Ray Kurzweil back at Kurzweil Music Systems

On 17/3/2007, In DSP Cards, Kurzweil, Synthesizers, By Yash
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Ray KurzweilEarlier this year, we were graced by one of the best news item ever. Ray Kurzweil, the original founder of Kurzweil Music Systems has been asked by Hyundai to come back helm Technology strategy at KMS.

Hyundai has appointed Ray Kurzweil as Chief Strategy Officer of Kurzweil Music Systems. Hyundai, one of the world’s largest corporations, plans to work with Ray Kurzweil to “build Kurzweil Music Systems into one of the largest music instruments brands in the world,” Kurzweil stated.

At the last NAMM, Ray Kurzweil was given a Life Achievement Award by Young Chang North America, with fellow recipients Stevie Wonder and Billy Joel. Congratulations to all.

Kurzweil Music Systems has the technology and the know-how to be revolutionary, just as V.A.S.T (Variable Architecture Synthesis Technology) was. They were the first synthesizer manufacturer to have a web presence, and to provide such power in their synthesizers. Music-making friends are still amazed when I explain how I can build a synthesizer within my Kurzweil.

I have been a long-time contributor to online Kurzweil mailing lists (that’s about 13 years counting from my initial contact to now), advocating and explaining the use of the Kurzweil K2 series synthesizers. They are extremely powerful, but with power also comes complexity for some users.

I wrote three very well received tutorials about Advanced Programming on the Kurzweil K2 series. Fellow users were extremely happy that I not only knew the synthesis architecture so well, but also that I was sharing the knowledge with them, showing them advanced ways to put their synths to great use:

0. Advanced Programming on the Kurzweil K2 series synthesizers – An overview.
1. Interactive Phrase Sequencing
2. Vector Synthesis & WaveSequencing Emulation
3. Faking effects

I won a contest for programming the synthesizer and I also wrote software to remote control the Kurzweil synths’, both at the panel level and at the internal synthesis architecture level, and transfer sounds to and from them in SysEx format.

KurviewOne of these software, KurView (which you can also see in the header for this blog), enables me to get high-quality images of the contents of the LCD screen, which I have integrated into these new blog versions of my old tutorials.

Kurzweil Music Systems has a very advanced new DSP chip called Mara which should be the heart of forthcoming products.

There are some obstacles and some past occurrences that should be avoided for future success not just technologically but for the community as a whole. As a composer, repeat Kurzweil user (I have owned a K2000 and I now have a Kurzweil K2500XS with KDFX), long-time recognized contributor on the mailing lists, sound synthesis expert and software developer for the machines, I have a few ideas that I would like to tell Ray about.

Kurzweil synths are used by Mike Garson (David Bowie), Alicia Keys, New Order, Jean-Michel Jarre, Dream Theater (Jordan Rudess), Pink Floyd (Jon Carin) and many others.

In the meantime, that’s the best thing that could happen to Kurzweil Music Systems.

Welcome back, Ray.

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Advanced Synthesis on the Kurzweil K2000, K2500, K2600 and K2661 synthesizers.

On 30/8/2005, In General, Kurzweil, Synthesizers, Tutorials, By Yash
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(c) Josh Nursing

I am a huge fan of the Kurzweil K2 series synthesizers and their seminal V.A.S.T. architecture which is still one of the most powerful synth engines today.

But with power comes complexity. Hence, as a long-time contributor to the Kurzweil mailing lists for about ten years, I usually teach people how to harness the raw synthesis power of these synths.

On the mailing list once, a reader asked if it was possible to re-create sounds that The Prodigy used on their album “Voodoo People”. Although somebody else was saying that The Prodigy probably used ‘racks of gear’ and that it was impossible to do the same on the Kurzweil K2000, I proceeded to describe step by step a few avenues to explore. The reader replied that during the week-end, he had achieved even better sounds thanks to my advice.

Subsequently, I wrote several advanced tutorials for the Kurzweil synthesizers based on more than 15 years of experience with sound synthesis.

These advanced tutorials for the Kurzweil K2 series synthesizers have been edited from their previous versions and reproduced here. I have added screenshots to make them easier to follow. The screenshots are provided by YashLabs’ KurView, a brilliant software remote controller for the Kurzweil K2 series synthesizer.

(more…)

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Faking effects with synthesis on the Kurzweil K2000, K2500, K2600, K2661 synthesizers

On 29/8/2005, In Hardware, Kurzweil, Synthesizers, Tutorials, By Yash
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(c) Josh Nursing

This tutorial shows how to use some synthesis tricks to enable fake effects for programs within the Kurzweil K2000 synthesizers and above with the V.A.S.T. architectures.

The Kurzweil K2000 has a global multi-effects processor. Independent WET/DRY mixes can be achieved with the panner algorithms. Having different effects for each channel is normally impossible on the K2000, K2500 and K2600/K2661 (instead you’d use the KDFX studio with its 4 strips).

If your requirements are not too extreme, you can fake program flange, delays and reverbs using envelopes, LFO’s and other hacks on the K2000.
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Vector Synthesis & WaveSequencing Emulation on the Kurzweil K2000, K2500, K2600 and K2661 synthesizers

On 28/8/2005, In Hardware, Kurzweil, Synthesizers, Tutorials, By Yash
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(c) Josh Nursing

This is a tutorial about using your Kurzweil K2 series synthesizer and emulating some of the features found on the Korg WaveStation, especially Wave Sequencing.

1. Vector Synthesis.

There is no difficulty in emulating vector synthesis at all. The joystick found on WS keyboards is just a controller with two axes: x and y. Simulating the joystick therefore entails using two real-time controllers on the Kurzweil synthesizers. One is used as a source on one or more parameters. The other is set to control other parameters of the same program. The simultaneous use of both controllers is similar to selecting a point in a Cartesian coordinate system, which the joystick enables you to do.

2. WaveSequencing.
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Interactive Phrase Sequencing on the Kurzweil K2000, K2500, K2600 and K2661 Synthesizers

On 27/8/2005, In Hardware, Kurzweil, Synthesizers, Tutorials, By Yash
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(c) Josh Nursing

This tutorial shows how you program your Kurzweil K2000 (or K2500, K2600, K2661) synthesizer and:

  • assign various song sequences to different keys so as to trigger them interactively. Furthermore, you will learn how to record your live triggering of the songs.
  • Record different arrangements on your song.

    • This is pretty much the same thing you can do within Ableton’s Live software, but on your Kurzweil synthesizer.

    When I upgraded a Kurzweil K2000 synthesizer from v2.xx to v3.18, I wanted to record whole sequences interactively into the sequencer, following on the interesting suggestions made by Keith Cowgill on his site.

    You can use the ARRANGE page to trigger different sequences through keys. However, I could not find a way to record my live pseudo-arpeggiations without retriggering the songs defined in the steps.

    Fortunately, there is a way to do this properly, but it’s not very clear from the manual (or rather it must be read more than once and thoroughly).

    So here’s a quick introduction to some really powerful aspects of the K2000’s internal v3.xx sequencer.

    First, if you haven’t read the introductory sequencing tutorial in the manual, please do, with your K2k besides you to get acquainted with basic operations.

    Now that you know how to create a sequence and save it, we’ll look more closely into the ARRANGE feature.

    Each song has an associated ARRANGE page. On that page you can associate steps to other existing songs, so that these ‘other’ songs will be played in sequence from step 1 to step x where x< =99.

    Follow the instructions below to try these powerful features:
    (more…)

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