john@sol1.UUCP (john) (02/23/85)
Does anyone out there own a Kurzweil? I played one at a music store on the West coast in September. It was phenomenal! It REALLY does have the sound and action of a concert grand. It is a little strange though to be playing the Hammond organ sound with the Grande piano action. Strings are even stranger, although they sound great. I've learned however by experience not to jump on anything this new. I've been waiting to see if they deliver the periphs they promise within a reasonable time frame. I was told then, that Kurzweil was going to be oeming Apple Macs for the Sampling and Digital synthesis interface. (Anyone know if they've done it yet?). Also they were expanding the available presampled sounds. I guess I'm most interested in the digital synthesis capabilities of the machine and would most appreciate feedback from anyone owning one or being privy to much information. [ Take what I say in a different way ] [ and it's easy to say ] [ that this is all confusion ] John Korsmeyer @ THE SOLUTION EMAIL: akgua!sol1!john
mjn@panda.UUCP (Mark J. Norton) (02/26/85)
I bumped into a friend at a recent science fiction convention (Boskone 22)
who shares an intrest in synthesizers. He was full of news (most of no
intrest to you all). On of the really niffty things he mentioned (his
name is Freff by the way) is that he has been contracted by Kurzweil to
write the documentation for their new synth.
Ah, an inside connection to one of the hottest new products in the field!
First the good news: it really is a great sounding intrument which lives
up to all the hype. They are working hard on new voices and peripherals.
Sales are good, in spite of the steep (for us) price tag.
Now the bad news: the user interface for doing your own programming
sucks. Freff indicated that it was extremely complex and hard to work
with. A lot of effort is going into bringing it to market right now,
and as such, not much effort is being made on user-friendliness.
To a certain extent, making it all available is more important. As long
as the hooks are accessible, users will write there own systems and
programming aids.
Looking for a job? Did you known that Kurzweil Music Systems is a Unix
shop? Maybe you should send them your resume. I did a phone interview
with them, but most of my background is in AI and I wasn't quite what
they were looking for.
Mark J. Norton
decvax!genrad!{panda | teddy}!mjnron@brl-tgr.ARPA (Ron Natalie <ron>) (02/27/85)
> Does anyone out there own a Kurzweil?
The only thing currently is that they are selling for $10,500. Kurzweil
expects the price to drop to about 3000 soon.
-Roncrandell@ut-sally.UUCP (Jim Crandell) (02/28/85)
> > Does anyone out there own a Kurzweil? > > The only thing currently is that they are selling for $10,500. Kurzweil > expects the price to drop to about 3000 soon. You mean, "real soon now". [:-)] -- Jim Crandell, C. S. Dept., The University of Texas at Austin {ihnp4,seismo,ctvax}!ut-sally!crandell