The Journal

February 23

Hello,

More K2700’s are getting in the hands of users and the feedback we are receiving is amazing. Also some big names are starting to use it, which is always very cool, including the Broadway guys that already have it in some shows around the globe. Reviews are coming out in webs and magazines too. Check official Kurzweil social media to see their links. External Editor, Controllers and Plug ins are also either released or being released these days, so check them out at kurzweil.com .

PC4 SE is also starting to show up. It’s like an improved SP6 with a sequencer and nicer UI. We put a good amount of work in adding on-screen help quick tips that will make the life of a newbie to Kurzweil much easier, and having a larger screen than the SP6 will make it easier to edit your multi zones, for example. While there is not much buzz about it, because it comes right after the K2700 and that one is getting all the attention, this PC4 SE could be a great keyboard for those of you who mostly play presets (it has a ton!) but need good MIDI control and like to record your MIDI tracks on the keyboard, among other improvements. Of course you can always pay a little more and go to the PC4 with all the features but, if you don’t need those extra features, this one will do it for you at a lower price point.

We have Beta groups open for K2700, PC4, Forte and SP6. Soon we’ll open the PC4 SE. If you own any of those keyboards you can send me a message to sign up.

k2700_beta (at) ycrdi (dot) com

pc4_beta (at) ycrdi (dot) com

forte_beta (at) ycrdi (dot) com

sp6_beta (at) ycrdi (dot) com.

One reminder. KSetlist is not an official communication forum for Kurzweil. You can write in the forum asking about this or that but that does not mean that anybody at Kurzweil (other than me) will look at it. And I am not a support person so I’ll answer occasionally. If you really need to ask something to Kurzweil there is a support page at kurzweil.com and I will recommend you to go thru it. Writing in the forum is meant just as a communication tool for users of Ksetlist.

As always, the main goal of Ksetlist is to share free sounds of famous songs for other fellow Kurzweil players to use in their shows. Making the life of each other easier.

Please share!

And remember to make good music.

Regards,

Fran

2021

And 2021 is about to leave us. What a weird year. Lots of ups and downs with the pandemia; vaccines, mutations, back to normality, back to restrictions, losing friends, musicians that resumed touring to then have them canceled again, it’s been definitely a weird year. I really hope that 2022 will eventually settle down in a path towards normality even if the beginning will be crazy with Omicron.

Ksetlist have also had a weird year. On one hand the platform seems to be stable. We have lots of spambots attacking it but it’s holding up pretty well. Remember to write at least one post in the forum if you don’t want your account deleted (all accounts with zero posts get deleted as they are considered spam). While we have gotten some new sounds (thanks!) the rate is pretty slow. I would encourage you to keep posting those sounds that will make the lives of other fellow keyboardists much easier. That’s the spirit of this site, to share sounds. Please share!

The PC4 is doing really well and has brought us a new generation of Kurzweil users. And they will be soon joined by the K2700 and PC4 SE users. In other words, there’s going to be plenty of new people to have more action on the site. I hope it is actually noticeable.

Personally, this year marked my 15th year working at Young Chang Research and Development Institute (R&D – Kurzweil). Lots of things have happened since I joined the company to work on the PC3. Countless keyboards, constant evolution, this company never rests. In these last two years there have been lots of challenges not just for us, but for all the industry. Lockdowns, chip shortages, shipping delays due to transportation bottlenecks, tradeshows cancelled, but overall good keyboard sales across the industry. People still want to play keyboards and digital pianos.

We will see what 2022 has prepared for us. We are ready to adapt no matter what.

Last, remember to click that Donate button to help maintaining Ksetlist alive (to pay for hosting and security certificate). If you pay $5/year it’ll be more than enough to keep this site alive and kicking.

Merry Christmas, happy holidays, and I wish you a very healthy and musical 2022.

Regards,

Fran

SPAM

Hi,

SPAMbots registering fake users in the forum is at historic peaks.

I just read that the Mastering VAST guys are suffering the same issue. It’s really annoying and a waste of time.

I’ll be taking measures to try to deal with it in “bulk”.

One of the ways is that accounts with 0 posts will be DELETED. That I can do in bulk fairly quickly and is a fairly easy way to weed out fake accounts.

So, if you have a real account, please say Hi in the People’s forum. In any case, without doing that you can’t download anything so better just introduce yourself and be a regular member.

There are and there will be more restrictions for registering new accounts, like specific domains or some strings within the name.

If anybody gets contacted by any SPAMMER from withing Ksetlist please let me know and I’ll delete that account.

Thanks,

Regards,

Fran

What’s up

Dear Ksetlisters,

It’s been a while without any update so here you have one.

First thank you to all of you who have donated the $5 to keep the site alive and my wife less mad. It makes a difference. If you haven’t done it, please click on that Donate button on the main site and do your part. Thanks!

I’ve been extremely busy with the K2700 release plus other things that you’ll learn about at the appropriated time. So, sorry if I was not too active in the forum. Still, I was still cleaning up the usual SPAM and other minor things in the site.

The K2700 will soon be shipping worldwide (hey, this year shipping containers is an absolute chaos, so give it some time, please have patience) and I can’t wait for you to get your hands on one of them. It’s an amazing keyboard. For somebody like me, who like to layer sound after sound after sound, there is such a great variety of programs and multis that you can create amazing sonic landscapes. Lots and lots of pads and synths in this one. Of course all the other stuff too đŸ˜‰

I’ve put the PC3LE programs file up again as some of you, specially SP4 users, kept asking for it. Check it out here: https://ksetlist.com/community/ksetlist-com-compilations-volumes/

Last, I read some comments in Facebook that this site was dead and far from it. Ksetlist is all about sounds, and you have hundreds of awesome sounds here to download into your Kurzweil keyboards. Yes, I would love you to keep contributing by uploading more sounds. That has slowed down quite a bit in the past years. In part because there are already a lot of sounds for lots of classic famous songs, but also in part because people are not uploading new stuff. So, I’ll repeat the main idea of Ksetlist, if all of us contribute with few sounds we’ll have lots and lots and lots of sounds. It has never the idea of having few two people making the sounds for the thousands of other users. The idea is that the thousands of Ksetlist users contribute with a few sounds each. That is the spirit of this community. Because we are a community. So, please, did you program an awesome sound to play a famous song? Please share it with us!

It’s exciting times in the Kurzweil world, let’s show it with awesome sounds!

And big thanks to all of you,

Last, please be safe, the virus is still there,

Regards,

Fran

An osprey eating a fish

Sometimes I also forget that Ksetlist exists in part because of the people who do not want to be on Facebook or other social media platforms. So, let me share this with you here.

As some might know, I have been working on a new keyboard called the Kurzweil K2700. This is going to be a very special keyboard that will be released fairly soon. Sometimes engineers like me need to test the keyboards just by playing them (isn’t that amazing?), as a real user case scenario, just to check if there are unexpected problems. So I decided to make a soundtrack for a video I took of an osprey eating a fish. The video is just an osprey eating a fish, nothing else. All the sounds are factory programs of the K2700. I went thru some of the synths and pads sounds (soundware guys have done an AMAZING job on that front) and used the built-in ribbon controller a lot to create this “bird” atmosphere. Some of my colleagues instantly mentioned the intro to Gary Wright’s Dreamweaver that, I’m ashamed to admit publicly here and now, I had never listened to previously. In any case, here you have an osprey eating a fish with K2700 fresh sounds out of the box.

And no, this is not like a normal keyboard demo because that was not the goal.

Hope you like it.

Regards,

Fran

Spring fundraiser

Hi,

We are in the middle of the Spring here in the Northern hemisphere and you know what it means. Spring fundraising!

I only ask you to donate $5 a year to help me with the cost of the server, security certificate and domain. You can use the Donate button at ksetlist.com to send your donation in a totally secure way and, not only me, but all the rest of the community will thank you forever.

As most of you know, while I work at Kurzweil, this site is not a company site. It was born with the idea of being a community maintained by the community site. All the amazing sounds you share and you can download is what makes Ksetlist special. I just give you a platform to do it in an orderly way. But recently the costs of maintaining a website have gone up, specially because of the security certificates. As I pay this out of my pocket, if the cost is too high this can get my wife mad. And you don’t want my wife to get mad! Believe me, you don’t!!!

So, please do the sensible here, don’t let my wife get mad and chip in with your five bucks and let’s keep Ksetlist up and running for a long time.

Last, don’t forget the main goal of Ksetlist and upload your best sounds for your favorite cover songs. We have hundreds of sounds already but, with your help, we can be in the thousands!

Thanks,

Fran

PC4-7 and SP6-7

Hello,

The PC4-7 and SP6-7 are starting to appear in multiple stores as a pre-order option at least in the USA. Sweetwater, Kraft, Musician’s Friends, B&H and similar. For what I can see, it seems that the prices would be around $1,199 for the SP6-7 and $1,799 for the PC4-7, which is amazing considering that they have the same features as their bigger 88-keys brothers. I don’t know when the units will be actually shipping but, if you are looking for one of those, at least you can make your plans considering the prices and pre-order them if they fit your needs.

I don’t know about other countries as each distributor works independently but probably their timing wouldn’t be too off the USA’s one.

Also, check out all the details of these 2 new models at:

PC4-7
SP6-7

Regards,

Fran

Switch Pedals

Hi,

The latest Kurzweil pro products like the PC4 or the SP6 have two 1/4 inch stereo jacks for switch pedals. This means that you can have up to 4 switch pedals. This is very helpful for people that want to do something more than triggering sustain and sostenuto with the pedals, like changing your multi or triggering chords. The possibilities are endless.

But Kurzweil does not sell a double pedal at this moment, so, how do I get these 4 pedals?

Well, you can buy one that is compatible like the Studiologic VPF2/10B.

https://www.studiologic-music.com/products/vfp2/

But be careful when buying this one because there are 4 models and you want the one with the stereo connector, not the one with the 2 separate connectors. While the 15B might work I personally have not tried it so I will recommend the 10B that I have and works well.

The other option you have is to use regular single pedals thru an adapter. While the adapter will have one 1/4 inch stereo male connector on one end and two 1/4 inch mono female connectors on the other end be careful because they sell a lot of adapters that look exactly the same but the 2 female connectors are stereo. Make sure you buy the one with the female mono.

With either solution you should be all set to use the 4 pedals.

Have fun!

Regards,

Fran