I sold my Korg Tonight...

[happyrat1]

Sounds like the opening of a blues song doesn't it?

I managed to get $750 for it from a very nice professional musician who knew his way around a Korg and liked what he saw and didn't try to dicker me down to a pittance.

So I kissed Old Betsy goodbye and packed her up and sent her off to a stellar career playing weddings, clubs and casinos...

I'll miss her fer sure but I just couldn't afford the cash or the space for a fourth keyboard so now I'm shopping around and ready to pull the trigger on a brand, spanking new Kurzweil PC3LE8...

There's a vendor in town who has them on sale right now for a good price, but he's out of stock.

I might be singing the backorder blues for a few weeks but I know it'll be worth it.

And yes, I know it'll be more machine than my talent rates, but this is something I will treasure for decades and try my best to grow into...

That is all...

End transmission...

Please resume your normal programming

Gary (Happier than the cat who swallowed the canary)

 

[happyrat1]

Here she is one last time for old time's sake...

 

[goz211]

Hope you haven't too long to wait for your new Kurzweil to arrive.

 

[happyrat1]

Thanks. I hope I can get it for the advertised price. It seems almost too good to be true. Then again this wouldn't be the first dealer in history to pull a bait and switch.

Still, if I'm really lucky maybe he has a floor demo or an open box unit at an even lower price.

 

[delaware dave]

Happy,

I have a 76 Key PC3 (not the LE) and love it. Caution on the LE; the keyboard is 64 note polyphonic (not 128), doesn't have the 9 sliders (to emulate the 9 drawbars on the Hammond) and doesn't have nearly the effects processing power that the PC3 has (so can't run the new double leslie emulation). Might want to poke around in the used market for the PC3 series rather than the LE. Just a thought.

P.S. Someone sent me an upgraded single leslie that might be able to be loaded in the LE. Supposedly it is heavily tweaked and supposedly sounds pretty good. I never loaded it into my PC3 because I use a Vent. I can send that to you to try it out. Let me know.

Delaware Dave

 

[happyrat1]

Hi Dave,

Thanks for the caveats, but I've done my homework and am aware of the LE8's limitations.

The 64 note polyphony doesn't bother me because that's all I had on my Korg and even in my most saturated pieces I never had a problem with dropped or skipped notes.

As for the drawbars, I'm not really a die hard organ freak purist anyway

My main reasons for going with the LE (aside from cost) (The K8 costs nearly double in this country) are the bread and butter Kurzweil sounds, the ability to program voices with VAST and having a good solid 88 key Fatar controller that I can later on add a module to if I choose. I'm mainly a new wave synth freak anyway

Also the dedicated drum pads are a nice feature that none of the other Kurzies support.

There's a used PC3X for sale locally right now and the guy is asking $2000 for it. His ad has been there since the beginning of May so I think he's being a hardass on the price. Anyway, I'm iffy on buying another 3 year old board for that kind of money and somehow I doubt the guy takes Visa

Still, if I don't have any luck with the LE8 I may still take the guy up on it. At least I'd be able to check out the condition before I pull the trigger.

Then again the little boy in me loves shiny, bright new things

Take care,

Gary

 

[happyrat1]

Right now I'm in negotiations to pick up a PC3K8 floor demonstrator for a very very VERY nice price. The guy's gotta run it past his boss when he comes in but with any luck by the end of today I'll have closed the deal!!!

Keep your fingers crossed for me people. I need all the magically delicious good Karma you can beam my way

I'll the post the details when and if the deal closes.

Gary

 

[happyrat1]

The deal is DONE!!!

I have a brand new, pristine, music shop demo PC3K8 with full warranty and reportedly without a scratch winging its way to me from out west for $2760 (Taxed and shipped) and change next week!!!! Basically their price was only about $800 more than the LE8.

Monday's a national holiday in Canada so it probably won't ship until Tuesday, so either by next Friday or the following Monday I'll be unpacking the keyboard of my wet dreams!!!

My thanks go out to all you wonderful people who sent me good karma in attaining the keyboard I plan to grow old and die with.

In the meantime though, WE DANCE!!!

Gary

 

[delaware dave]

Awesome board. As I mentioned earlier i love mine. Also, if you recall this video of myron playing this rhodes:

I checked and it is Duke's Dyno Rhodes, which is either program #18 or #20 (can't remember which one). He tweaked the layers to adjust the bite but otherwise it's the stock program. I know that you aren't a hammond freak, er purist, but check out programs 49 to 53, the new double leslie. Also, check out programs 842 and 843. These programs were created to brighten up the Steinway piano samples and give them more of a Yamaha-like tone.

Also, since you have the 'K' series, sweetwater has a few nice sample sets that load directly into the sample area of the 'K' that you might really like. http://www.ksetlist.com has tons of programs that you can load.

Have fun...

 

[happyrat1]

Thanks for the links and the encouragement. I know I'll have another steep learning curve ahead of me trying to master this powerful a machine.

Gary

 

[RonE]

Can't wait to hear it lad, get with the program will ya!

 

[happyrat1]

Well technically my bank will own most of it for a couple of months so maybe I'll have my bank manager write a tune

 

[happyrat1]

Here's the vendor I got it from. I took the last one in stock and they knocked off $200 cause it was a demo.

http://www.axemusic.com/store/produ...Synthesizer-Workstation-with-88-Keys-and-USB/

 

[happyrat1]

I ordered a few pedals and a custom dust cover tonight. Now I just sit back, wait for the courier trucks, and pray that my bank manager uses lube when he comes to collect

 

[RonE]

ahhh... the sacrifices we must make, eh?

 

[happyrat1]

I've been taking a look at some of the options for this puppy as well.

Between the ribbon controller and the breath controller and the Kore 64 ROM expansion it'd be easy to drop close to another thousand on this puppy without breaking a sweat.

However, sanity must prevail and I'll simply do the sensible thing and wait til my next Powerball ticket pays off to buy those

Anyway, I've been studying the official Kurzweil PC3 Tutorials on Youtube and things make SOOOOO much more sense on this beast than the Korg where they just threw a couple of Chinglish telephone books at you and expected you to sort it out for yourself.

Props to Kurzweil for solidly supporting their new hardware as well as their legacy hardware unlike Korg who apparently delete every youtube they ever made once the board disappears from their catalogue.

I haven't even received it yet and I'm already a Kurzweil convert for life!!!

 

[delaware dave]

IMO, Kurzweil technical support is world class. (e-mail address removed) even if you have general questions. Jean is the best, really. Dynamic VAST is pretty complicated so I'd recommend two things before you even get the board:

- Download the latest operating system and install it as soon as you get the board. The latest operating system is 2.21. At a minimum you want to be on 2.10. 2.20 and 2.21 are mostly related to KORE 64 and are needed for the KORE 64 board to operate. 2.10 has the latest non-KORE 64 updates and bug fixes and a ton of features added.

- Download and read the manual paying careful attention to the programs, setup and effects and storage chapters. I'ved owned many keyboards from Yamaha, Korg, Roland, Ensoniq and others. VAST is by far the most complicated but its boundaries are nearly endless. Also, check out the delivered QA banks. Dave Weiser created some really cool programs and setups out of the box. Finally, if you haven't viewed this video you should check it out. It really shows you the capabilities as to how this keyboard sounds out of the box, with little to no tweaking.

Manual and O/S update here:

http://kurzweil.com/product/pc3k8/downloads/

 

[happyrat1]

I've been watching demo and tutorial videos all night. I'm not even sure I'll need the manual

Seriously though, does it ship with a printed manual or do I have to download it? I'm not eager to print out over 400 pages if I'll have a professionally printed and bound copy in my hands within a week or so.

 

[delaware dave]

Mine shipped with a manual and so should yours. The issue with the manual is that there were a bunch of feature updates that are not in the printed manual. The addendum manual will need to be downloaded from the website link above to understand those changes. In some cases the original manual information is not completely accurate as functionality has been added/changed.

 

[happyrat1]

Good enough. Worst case scenario I have a double sided laser printer and access to a comb binder so printing out my own manuals is not a total dealbreaker for me. Even so, printing out 500 to 600 pages of manuals, revisions, addenda and MIDI and technical specs is still a major PITA.

I've also seen a couple of third party books out there on the PC3 family as well as a complete DVD tutorial on youtube posted by Kurzweil as well as a seemingly endless list of video and print and software resources out there.

Not to mention the scientific and philosophical writings and musings of Ray Kurzweil himself, I feel more like I'm joining an exclusive cult than buying a simple musical keyboard.

Honestly it will take me months to wade thru all of the available material out there but from what I've seen so far the real beauty of the PC3 series is that you can simply sit down, dial up and twiddle a few presets and already create some phantasmagoric soundscapes with little to no effort.

I plan to hang on to this machine for at least a couple of decades, possibly for the rest of my life, so I will take my time and explore its capabilities at a speed with which I am comfortable.

In the meantime, I will hopefully squeeze a few good tunes out of it and grow into it like an oversized pair of sneakers

Meanwhile, thanks for all the info Dave. You're going a long way to convincing me that I made the right decision to pull the trigger and go for the K8 instead of the LE.

Gary