Looks like Kurzweil has jumped on the train and joined the "budget workstation" market. They've released a new budget model.

Specs seem fairly decent. Poly is a bit low though IMO.
http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/PC3LE61/

I always liked the Kurzweil sound...now, if they would only make an arranger based on this model in particular, as it would keep the price reasonable.

They made electronic pianos with arranger features (something like a Yamaha CVP) back in 1993, and they were pretty nice...I remember we had both a Mark 150 and a Mark 10 at the music store I was working in whilst in Newfoundland.

The Mark 150 wasn't portable...it had a 200 watt, seven channel, seven speaker sound system by Boston Acoustics and it was like a grand piano, and the Mark 10 was smaller, but still not what you would rate as as "portable" either.

I think Cassp has a Mark 10.

Strange they went with 64 note poly with this model, when 128 seems to be the industry standard, and with a 16 track sequencer, low polyphony is not what you want...more is always better.

Casio will have a surprise for everyone in the new year.

I suspect that the fact that they also never mentioned the amount of PCM data it contains suggests that there's a lot of other things well below today's standards.

Regards
James

Is Kurzweil still owned by Yong Chang? I thought someone else picked them up.

I suspect they had a tough go over the recession...certainly, although they are great synths/workstations, the competition hasn't been sitting still, and they (Kurzeil) probably have a much smaller piece of the market than they once had.

Maybe it's time they did make an arranger again?

In 2006 Hundai bought Kurzweil from Young Chang. They have struggled the past few years. They went from being the most popular pro keyboard sampler to pretty much the bottom of the pack. Poor management was the biggest problem. I've checked out many of their products the past few years and have always thought they weren't quite up to the big 3 players. Not enough polyphony and a bit overpriced.




------------------
George Kaye
Kaye's Music Scene
Reseda, California
818-881-5566
www.kayesmusicscene.com

And didn't Samick buy Hyundai?

There are Hyundai pianos....they are made by Samick...just another "stencil" piano made in Korea.

Of course the Hyundai name suits the piano business, as they make the Sonata, and the Accent.

Also suits the Internet, as they also make the Santa Fe, which in Navajo is Yootó (Navajo: Yootó) or 'YouTube'.

Silliness is contagious.



chas

I always wanted a Kurzweil arranger. I have a Mark 5, same big-ass piano without the arranger features. Kurzweil has stuck with their proprietory 64-voice polyphony forever. Amazingly, I have never had issues with it and I really haven't heard complaints from any of the PC88 thru PC3 users either. Whatever they're doing works.

But yes, a Kurz arranger would be a real interesting proposition.

I think 64 poly might be an issue within an arranger...the style itself would use up a fair amount of poly, plus you have left hand and right hand sounds...and, if you layer sounds, you use up more.

64 note poly would be acceptable on a digital piano, I'm just not sure how well it would work on an arranger.

In any case, I doubt if we'll see an arranger from Kurzweil in the near future.

Ian

Actually, Cassp, if you check, the Mark 5 had 32 note poly...we always had a couple in the store, along with the other two.

The Mark 5 had a very nice piano sound (for the day, and still holds up well) and I remember the Jazz and Rock organ sounds had a rotary effect that was controlled by one of the pedals.

The action was pretty good , too...I think it was Fatar.

We sold quite a few Mark 5's, mostly to churches.

Amen.

My Mark 5 started out as my very first church piano. Padre gave me a blank check, knowing I wouldn't go hog wild. I was visiting in Kalamazoo, MI and stopped into a music store - they had almost every digital piano on the market. When I sat down to the Kurzweil it was love at first touch.

A few years later we bought a new keyboard with a recorder and I was able to make a deal to keep the Kurzweil for myself. It's still a great favorite of mine.

If you have not played the latest PC3 from Kurz....you don't know how good it can be...

Awesome for sure...there is nothing in the big 3 that overshadows the Kurz.

It's in the sound!

If they ever build a TOTL arranger (yes they had a stage piano with basic arrrangr in it before)it would be one to reckon with for sure.
Very smart people work there.

Unfortuneatly past management (Owners, not internal Kurz) screwed things up for a while...but...they are back big time.

Lee S.

All I can say is V.A.S.T. I have had the K2661 for 2 years now and don't intend to part with it, ever!

Ian, tell us about it.

Trident...what I have heard is that Casio is going to release a new arranger/digital piano in the near future, possibly early in the new year.

The style engine has been expanded to four variations, and there is a new sound/tone generator, supposedly quite similar to Yamaha's SA/Mega and Korg's DNC.

Feature wise it is designed to fit in between Yamaha's S910 and Tyros3, but priced close to the former.

So far, that's what I've heard "around the water cooler", as they say....it may be a lot of bunk, and rumor, but it has been a persistent topic amongst those in the business, so time will tell.

One thing for sure, Casio does have the resources and the clout to pull it off.

I bought a K2600S brandnew in 1999 and never looked back, in fact this date marks the end of my usage of arrangers....
Mine is fully loaded.
Due to the weight I did not use the K much on stage, but my bandmembers/friends recently suggested we have to put some pinkfloyd on our lists,,, So will be used on stage a lot the coming year....
I agreed if the bandmembers will carry the board...

About the polyphony:
The only time I run out of polyphony is when I use a lot of different drum programs in one setup, which has to do with the way the drumpatches are programmed.
You can avoid or correct this by manual editing, but since we have a drummer there's no need for it on live performances.
So that's only an issue if you are composing full songs on the K.

The overall soundprograms are so good that you never need to layer sounds, so the poly48 of the K is no problem att all.

Now this board is built in 1999 and loads audio samples, akai samples etc... if you want. You can use the effects section to run a guitar through it etc...

If you don't mind a long learning curve it's still one of the best synth's on the market...

Fred