Following up our synth conversation, I decided to go ahead and take the nice deal on the K2000. It came with a keyboard stand, hard case with wheels, the synth and all the manuals and floppy disk samples and it's barely used. It's a newer model, called the K2000VP which has a bit more added than the original K2000 but it's still not quite a K2500 in terms of extra features and polyphony, etc. I think this one was probably built in 1999 or 2000. I will probably end up grabbing a Micro Q as well when I get paid next but I may wait until I move in like 3 weeks to get it just to make the move that much easier, though I'm not sure if I can wait that long haha.

Anyway, the K2000 is a lot of fun so far, it has a lot of shit it can do. It's really more of a workstation, meant to create entire tracks but I mainly want it synthesis capabilities. Now I just have to learn how to use it to it's full potential and pick up the necessary gear to get it hooked up via MIDI haha. It does seem it would be suited for pads and leads, and many other things as well.

I found this little blurb of Cosmosis talking about the use of a K2000 in one of his older tracks to give an idea of it might sound like in a goa kind of setting. He was able to get some very nice, goa sounding leads on it. He explained about a few of the synths he used to make this track, I'll quote him below. Pretty interesting.



"Q "...What did you use for the lead riff in "Moonshine?"

A There's quite a few leads in that track but if you mean the main theme that starts at 3.20 then it's a sound I made on a Kurzweil K2000.

Several of the leads are different sounds I made on the K2000. For example the snarly one that comes in at 2.41 is a K2000 sound, as is the one at 4.39 There are several other parts from the K2 here and there during the track.

The K2000 was a seriously powerful synth/sampler. It was the 1959 Gibson Les Paul of digital synths in it's time (mid to late 1990's). One of the main benefits was that it had loads of different filter and DSP modules that you could apply to the signal path. It also had very distinctive filters and it didn't sound like anything else. It didn't really sound analogue either - which was a good thing as far as I was concerned as it gave more contrast to my other sounds.

Most importantly you could really abuse and distort the internal signal by turning the internal gain up to as much as 48db - which I did on a regular basis - unique for a digital synth. Three layers per part. 10 outputs. It was a beast.

I'd use it now if I didn't have to peer through a tiny screen to edit it. The K2000 was one of the main tools in Simon Hallucinogen's arsenal. Don't know if he still has his. I flogged mine years ago.

>Did you use a triggered gate to get the stuttering?<

No, on that particular part (3.20) they 32nd note staccatos are programmed in with midi notes. So no gating. This lead patch has an LFO to pitch with thye intensity controlled by an envelope curve which was delayed. What this means is that after an initial period of no modulation, the pitch mod. starts and gets progressively more intense the longer the note holds.
The sound was tweaked to fit the part so that as it slides up on the portamentoed notes, it reached maximum intensity at the top of the slides..

Other synths on that track were Nord Lead 1 comes in @ 2.29 (percussive lead ) and main theme at the end and at other points.

Waldorf Pulse analogue monosynth for the bassline, also for the osc. sync part which comes in @ 6.34.

Emu E4x sampler for a sound which is played as on 8th notes that I made using the internal EMU vocal filters comes in at 3.46.

Sampled percussion was coming in via 8 outputs of the Emu.

The voice part at the beginning (which always reminds me of Pat Metheny's music - starts @ 1.08) is actually a sampled churchbell filtered with a resonant band pass filter in the Emu.

There a little bit of Korg Prophecy in there also, - the reverbed blips which start @ 1.08

Incidentally the sampled voice at the start is Moon Unit Zappa, Frank Zappa's daughter. And yes, Moon Unit is really her name.

Mixed through a 24 channel, 8 buss analogue desk. Ensoniq DP2 effects featured quite heavily also. I had two of those DP4 units at the time. The intro is a Nord Lead part faded in and out of a DP2 Phaser/delay algorithm with high delay feeback and high phaser resonance. Incidentally that particular FX unit (and that Phaser/delay algorithm in particular) can be heard all over many of the psy-trance tracks of that period, X-dream caned their unit, I hear it in several of their tracks from this period."

Just listened to some demos, the K2000 sounds really warm and awesome. Seems like it could produce some really nice pads and fx. I wish I had my synth here already, still waiting on it to ship from Iowa... How's the interface on the K2000? Doesn't look like it has too many knobs, still has more than my Blofeld though ahahah. I wish all synths were knob per function, like the old Nord Lead series. That would make editing and programming so much easier. I think my Blofeld has a software editor online though, so I may use that, cause using those like 4 knobs doesn't look like it's going to be easy. Speaking of editing,

http://k2000.mydeaz.com/?page_id=86

http://www.kurzweilmusicsystems.com/KnowledgeBase.php?product=148

I found those when I was looking for a software editor for the K2000. Which there is, but apparently due to the technology being older it lags a lot when you edit via software. Still might be something to check out if you ever get frustrated with the interface. Probably best to just memorize it's internal routing, though.

Anyways, solid buy dude, it sounds great.

Speaking of synths, I thought this was kinda cool :



Filteria and 2 other guys fucking around with synths, just making weird noises.

If you're interested I can PM you a link to some old stuff but I haven't completed anything in a while. I've been learning a lot and growing as a musician so my older stuff is pretty outdated and I have so many ideas going I haven't finished a full track to satisfaction in a while. But if you're interested you can have a listen to the older stuff, just shoot me a PM.



Oh, sweet links, thanks man! And yeah, it has a nice warm sound to it, but it's definitely got a digital edge to it as well. I've read of some people saying they felt it was close to analog but I'm not so sure, though it's a very nice sound regardless. A lot of movie soundtracks were done on it so it has that kind of epic sound to a lot of the patches.

As for the knobs, there is really only one knob. It's to the right of the screen and they call it the Alpha Wheel and it makes selections. The rest of everything else is a button of some sort. The navigation and everything is run through these buttons. On the left are the mode buttons, then in the center are navigation buttons and the wheel and to the right is an alphanumeric keypad for inputting with. All the synthesis is done a few pages in from the opening screen though there are shortcuts available. I am still reading through the manual, it's a lot to take in at once but the power of this thing is awesome. It does things I don't even understand yet but I'm glad to be able to have the opportunity to learn on it. I do wish that it had knob controls but the synth would be significantly larger, like something like an Arp 2600 or MS20 or some older looking synth. I really do like the tactile feel of the knobs though. There's just too much to tweak to have all the knobs on the surface area of what it is right now and as it stands its a pretty big synth though. It's heavy as shit when it's in the case and it's a bitch to carry around so I understand their decision to use buttons.

I didn't realize your Blofeld wasn't there yet, I'm interested to hear how you like it! And yeah, I figured if I used the Blofeld I'd probably be programming mostly through the software. I'm going to have to check out the K2000 software as well, thanks for making me aware of it.

I'm very psyched to learn to program some nice patches, now I just need to finish the damn manual!

Edit: By the way I really enjoyed watching the video of Filteria and friends playing. Great to watch somebody else.

This post was edited by HERETICtheory on Nov 22 2011 05:56pm

Awesome sound, very progressive sounding for being this old.

Not sure if I posted this before or not but I recently remembered how much I adore this remix. So beautiful.

Apologies for my inactivity, didn't have internet for a few days @_@



I've been loving Entheogenic lately. I feel they have an atmosphere about them that is infrequently seen in psybient. It actually makes you feel like you're in another place when you listen to them, which is what true psychedelic music should do. Lots of little floating details in this song, I love it. The whole album is gold actually. If anyone needs it, PM me

This song is wonderfully psychedelic...Little voices, beautiful melodies, unique noises. Love it.

Was just looking through that Cosmosis interview again,

>This lead patch has an LFO to pitch with thye intensity controlled by an envelope curve which was delayed. What this means is that after an initial period of no modulation, the pitch mod. starts and gets progressively more intense the longer the note holds.

@_@ That's some interesting technique right there. I did something similar with a patch on my synth, but I never actually programmed it into a sequence, so I never heard what that could actually do. Sounds really cool though, gives it a much more lively texture. The K2000 sounds fantastic in that song though! It's interesting because although it sounds old school, it doesn't really quite sound analog either, like he said. Unique tone there.