Kurzweil K2700 Workstation - 5 Favorite Features

[@liothomasart]

This thing is a monster. He didn't even talked about the VAST system...a beast.

[@markseagraves5486]

The Steinway of synths. Unstoppable.

[@sandynoLen]

I was almost sold on the K2700 over Nautilus, Fantom-8, and the M8X 88, because it has so much more memory and options, but it ends up too cumbersome. The benefits, especially in its 52 pounds compared to over 60 for Roland and Yamaha make it the best in the field. But when you have to front a band and think about what the people want, lyrics, the music, and what comes next, it amazes me that you can play keys and remember what all the buttons do after you program them to do something different than before.

[@leticiabraun2909]

Nice walk through, really useful tips on the key trigger. I still LOVE and use my PC3K7.

[@jaishchada]

Awesome video and nice to see (hear) a properly gain staged K2700. It sounds amazing!

[@mrdavies7894]

Great to hear your voice, Jim! :) Your description of Feature 5: Key Triggers sums up what's best - and hardest - about working with Kurzweil instruments, especially of this calibre. More or less by definition, any synth should offer "virtually endless possibilities" of what it can do. That may be technically true on most synths, but few - especially at Kurzweil's price-point - can match the true depth and breadth of what "endless" can really be. However, to really take advantage of that requires real learning - not just the interface, but conceptually how the synth works. And once you've learnt some things, it takes real planning to understand and apply the features and capabilities to your sounds, your sets, your workflow. But… O are the results worth it. It's one thing to have a powerful synth. It's another to be able to actually access that power and really be able to tune the entire instrument to what my needs are for a given project… and then radically different for the next! Kurzweil are the only game in town with that combination of power and fundamental accessibility.

[@uptoolate89]

I had a K2000 with orchestral rom. Man I miss that thing. I think I may have found my sound again.

[@uptoolate89]

So expressive

[@vtxpony]

I can process my Moog through this during live shows? Yes, please! A sweet upgrade from my PC3. 😁

[@gim70]

Quick Access is very useful for live situations. Banks can be renamed with song titles and contain all the sounds you need to play (up to 10 programs and / or multis). IMHO there are two important flaws: when changing bank, the sound does not automatically changes to the first one on the list, but you have to press 1 again on the keypad (this is a waste of time); and it is not possible to advance sequentially one sound at a time with the NEXT/PREVIOUS keys, but only by a properly set footswitch. Other improvements could be the possibility of setting different volume and a specific transposition for each slot of the quick access bank (to play easily in different tune), as can be done with the setlists in the Korg Kronos. I hope Kurzweil will improve this important feature in the next future!

[@harogaston]

Amazing! Jim I also play on a Pink Floyd cover band on a PC3X but thinking about upgrading. Can you share some of your patches for Pink Floyd songs?

[@MarPabl]

Please add a 🎥 regarding VAST & synth engines. That’s an important feature for current workstations. Also DAW integration in detail. I’m wondering if the sound library is fully categorized now. In remember that the additional expansions didn’t have categories and that slows down the creative process. Finally, what are the sequencing features? I always found somewhat weird the approach from Kurzweil.

[@BRAVETHECOLD]

Because

[@jaishchada]

They are categorized now. The K2700 also has dedicated category buttons unlike previous K2xxx

[@tragus44]

Thanks!! Please make a video teaching us how to use VAST

[@andreas-wismann]

Audio Inputs can be processed by the internal FX engine: great! Question: Is it also possible to route them into the VAST Layers, e.g. through a DSP Lowpass Filter?

[@michaels8607]

quite nice..Does it have an onboard sampler?

[@vitalybedros7678]

Is it possible to mirror the keyboard at D4 note in such a way, that C4 = E4, B3 = F4, and so on? Can I do this by creating a section over keys C3-B3, assigning it notes C4-B4 and inverting notes in this section using Note Map -> Invert function?

[@michaeljmccurdy9449]

Q: If you had to choose one, which keyboard would be more versatile for creating synthwave style music; the K2700 or the Juno-X? and thanks for the video, it was very helpful.

[@funyeimanager8491]

The Yamaha Montage

[@DNGMaestro]

The Juno is a like the synthwave daddy.

[@osbelmarzen7385]

Is it also possible to play loops, vocal phrases from the pads?

[@WayneMusicianUK]

How many sounds can you layer together? and when you layer 4 or 5 sounds, are the EFX from each sound still kept in that layer? When you change sounds, does the previous sound cut off? What’s the polyphony like, do notes drop out?

[@dr.emilschaffhausen4683]

Thoughts on this vs Nautilus, Fantom 8 and Yamaha Montage?

[@Zwopper]

It crushes them if you give it some time.

[@dr.emilschaffhausen4683]

@@Zwopper Thanks!

[@WildernessMusic_GentleSerene]

Thanks for the tips! There is almost nothing on KZbin about this engine, so if you want to make more that would be wonderful. I just bought a PC4, having trouble getting this keyboard to play piano sounds like an acoustic piano. I am hoping I will build the perfect piano soon. Been a sound designer in subtractive and FM for over 35 years too, so looking forward the VAST and FM programming. Just added two expression pedals and finding I will need the half damper pedal to control the sustain more accurately (more like a piano). The effects are a mystery as to where they are assigned, they don't seem to show up as aux sends in a mixer, I think both inserts and sends are assigned to the individual programs?

[@artephank]

Yep, effects are per layer in the patch and as aux inside the patch. Which is actually great (although a bit wasteful). Could you please share your opinion regarding vast after some use? I read all the manuals and watched all yt videos and I am still on the fence. On paper this synth ses to be great and I really love the layered approach to designing sounds. I also love mixing samples, va and fm, but I wonder would I like to use it. Seems overly complicated UI wise.

[@WildernessMusic_GentleSerene]

I am still getting into it, I gave up for about 6 months last year because the system was locking up (freezing) with little provocation. But this year I am at it again, lots of system lock ups but can be solved by using the PANIC button instead of powering off and on. Once I have full understanding, I will be making a video tutorial series on this because we all need it so badly. The VAST/FM system is the same as a hardware modular system, we up to 32 modules to configure as we desire. But I did the math on polyphony, 4 voices for FM, 2 voices for stereo and 1 voice for monaural. So a patch with 8 layers of stereo and 2 layers of FM would 32 voices for every single keyboard key press. So I am going to keep the VAST sound design as simple as possible. I don't want stereo samples, monaural layers panned is much easier to control the stereo field and uses only one voice per layer. @@artephank

[@artephank]

@@WildernessMusic_GentleSerene thank you for your experiences. I shelved the buy of Kurzweil synth for a while in the meantime. I figured out that it might be a bit too complex but on the other hand - I like complex:) the freezes and hiccups you mentioning are a bit worrying, since most (all?) reviewers didn’t mention them, which means they just didn’t try VAST enough…

[@WildernessMusic_GentleSerene]

I hear you..."didn't try VAST enough".... Or deep enough. VAST work with VA + FM + Sample + effects + series/parallel configs + pedal & zones + arps + CC sequencers = DEEP, right to the bottom I am headed! :) Hoping to come out on top. :) @@artephank

[@patriciozazzini3182]

screen is too small what were they thinking?

[@djyeo1]

thanks

[@harogaston]

OMG I Knew your face looked familiar to me, now I now it is from a 13 years old video I once watched (probably more than 10 years ago) of you playing Green Onions

[@lucygodfrey141]

❤

[@davidshelton9185]

Where are the best deal for the kurzweil k2700 thanks for your help

[@davidshelton9185]

Where can I find the best deal for kurzweil k2700

[@DavidPadin-q3m]

Where the master transpose located?

[@louiscornale5667]

Great for wooly bully watch it now

[@lalalalalala8147]

Thanks for the video; the K2700 is clearly an excellent keyboard, and I am only not buying one right now, as I am being heavily seduced by the amazing Waldorf Iridium. I need to do more research!

[@АлександрЛапченко-н4е]

Thanks a lot. Sounds good but I do still prefer PC3A8…

[@jaishchada]

I still prefer the look of the PC3A/K series, BUT when you use the new hi-res colour screen (fast refresh and clarity) and hear the SOUND, I’ll bet you’ll never go back.

[@АлександрЛапченко-н4е]

@@jaishchada Well but many NORD instruments don’t have even a small screen. Only NORD GRAND has a small and primitive one.PC3 has a quite good screen I think.

[@funyeimanager8491]

It still falls behind the Yamaha Montage

[@The_Mister_E]

Kurzweil should lean into their legacy support more. The older systems and technologies are what people think of when they think "Kurzweil", with some sounds being unavailable anywhere else and some custom patches being unable to recreate outside of the systems they were designed for. The PC3K is the only Kurzweil product that interests me to be honest, but it's a shame it isn't in a rack or software form.

[@zzzudio]

Are you serious? There's hardly any company supporting their legacy products better than how Kurzweil does it.

[@jaishchada]

I’d like to see more legacy support too as I have some favourite patches from older K series, but I’m finding a LOT of new favourites in the K2700 presets and creating MANY new patches. The good news is all the old keymaps are in the K2700 so it’s a matter of tweaking some .krz, .k25 and .k26 files. The K2700 reads these AND Forte AND PC3 and PC4 files! I also sold my PC3K7 for the K2700 and am very happy with that decision. I have a K2500xs and it’ll be up for sale once I finish file conversions to the K2700.

[@madness8556]

Creating a split should be way more straight forward whereby you can simply press the key where you want the split to be. Other competing instruments allow this. Come on Kurzweil, it's 2023 not 1993!

[@woeizme]

Wasn’t that fave feature 3? - quick entry lets you hold ‘enter’ button and play key to set ranges.

[@vjreimedia]

The K2*** are the most featured/useless synth ever. They brag about giving you all sorts of quirks you will never going to use and nobody needs nor asks for. At the end it sounds like a Roland. I have a K2000 sitting there. I go it for $1000. It can't make sounds because I do not know, it powers up and such. I used to have a K2500 and it was too bright, it was a sound for a band that plays at pizza places. Kurzweil was sold after the K2000 and the K2500 already sounded totally different. A K2700... if you feel like it. Probably for the church.

[@JerryManowar]

you can program the sounds silly