From: scott@bbx.basis.com (Scott Amspoker)
Newsgroups: rec.music.synth
Subject: More K2000(R) comments
Date: 8 Oct 92 20:53:07 GMT
Organization: BASIS International, Albuquerque NM

Since I've been digging into my K2000R I've got a few more tidbits that
may be of interest to some readers:

LOADING USER SAMPLES:

I purchased 4MB of SIMMS chips at a local computer store for $140.  (I
wasn't aware the prices had come down that much :-)   They installed
in a jiffy and without any problem.  My first task was to load some
samples from my Yamaha TX16W via MIDI.  You don't have to go to
any particular page on the K2000R to receive the samples.  The K2000R 
quietly receives these dumps without acknowledging them except for 
the occasional flicker of the MIDI *MODE* light (not the MIDI 
receive light).  You can go into a keymap editor and look for your
sample.  You will probably want to name the sample after it's
in the K2000R.

The sample made it OK except there was no loop point.  I went into
wave edit mode on the TX16W and saw where the loop point was set.
I quickly made the setting on the K2000R and the loop was perfect.
(Fortunately, there is a consistancy of sample addressing schemes.)
Not content with this arrangement, I loaded a TX16W sample into
my SY99 via floppy.  I let the SY99 transfer the sample over to the
K2000R.  This time the sample made it with the loop intact.  I guess
the TX16W has a slightly older implementation of MIDI sample dump.

Naturally, the samples sounded fine when played and it was fun to
run them through some of the bizarre DSPs.


SOME BUGS?

I've stumbled on a couple of things that don't seem right to me.
First, the octave +/- soft buttons don't do anything.  The manual
says that they will operate only if you have the LocalKbdCh
parameter set correctly and that the local "Control" parameter is set
to certain values.  Even taking into account all related parameters,
the octave buttons still do nothing.  (The master transpose works
just fine.)

Second, the sustain pedal seems to hold the release segment of the
AMPENV.  Try bringing up a pad with a long decay.  Play and release
a note.  While the note envelope is still releasing, press the sustain 
pedal.  You will faintly hear the note sustaining during its release
segments until the pedal is released.  This is not a show stopper but 
it is peculiar and will occasionally make me conscious of how I use 
the sustain pedal.  Is this a new "feature" of Ver 1.29 or do you 
K2000 folks have the same problem?


SOME MINOR GRIPES

I find it strange that they did not provide the ability to send
voice overflows to a second K2000R.  The 1000PX allowed this.

The PWM (pulse width modulation) feature is *not* what we traditionally 
think of as PWM.  Since Kurzweil was obviously going after the
traditional analog synth paradigm, I'm surprised they left off this
valuable parameter.  (Similar sounds can be created on the K2000
using other means.)

Well, that's all for now.

-- 
Scott Amspoker                       |    
Basis International, Albuquerque, NM |  Too bad ignorance isn't really
                                     |  bliss.  Then it could be outlawed.
scott@bbx.basis.com                  |