Hello everyone 🙂

I'm Graham and I am a returning member of this forum. Thank you Fran for finally getting me back in after all my failed attempts having forgotten my original password and encountering the 'captcha, not a Robot' routine.

Anyway, it's good to be back, though it is sad tale that brings me here once more. I purchased my beloved Kurzweil PC3k6 via Amazon UK from Czechoslovakia, as I was having difficulty sourcing one the time, and though I am just a self taught guitarist firstly, I am also a self taught keys player as well ... all just for fun and the love of music really. I have had several keyboards over the years from the 90's on, starting out with a Technics home keyboard, followed by a Roland VA3, then more seriously a Korg Karma 61 in year 2003, which I still have, then an Alesis Fusion 6HD in 2005, Korg Kronos X 61 in 2012, Roland Jupiter 50 (76 keys) in 2013 and the PC3k6 in 2020 ... oh, and a Roland Juno X synth in 2023. So, I've tried a few boards along the way and though I've loved them all for different reasons and sold some along the way, the Kurzweil PC3k6 has been my absolute favourite, to the extent that these days I have been finding myself sitting down and playing keys, especially the pianos on the PC3k6, in preference to my guitars, and there are a few of them on the wall too!

So, imagine my consternation when two weeks ago I went to fire up the PC3k6 and, apart from a possibly imagined momentary flicker of light, my beloved board was dead ... absolutely dead Jim! I downloaded the technical manual, discovered there was a lithium CR2032 battery that could be replaced, opened up the inspection panel and duly replaced the battery ... tried again ... nothing! Scanned the manual, discovered there were two fuses by the on switch and carefully opened up that chamber and inspected them and they both looked absolutely clean and appeared to be undamaged. I then did research on the net, You Tube etc and found, to my horror, that the PC3 series is discontinued and that Kurzweil tech support in UK seems to be non existent. Also I could not find any Kurzweil UK dealers on my internet search. Next, I went to the nearest remaining music shop, a haven these days, and had a chat with the manager who has a rather derisory view of any electronic keyboard and stocks several real pianos instead, not surprising as he is a piano player himself and is also possessed of a keen sense of humour and regards synths and their like as pianos that play themselves, if you push the right buttons, not unlike a record player he maintains 🙂 However, he redeemed himself by giving me a scrawled note on which was the address of a guy who apparently repaired all makes of synths/keyboards in his spare time.

Well, he lives some fair distance from me and these days I no longer drive, so I figured it would probably cost a fair bit to get the board to and from him and pay for the repairs if it could be repaired. At this point I looked on the Kurzweil site on the internet and got very interested in the PC4, more so when I saw and heard demos on You Tube. Then again I was dismayed to find that this board too is discontinued and once again my choice of potential suppliers was just two, via online dealers, one in UK and one in Europe. I decided that I so liked the wonderful simple layout of controls the PC4 offers, along with the lush sounds, that I would purchase one on order from the UK online supplier and am currently waiting patiently for delivery.

In my research I came across more than one person suggesting that the only course of action because of the lack of tech support/repair options was to just take the PC3k6 down to the nearest dump ... something I could never have the heart to do. I sold off part of my CD collection, including box sets last week to help finance the purchase of the PC4 and the manager there has a member of staff who is 'clever with all things electrical' and I am awaiting a phone call from him sometime to come out and have a look at the board and give it a checkover and see what the likely issue with it is and if it can be repaired ... I do hope so.

Anyway, that is my post to introduce myself ... apologies for the length of it and I promise to keep all future posts brief if I can help it 🙂

All the best,

Graham