Kurzweil 2600s

Sorry, newbish question. I can pick up a Kurzweil 2600s for $1500. Is this a good deal? Should I act on it, or hold off till sometime in the future and pick up a new Kurzweil like the PC3x?

I currently have a yamaha S90ES so I'm not really looking for anything, but thought that might be a good deal on the Kurzweil and I believe people around here say it's a great board. Thoughts?

Thanks!

$1500 sounds about right, provided it has the sampling option and the sample memory is maxed out. It's also worth more if it comes with the PRAM upgrade, any ROM upgrades, and possibly an external CD ROM drive.

Thanks, I'm thinking I will just hold off, I don't really need it. I was thinking $1500 was a killer deal because they are all going for $3000+ at online retailers. I am really gassing for the PC3x though, must resist

That is a very good price...unless its really beat-up.

It's in good shape, I'm just questioning if the K2600s is outdated, yeah I'm a newb when it comes to Kurzweils, but I've always heard they are great boards, so I'm trying to decide if I should drop the extra coin and just go for the PC3x. It's just hard to justify $1500 for this board when I paid about that much for my new S90ES.

The 2600 is only outdated if you believe a workstation/synth/sampler is outdated.

I owned a 2600XS, and now own a 2661. They're a great sounding sample based workstation with tremendous flexibility. While the sampling option is great to have (had it on the K26XS, not the 2661) for alot of reasons, "LiveMode" being one of them, there's other ways to import samples. It's stock sounds are gigable, and there's also many 3rd party sounds for it. It's synthesis engine and effects are A+. The 88 key "X" model is a bit heavy to gig with, as to the reason I got a 2661. I stayed with the Kurz for both the sounds and flexibility, but also because I knew the Kurz OS and didn't want to go through a learning curve as I perform with it. Some find it hard to catch on to the Kurzweil OS but I find it fairly logical and easy to work with.

One point on the downside, and I don't know that the 76 key version of the 2600 (if that's the one you're looking at) has the same keybed as the 2661, but I find that it's keybed is a bit spongy or something. Not horrible, just not ideal.

I followed the prices pretty closely on Ebay before selling the K2600XS. $1500 ain't a bad price for a great workhorse board.

K2x00 sound is worth no more than $200 by today's standards

if you want to pay $1300 for some additional useless crap like VAST, sampling and a keyboard...

I wouldn't worry about it being outdated. It's a sampler -- and a really good one at that. Moreover, VAST is a really deep synth engine, and KDFX is also a nice effects processor.

It's a powerful workstation no matter how you look at it.

Shuttle is also a very complex spacecraft. The only problem ordinary people can't make it move.

Yeah, but that's not a worthy comparison. The K2XXX has been made to "move" by more musicians than just about any other workstation.

It does have a complex architecture, but I've never seen that as a strike against Kurzweil. It just means it's not for everybody. Still a great sounding unit.

K2x00 sound is worth no more than $200 by today's standards if you want to pay $1300 for some additional useless crap like VAST, sampling and a keyboard...

VAST is really an amazing synth technology, what i have been learnt and what I have heard (sounds) is that you can create almost everything you want.

About the k2600, this sounds really better than most of the products in the market, so, why do you say it is crap? (or were you just joking?).

If you werent joking, what do you suggest instead of the k2600 with as good sound as the k2600 and good price? (talking about hardware).

K2600 sounds like shit, period (unless you're into jazz). If you think otherwise, it means either you haven't heard any other rompler made after 1992, or, well, please come to my clinic and I will do ear lavage for you for free.

I also welcome you to post at least three "amazing" sounds made with VAST to prove your point. This has been discussed here many times, noone ever posted anything yet. Lots of though.

Some Yamaha stuff sounds almost as good as Kurzweil, and some Korg stuff almost begins to approach the internal synth architecture complexity of Kurzweil, but overall, considering every aspect, Kurzweil is still tops in my book.

K2600 sounds like shit, period (unless you're into jazz). If you think otherwise, it means either you haven't heard any other rompler made after 1992, or, well, please come to my clinic and I will do ear lavage for you for free. I also welcome you to post at least three "amazing" sounds made with VAST to prove your point. This has been discussed here many times, noone ever posted anything yet. Lots of though.

LOL - the 2600 is great. I love posts like this - no matter what the synth, if someone were to post these sounds, you would go out of your way to 'prove' that they weren't amazing, and that you could duplicate them on your casio.

True that.

I own workstations by all of the Big Three, and nothing really takes the place of my K2500. It's also one of the few hardware samplers that will read samples of just about any file format (Roland, Akai, Ensoniq, etc.).

Ok up until this post I was on the Kurzweil side but this post is not just silly, its ignorant! You may want to try some other synths out...

You can like the Kurz but lets stick with planet earth... And the K2xxx series is sadly completely outdated and sonically surpassed in many aspects. These are technological limitations- not personal opinions.

That said, even the DX7 is a great synth regardless of how outdated FM synthesis is. Ask the ladies, its not the size, its what you do with it that counts... keyboards I mean.

Kurzweils day in the sun is long gone as far as king of the workstations goes and that ended over 10 years ago...

Exactly!

It all depends on what you expect from a keyboard.

I got rid of most of my stuff from the big 3, although I still have a Yamaha S80, Yamaha EX5R, and Roland XV-5080.

I've owned enough keyboards over the years to know what I want - and the big 3 can't provide that. Maybe someday, but I kind of doubt it.

So I buy what suits my needs. That's far from ignorant.

K2600 sounds like shit, period (unless you're into jazz). If you think otherwise, it means either you haven't heard any other rompler made after 1992, or, well, please come to my clinic and I will do ear lavage for you for free. I also welcome you to post at least three "amazing" sounds made with VAST to prove your point. This has been discussed here many times, noone ever posted anything yet. Lots of though.

well you didnt answer my question about the suggestion (which is a very easy way to scape to say stuffs without a backup). Also it is interesting how you use the argumentum ad hominem -to centre the argument in the person- to make it looks as a "better argument" in this discussion. the only argument you have is just your subjective opinion, which could be respectable if you would do it with respect and not like a furious young man.

it is strange that always there is people (kurzweil haters) that just need to see the word Kurzweil to enter to the topic to make comments like this without knowing anything about the machine itself (you even havent heard the results of the VAST, you ask me for a demo, which is funny, i thought you at least heard what VAST and kurzweil in general can do trying by youirself with calm). I can even can clasify the most common opinions/critics in 3 mains points, which are the following:

1) "there are better engines" (without give any example to see and say "ohhh ok, he was right"). in this case "there are better engines in the past" (without an example of course), which could result in the total speculation of what is the genious and excellent engine he is is refering to. Could be analog synth? (which agree in certain point), but most of them (the good machines of the past) are not workstations, so about what is better is really a very subjective opinion and depends of what are you looking in a keyboard.

2) "kurzweil has not evolutionate since the k2000" or "since X period", which is a very weak argument, taking in count that it is irrelevant if this has evolutionated or not because it is till sounding better than competitors. Which would be a real critic is to wonder yourself "how is it possible that big companies that sell a lot of machines havent achieved that sound yet, in this year 2008". maybe what is really expensive is the lazy and weak machine that cost 1000 dollars, not the good sounding machine (which is just economy stuff quality/product/price).

3) "it is too expensive". Without sense of critic when we are talking of other companies or knowledge of how the market is, which is very strange and make me suspect of the objectivity of that person. A lot of times it is just for irrational fanatism of one particular company... (I have had other keyboards (Korg), and also i can admit that I have loved some Roland machines).

which is really important is the opinion of every user, which is always good as you can see, i havent read one real bad opinion yet. There are things that are just right and could be improved according to the necesities of every user (it happens with every keyboard, because there is no perfect engine), but everybody agree that kurzweil in general is sinonimum of good and quality pruducts. So, could be that all of them are wrong and you are a really chosen one, or you havent heard very close what they can really do. Or maybe you are just different to them.

well, for starters we need to hear those sounds... otherwise you're just speculating

and don't worry, if the sounds are good, i'll admit that... i have no problems admitting i was wrong when i'm wrong...

i don't know what question i was supposed to answer about not joking? i didn't

i had two K2000, one loaded with 999 presets and both ROMs, full of commercial VAST presets showing all it could do... which is shitty plastic dull sounds that had no sparkle or life in them whatsoever...

i haven't found ONE sound in those units that i'd remotely like... needless to say, i sold them both within a few days - i got a good deal on first expanded one, thinking to keep it, but it was a complete waste of money... the second one, i sold on ebay (got one dude from europe asking me to buy one for him, which i did)... i didn't like the first one, didn't change my opinion after checking it out the second time (a month later)

it sounded like shit in 90s, it sounds like decayed shit now

it's NOWHERE near Motif league... not in Fantom league, and probably not in ""whatever crap Korg releases" league

i won't insult you even though you sound like a person who shows up in his riced up Civic to Ferrari meeting and tries to prove everyone his Civic is better than all the Ferraris there cause he's got high-psi turbo and cool suzpensionz and ekzozt

i don't know what question i was supposed to answer about not joking? i didn't i had two K2000, one loaded with 999 presets and both ROMs, full of commercial VAST presets showing all it could do... which is shitty plastic dull sounds that had no sparkle or life in them whatsoever... i haven't found ONE sound in those units that i'd remotely like... needless to say, i sold them both within a few days - i got a good deal on first expanded one, thinking to keep it, but it was a complete waste of money... the second one, i sold on ebay (got one dude from europe asking me to buy one for him, which i did)... i didn't like the first one, didn't change my opinion after checking it out the second time (a month later) it sounded like shit in 90s, it sounds like decayed shit now it's NOWHERE near Motif league... not in Fantom league, and probably not in ""whatever crap Korg releases" league

So you really think that Motif Es or fantom X sounds better than Kurzweil latest engines?. I tried those machines a lot of times in the store, and I found them weaker than the sound of my current k2661, which is almost the same than the k2600. they are nice keyboards, but i wanted something more organic and realistic, without any plastic sensation.

About the sounds of the Kurzweil and the demo you want, I have put some demos of what i did (in terms of sounds) with less than one month in this topic (k2661 sounds like the k2600, they are almost the same), imagine what could bring me with more experience. If you want to take a look:

http://acapella.harmony-central.com/showthread.php?t=1984584

Also in that topic i recommend you to look very near the sound of the PC3x, which also sounds amazingly in my opinion.

Video of the PC3x here:

http://www.hispasonic.com/videos/sonidos-kurzweil-pc3x

Sounds demo here:

http://www.garageband.com/artist/pc3demos/songs

and then look for any video of the fantom or motif here www.youtube.com. in my opinion there is no point of comparizon (of course this is subjective).

Secondly, the k2000 is not the same than a k2600. I have the sounds of both, and k2600 sounds better. (how can I have an opinion of something specific trying other old product?)

i won't insult you even though you sound like a person who shows up in his riced up Civic to Ferrari meeting and tries to prove everyone his Civic is better than all the Ferraris there cause he's got high-psi turbo and cool suzpensionz and ekzozt

I dont need to convince anybody. This topic clearly says "k2600", which is the product i have. Who is the person in the wrong topic trying of convince other people here?. I am not in Korg topics, or yamaha topics talking about how great is my machine, it would be ridiculous or absurd in my opinion.

I have to admit this video is what got me interested

[YOUTUBE][/YOUTUBE]

To me this sounds pretty damn good and You Tube really screws up sounds.

String pad is ok, but nothing special. Synth lead is "welcome to 70s" crap, guitar sounds like joke... more like a piano than a guitar actually.

Ok, about your PC3 demos: almost all sounds sucks so bad it's not worth even commenting. Some are so awful I actually laughed (drums). The best sound there is a string sound at about 4:30 in first demo that I'd actually rate as high as 5/10. It obviously has good effects, but not even the best effects can turn so piss poor ROM samples into anything remotely decent sounding. I checked the videos too... my opinion is the same.

And btw, after listening to your "music", I now understand why you like kurzweil. Obviously you have no idea what "music" is, or you don't even try to do it, I don't know. Either way, you obvisouly don't need musical instrument, you just need a squeaky toy to entertain yourself. And this is where I quit this discussion.