acoustic piano takes 10 seconds or more to decay. This keyboard takes about half that to die down, and this difference is proportional throughout the entire range. Now for the action - it is similar to that of the K2600XS - totally unresponsive. Indeed, it is EASIER to play particularly fast selections (the middle section of Fur Elise, for example), but this is not realistic in the least. There is no feeling of control whatsoever; the action feels loose and flimsy. I got no drive to improvise from this thing; the sound, the other shortcomings, and the bad action impeeded my creative energy. This keyboard is useless for classical use, particularly practice, as one cannot really improve on the action, or develop any expressive powers. It is also useless for gigs, as the sound becomes even more thin and indistinct through wide-broadcast amps and as a result of the mellowing effect of large acoustic spaces. The other sounds on this instrument are sub-par at best. The strings sou

As I understand, Kurzweil gear is a mixed bag - some people say it never failed them, but a lot of people had problems as well. We used the SP-88 once before buying the K2600XS - it worked alright, but it sounded like $#!+. Much like its big brother...

We never really consulted them on this keyboard. See my response to this for the K2600XS.

I didn't buy the thing, my choral director did. We acquired the thing without any knowledge of its sound - bad idea. If it were lost or stolen, it really wouldn't matter - it serves as backup, anyway. We certainly would not replace it, or miss it much. Having played for five years, but with the improvisational skill and drive of any of the greats, I stand by my assessment of this instrument - get something else! This instrument, even more that the other Kurzweil models, is primarily a piano emulator. Insofar as this, it is totally inadequite. I personally like Kawai, both for the sound and the action, but Roland and Yamaha have turned out some pretty nice gear both in the past and as of present. I have played several Rolands and Yamahas; they are high quality instruments, each with their own characters. Kurzweil just does not compare. "What a hunk of Junk" sums it up pretty well.

Pianoman's dream as far as out-of-the-box and plug 'n play. Use a good high quality amplification system, fullrange and stereo. Piano sounds just ok by itself, quite usable, but what knocked me out was hearing the playbacks of a few live shows with it. This thing was internally EQ'd to FIT into a modern combo mix! And it does. There are several cover tunes where that rather cheezy sounding organ patch actually sounds beautiful at playback. Even the bandmembers asked what made that organ sound. But by itself alone in a room things sound a bit on the thin side, like a recorded piano. Listen to it in a mix with the rest of the band, it's a winner. Editing patches is not all that hard, there is a tutorial on the Kurzweil website that is a LOT easier than trying it the first time with the manual. The manual is usable, though. I've seen worse.

Polyphony is listed in the specs as 32, I'm 52 years old and been playin' Jazz, R&B and Rock for about 30, the piano works for me, extreme multi-note glissandos don't come around all that often in my world. Built-in effects are 'verb and chorus, no great shakes here, there are better to be had but it's a nice thing to have 'em included at the price. No expansion, none wanted here. Love the feel of this little piano, BTW, it will not tire you out, even in the worst of long gig situations or jam sessions. Nice, light, responsive, touch-sensitivity can be preset to different curves to suit personal tastes. Versatility is in the mind of the end-user. My end-use is as a piano alongside the B3. It works very well for that in many different situations, had it for two years now.

Like I said above, the Pianos sound VERY realistic when heard within the context of the mix. The sound out front from a dedicated onstage stereo system is very believable. Good workingman's piano keyboard. Onboard effects are OK, there are better, but these won't get most players into trouble, either. Feels enough like a piano and sounds enough like a piano to do the job at just about any gig. This thing enables me to finally leave the Rhodes Suitcase piano at home for all but the discriminating fusion gig, and I might just get lazy and use it there, too, the EP sounds are quite usuable to someone who has experience with a real Rhodes. Try 'em with an outboard chorus. No aftertouch, but I don't really view this thing as an out-and-out synth controller although I do have a few outboard modules that can be controlled from there. I like the touch strips, and feel that they are more robust in a day to day situation than some of the other contraptions, only takes a few minutes to get used to 'em if you have to use them. The velocity sends very nicely, and really puts the piano FEEL at your fingertips. Definitely experiment with the different settings to find your own sweet spot. I'll vote for a Pristine sound quality on this instrument because of the way it sounds with the rest of the bands, after all, I don't think that this thing was really designed for solo work or classical pianists. I have used it standalone for a bit of jazz ballad work with singers, and again it sounded quite superb at the task. Never attempt to amplify it with a guitar amp, get a good fullrange sound system, preferably stereo, and it will sound good.

Like a rock for two years. I am NOT unrealistically easy on my gigging equipment. Matter of fact, been using a simple padded gig bag and just place the thing on the back seat of the Sport Trac. Of course I'm using on a gig without a backup, what, you think I'm gonna carry a redundant piano to a union gig? I did temporarily lose the wall wart power supply one night. Took five minutes to open the thing up and attach two wires behind the jack, then powered it with a 12V battery from the truck that night. Put it back together when I got back home and that's that.

At that price, who cares? If it breaks, I'll open 'er up myself, if it's too far gone, then it's time to buy something else.

If it were lost or stolen, I'd do what I've always done, namely hunt the #^%$* down and get my stuff back. Would I buy another SP88? At that price, it's a bargain and a half, sure I would. I've come to love just about eveyting about it, including the purple, it ain't that bad under stage lights. Compared it to just about everything that was available at the time, was prepared to spend three times what it cost, but didn't. No reason to.

This is a good solid value, something you don't see all that much anymore. Kurzweil claims that the piano samples are award-winning; I didn't really put much stock in that until I heard myself on the recordings. If you are a working keyboardist in need of a piano, then you are also in need of frugality. This unit fills the bill and provides prety darn nice quality of sound and is fairly robust to boot. It does not sound like a real piano, it does not sound like a real B3, nor a real Rhodes, and I wouldn't really expect it to. What it does sound like is a RECORDED piano or organ or strings. And it only weighs 30 lbs? Wonderful.

Common changes to tuning, stereo to mono, FX is a bit painful; need to concentrate on which column and row the selector is in (whoops, accidently passed it; keep pushing through to get back to the right row).

Polyphony is eaten up sometimes by the fact that the sustain pedal will 'catch' notes in decay and continue to sustain them at a lower volume. Creates a nice resonance though

All piano sounds are nice with the exception of the E, F, F#, G, and G# just above middle C. These have an unpleasant, elctronic, artificial, harsh, metallic sound completely out of balance with the rest of the board which has realistic and pleasant sounding tone (Why can't all the notes sound good!!!!!?). This for me has been the greatest dissapointment. That range of keys is used constantly. Very ugly.

Seems very sturdy.

I paid my money and took my chance. I feel I'm stuck with it now. Hopefully it will not offend my listeners and will prove a useful controller in the studio. Too bad there's no aftertouch, though.

This keyboard is not expandable. The only preset that sounds great is the piano. I've searched many keyboards over for a piano sound (that I like) and the sp88x has it. The roland sounds are weak or not eq'd correctly. Yamaha, Korg, etc just didn't do it for me. I've heard that the sp88x piano sound is identical to that of the Kurz micropiano kmp. If I didn't already purchase the sp88x and knew that it doesn't have AFTERTOUCH I would've purchased a better midi controller and the micropiano module.

The action is fine, a bit lighter than Rolands acclaimed great hammer dammer tendon tamer. The effects are basic and there is very little cryptic navigation of menu's, etc. The internal set up of this keyboard is easy. You pull it out of the box, plug it in and you've 80% mastered the internal set up. Kurzweil boasts what a great midi controller it is with 2 assignable ribbon controllers and another slide controller which acts as the internal volume knob. These controllers don't work for the internal sounds but "Midi setups" let you pre-program 32 different midi setups such as channel and volume assignments. However, I cannot believe Kurzweil left out such a basic and important midi function - aftertouch. There is no AFTERTOUCH on this instrument. The manual speaks of a pressure controller which can take the place of aftertouch "...which the keyboard lacks." How can you boast a midi controller that doesn't have aftertouch capabilities? Bad.

Piano sounds are great. The tone suits my style of playing which is melodic and jazzy. For more Chuck B style, boogie woogie, or NOLA grooves I'd look for something more meaty sounding.

Did I mention there is no aftertouch? If you're looking to midi control a cool synth module remember, there is no aftertouch on this instrument. I wish someone would've told me.

If I lost this instrument and was somehow reimbursed, i would be glad. I bought it to use as a piano/midi controller but without the AFTERTOUCH capabilities it is very frustrating. I like it as a piano but need to reconsider my entire setup due to the shortsighted engineering of Kurzweil.

(In Portuguese)
O SP-88 e um piano digital muito simples de ser utilizado... sem muitos segredos para a operac?o basica, ficando um pouco mais complicado apenas o controle dos efeitos, mas nada que uma boa lida no manual n?o resolva

A polifonia de 32 notas e suficiente para a func?o que o teclado desempenha, n?o ha qualquer problema quando a isso, o mais interessante e que quando voce segura as notas pelo pedal de sustain e ultrapassa a polifonia maxima, o teclado automaticamente cancela a primeira nota tocada, sucessivamente, evitando que o som seja interrompido abruptamente, o que e magnifico durante as execuc?es...
o teclado n?o possui expans?es, mas mesmo assim da conta do recado...

Os timbres de piano da KURZWEIL sem duvida s?o os melhores e mais realisticos que ja pude tocar, os timbres de org?o s?o muito bons, ficou faltando apenas um "church organ", que completaria a galeria muito bem, alguns timbres s?o meio repetitivos, muitos pianos acusticos e digitais com sons parecidicimos que n?o faz muita diferenca no palco... os strings e os pads s?o fantasticos, os sons n?o saturam, assim, se voce toca numa banda, n?o tera o problema de ter que tocar na parte aguda do teclado para n?o embolar com o contra-baixo, pois a definic?o dos sons permitem que voce use todo o teclado sem embolar com os demais instrumentos da banda...

n?o ha como fazer backup de sons, os efeitos gravados na opc?o MIDI SETUPS ficam gravados na memoria, sem afetar os INTERNAL VOICES, timbres originais

Aqui no Brasil a Kurzweil n?o possui um distribuidor muito bom, d?o apenas quatro meses de garantia e n?o s?o muitas as assistencias tecnicas capazes de mexer no produto.
Here in Brazil , the KURZWEIL distribuitor isn't very good, they give just 04 months os guarented and don't have many tecnical assistences with habilitation to open the product... (excuse me the bad english)

Um excelente instrumento para execuc?es no palco, com timbres excelentes, boas teclas, mesmo sendo semi-pesadas. O sistema de polifonjia do teclado n?o permite falhas e interrupc?es no som caso a polifona seja ultrapassada.

Very simple out-of-the-box playability. MIDI editing may take a little digging through the menus, but is pretty straightforward. I wish it had a bigger display, but for the price I definitely won't complain.

I have to say that a major reason I bought this board is for its action. I played for years on a very light Baldwin console, so the semi-weighted action is perfect for me. I can't speak for everyone, though. Most players I hear want heavier action. The 32-note polyphony isn't very limiting; I can play runs and still hear every note. No expandability. Decent MIDI features, but no MIDI thru. Major bummer. But again, a great feature-to-price ratio.

I hate to debate in this category. Some say good, some say bad. After using its on-board sounds for a year, I have a mixed opinion. The pianos are okay, not much sustain on the samples (But this only is noticeable during soft or very slow playing.) EPs are very clear, but dated. Strings are mostly good, I really like the slow ones; they sound like they could come from a soundtrack. Organs are pretty bad. Effects are okay, not spectacular. Velocity response is decent, although I tend not to use the standard linear curve. Decent sounds for the money. At first, I thought the sounds were great, but the more I use them and compare them to what's available, they get more and more dated.

Gigged for a year heavily without a backup. Worked flawlessly. Haven't had any problems so far. Solid steel construction; I think I could drop it without serious damage. Love the reliability.

Never had to worry about it, but I have heard that customer support in general isn't stellar. I'm not worried.

If it were lost or stolen, I'd cry but probably opt for something a little more robust in features. Probably a PC2 or some other good controller board. Love the action and reliability, hate the lack of features. I did a ton of research, and decided that this board was the best full-size under $1000. The action was the major selling point for me, because I knew I'd be using it as my main controller for a long while.
Sounds are an okay thing to fall-back on, but I try to use outboard sounds when I can. I really wish for a MIDI thru or another out, but hey for $700 new what the heck? This thing is built for making music, not tweaking endlessly. If you need a simple board with bread-and-butter sounds, go for it.

This is quite an easy keyboard to use, because it's mostly a stage piano and MIDI controller keyboard. Editing the MIDI functions is pretty easy once you get the hang of the layout. One problem is that the dark color of the writing on the keyboard can make it hard to read the parameters when there isn't alot of light (like on-stage!).

For the cost, this is a very good MIDI controller keyboard with some decent sounds. I have the 88x model with weighted action and it feels quite nice -- better than the Fatar (Studiologic) controllers (even though they also make the action in this board). I bought it mostly for the feel of the weighted action. It's a bit lighter than a real piano, but also has a good cushion to it which prevents fatigue. Effects are very limited but decent reverb. No expansion. MIDI capabilities are pretty good, too, but it doesn't have a MIDI Thru jack, which is a drag a cheap way to cut corners. Once you make your MIDI presets (for controlling other boards), they're quite easy to access. Very few bells and whistles. This is a pretty good MIDI controller keyboard for controlloing other synths (which is the main reason I bought it). The ribbon controllers are OK, but I'd prefer a traditional lever for pitch bend. Ribbons are cheaper, which is why they're on this board. One feature of this board is that when you switch patches the sustain of the previous patch continues (no sudden drop of already sounding notes). That is very cool and allows for some very expressive patch changes during live performance. This keyboard uses a wall-wart power supply, which kind of sucks. I hate to imagine losing it right before a gig or rehearsal. I'd rather have a dedicated cord and have the board weigh one more pound.

The sounds on this board are pretty limited and of pretty average quality. I bought it for it's action and MIDI Controller capabilities, not necessarily for its sound. However, some sounds are decent enough that I've used them for recording and live playing. The piano sounds are decent (but a bit shrill and flat). A couple of the elec. piano sounds are decent, but others are really bad. There's no Wurlitzer-type elec. piano sound, which is a drag. But if you want that cheesy DX7 rhodes sound, then you'll be happy, but I hate it. The organs are decent in a pinch, and the strings are OK (especially the slow strings). But the sounds are basically just OK, and nothing that will drop jaws. The reverb is decent, but not the best. There are different velocity curves to match your playing style, so you can get a nice dynamic interaction with the sounds.

This is a pretty solid keyboard, though not too heavy. For a weighted keyboard, it's quite portable (which is one reason I bought it). It feels like it will last quite a while. I've had no problems.

Never had to use it.

I'm not sure whether I'd buy this again, but I'd definitely consider it. It's a good value for the money. I love the feel of the keyboard and it's portability. The sounds aren't great, but they're not horrible either. As a MIDI controller, it's got alot going for it.