This is off the topic of arrangers, but recently we were talking about that two million....oops, I mean $20,000 Kurzweil, and I wanted to ask this question to anyone who is familiar with them.. I've always liked the Kurzweil K2000VP (it may only have 8mbs of sound, but you can still upgrade that to like 24mbs) I noticed it says the K2000 has 24 voice poly.. Someone mentioned here about the K2600 have 48 voice poly, but because of the way Kurzweil sets it up it's actually like 144 note poly.. Is this how it's set up with the K2000VP too??? If so what is the actual poly of this synth..

Looks like a big YES on polyphony. Actual polyphony is 24 voices, with up to 4 oscillators per voice. Using that logic, it would be comparable to 96 single-osc. voices on other synths. But regardless of how phat or thin the sound, 24 is the tops, but that's 24 simultaneously. How many fingers do you have?
http://www.kurzweilmusicsystems.com/html/k2000vpr.html

[This message has been edited by cassp (edited 05-21-2003).]

[This message has been edited by cassp (edited 05-21-2003).]

hmmm I wonder if there is a poly expansion for the K2000.... 24 voices isn't bad if you're just playing a voice solo, but if you're wanting to do complex sequencing then that may be a problem. I've maxed the poly on my little PSR-550 many times and that's at 32 poly.. I maxed the Poly on my old Casio MZ-2000 numerous times (64 voice), and I often maxed the poly on my old Yamaha EX-7 (64) voice.. Maybe I need to stop playing so many chords on each track...

Squeak

24 fingers? Yes, we can! Just hit a chord with both hands using a string or organ patch, then hold the sound with the pedal and hit it again and again and that's 30 notes already.

Polyphony expansion for the K2000 series is not something they made. To achieve this, would need more than one instrument. I was at a studio that had 6 K2500 racks to make some outstanding orchestral arrangements. When I was listening, I was amazed how real it was. 99% of the people listening wouldn't be able to tell that it was not an orchestra, including myself.

The polyphony counts for arranger keyboards. The Kurzweil sounds are indeed very good, and for a solo instrument they will work great. However, having 128 voices of polyphony gives the user a choice to use 16 notes of a rich sound, layered 8-voices deep, or 32 voices of not-so rich sound, layered 4 voices deep, or 64 voices of not quite-rich-but-still-very-good sounds. With high polyphony count, you, the user have a coice of either one, or the mixture of sounds. Moreover, in an arranger environment, a typical style will support up to 8 accompaniment parts, several of them polyphonic, each using up voices at the same time as you, the performer, are busy pressing the keys. Add to that the ability to layer 3 voices, even high-quality ones, in the right-hand part in a typical high-end Yamaha, and the fact that many sweet voices are using up to 8-voice layering, and you can very quickly reach the 128 notes of polyphony, even without pressing the sustain pedal.

Call me greedy, but I hope that the new crop of arrangers offers more than 128 voices of polyphony. IMHO, 24 voices is definitely not enough for an arranger.

Ayone looking for a post-production keyboard, ala Squeak and the K2000VP, is obviously looking for something other than cutting edge polyphony technology. I think the original post was OT, off-topic. Arrangers need mass amounts of polyphony, but if I was looking at purchasing a second or third or ... keyboard maybe polyphony would only be a minor part of it, as in the Kurzweil. Actually, 24 Kurzweil voices won't disappear like most voices from another 24,32,64-voice keyboard might - that was the point.