K2000 vs. ASR-10

Gary Morrisons recent message [slightly edited], with my response:

[Sorry about the lack of contractions and the use of [] instead of parentheses,
but these quirks are necessitated by my quirky primitive home modem.]

GM: Probably the main consideration when it comes to choosing between the K2000
and the ASR-10 especially for unusual tunings, based upon a collegues
experience, is power vs. ease of use. The K2000 is very powerful, but it is not
very easy to do exotic things on. The ASR-10...is FAR easier to use than the
K2000.
------------------------------
HF: First of all, I am not employed, and have not been employed, by any synth
manufacturer. And I do know that if Steve Curtin has any influence at Ensoniq,
that their instruments will continue to be alternate-tuning friendly. And I have
seldom decided in favor of ease of use if the thing I needed to do could only be
done by a counterintuitive product. [I did a difficult orchestral score using
Finale 1.0--penning the score and parts almost certainly would have taken less
time!]

I have never used an ASR-10, but I have used Ensoniq EPS samplers, various
Yamaha FM synths, the Roland D50, etc. [mostly late 80s technology]. The manuals
for those Yamaha & Roland machines were awful, and Ensoniqs manuals were
certainly far superior. However, especially in comparison to other synths of
1991 vintage, the K2000 has an unusually large LCD display and a generally
intuitive architecture, once you spend a little time with it. Its manual is
superb, including several tutorials, and the video that came with it was really
helpful for your first evenings with the instrument. However, the manual does
devote VERY LITTLE space to setting up alternate tunings [just a little on page
15-1]--something I hope Kurzweil has, or will, correct. [Any Kurzweil employees
listening out there?]

Since its <> sounds are good samples and multisamples, with some very
impressive synthesis algorithms for processing [especially those analogish
filters], it is not nearly as difficult to coax naturalistic sounds out of this
device as with the various pre-physical modelling synths. If you present your
music to the public, this is an important consideration.

Personally, I found the majority of the K2000 features placed where you would
expect. If you are familiar with a competing manufacturers products, you will
need to take a little time getting familiar with Kurzweils particular
terminology, but it is not any more obtuse, and probably less so, than that of
their competitors. [If the manufacturers can agree on General MIDI, why are they
unable to standardize their terminology???]

If you use my software, or if you acquire the 5-53 ET piano program disk that is
out there, you can certainly set up adjacent-pitch to adjacent-key tunings with
no problem.
-------------------------------
GM: When it comes to using traditional keyboards for nontraditional tunings,
that is a big question. As I think I have mentioned before, most people just
map a tuning to the keyboard linearly [adjacent keys on the keyboard going to
adjacent pitches in the tuning], mismatching octave boundaries of the keyboard
to the octave boundaries of the tuning. I am in awe of people who can function
that way, because I just cannot imagine being able to ignore the 7 ivory/5 ebony
structure that keyboard imposes.
-------------------------------
HF: I agree that adjacent-pitch to adjacent-key mappings are counterintuitive if
you plan to perform directly from your standard keyboard. That is why I came up
with the Clavette microtonal keyboard controller while at the Institute of
Sonology--my preferred way to play the K2000 with alternate tunings.

However, if you do not have such a luxury at your disposal, with a little
head-scratching you can work out pitch-MIDI key relations in your sequencer, or
pitch-12keyboard relations for live performance.

If you have already taken the time to research and understand tuning theory to
any degree, you certainly do have the intelligence to work out these pitch-MIDI
key relationships.
----------------------------

GM: I prefer, personally, to map the keyboard so that [somehow] octave
boundaries in the tuning match octave boundaries on the keyboard, preferably in
some meaningful way. [This sort of thing is very easy to do on the ASR-10, but
somewhat more difficult on the K2000, according to my informant.] For example,
in 10TET, I map the keyboard so that adjacent Es and Fs play the same pitch, and
similarly with adjacent Bs and Cs.
---------------------------
HF: While my software currently does not allow for this, I will consider it for
a future release. In the meantime, it certainly CAN still be done on the K2000
with a little adjustment to my programs output.

Just remember that all semitone [ST] and cent offsets in the K2000 Keymap editor
are expressed as offsets from the expected standard 12ET pitch. So to get the
Kurzweil C4 [MIDI key 60] key to play C4 1/4-tone sharp, and to get key C#4 to
play the same pitch, type in:

key range: C4 to C4
ST: 0
cents: 50

key range C#4 to C#4
ST: 0
cents: -50

Of course, to make sure the resulting tone sounds decent, you need to check that
your sample root is somewhere in the neighborhood of the resulting pitch. Or, if
you like purely synthetic timbres, use waveforms in place of sample roots, or
perhaps deliberately use the <> sample roots if you like.

if you are a little patient, and can program your VCR [or could easily learn to
do so], you should NOT be scared away by the K2000 in terms of ease of use. But,
I am assuming you have some basic familiarity with tuning theory as well as
rudiments of sound synthesis.

If programming synths really terrifies you, and if you just want to use canned
sounds and tunings, decide which <> suit you best, and buy the synth
with the ones you want. The K2000 provides a number of historic pythagorean,
well, and just tunings, plus Carlos alpha and beta. I know that the Yamaha TX802
includes 1/4-tones, 1/8-tones, and also some other historic tunings. I think
the Korg Wavestation, a synth with a cool vector synthesis system, also has some
built-in and 1 or 2 user-definable tunings. And if you mainly want some world
music tunings, theres a new Macintosh software product out there [described in a
recent Electronic Musician or Keyboard magazine] which generates some of these
quickly and easily for some sound cards and synths.

Hopefully this will help those of you in the market for a new or recent used sy
synth.

Musically yours,
Harold Fortuin

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