Kurzweil • K2600
The K2600 is another amazing monster synthesizer from Kurzweil using their excellent V.A.S.T. synthesis. Truly an elegant synthesizer with a full keyboard of 77 semi-weighted keys (88 full-weighted keys on the K2600X pictured above), 8 real-time sliders, ribbon controller, pitch and mod wheels and total MIDI controllability. The amazing sounds are contained in 12MB of sample ROM, expandable to 44MB using optional sound ROM boards! State-of-the-art sampling is also available on the K2600S, K2600XS and K2500RS with an astonishing 64MB of RAM standard! And that's expandable to 128MB! A 32 track interactive song arranger is also on-board allowing you to create various and complex sequences and songs which can be triggered from a variety of sources. This sequencer is no slacker with pattern, linear, and step recording, cut, copy, paste, advanced groove quantizing, event list editing and other powerful editing tools with up to 16 songs and 16 arrangement tracks. Add stereo outs, eight individual outs, dual SCSI ports, digital I/O and you've got yourself a professional studio-keyboard.
As a synthesizer, the K2600 is likely one of the most professional and superior instruments available. Very programmable, flexible and excellent sounding as you would expect from Kurzweil, following the amazing K2000 and K2500 synths. The V.A.S.T. variable architecture synthesis has 60 DSP functions, 438 preset programs (238 ROM, 200 RAM) and is capable of amazingly realistic acoustic instruments and a diverse range of analog synth sounds and other unique sounds complete with multi-effects and real-time MIDI control.
The K2600's Sampler option offers a hi-tech real-time Live Mode V.A.S.T. and K.D.F.X. processing of external analog or digital signals, capable of interfacing with ADAT, TDIF and AES/EBU and receiving up to 8 digital channels at once. Any of the synths parameters can be used to tweak the external signal in real-time and with 20-bit digital output! The sampler has digital I/O and is capable of sampling while you play. Of course the sampler offers all the advanced editing functions you'd expect from any professional quality sampler. There is a (DMTi) Digital Multi Track interface option for data format and sample rate conversion with the Alesis ADAT and Tascam DA-88 machines. And the K2600 features Flash ROM upgradeability via diskettes and SCSI. It has been used by BT, Peter Gabriel and Pink Floyd.
Only negs are the 48 note polyphony - a bit light. A CD read/write drive would be better than the floppy and I would like to see the ability to apply a lot more of the effects to a studio when using the sequencer - 4 effects (A-D) across the studio is not enough imo - 8 would be better
Still 5 stars though !!
I had a 2500 and I knew people with many of them and at the end it was the same as having a proteous module. You are either a musician or a programmer.
You can do tons of things but nobody did, probably sampling something but creating an actual sound was so tricky and I never was able to run the arpegiator.
I believe it was part of a trend on "how much you can do with a workstation" to the point that was not friendly. It was good but totally impractical, that was why Kurzweil went bankrupt with that line.