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[yeloop]

Hi Guys,

So I realise that the title of this sounds a bit crazy!

I currently have a Kurzweil PC3x as my main stage piano, and have been using a Triton Extreme 76 as my second tier, for organs and other extra sounds...

I have now taken delivery of a Kronos 88, and wasn't sure whether it was going to go on the top or the bottom of my rig.

I've decided that the Kronos is better for piano work (heavier action!) and that the Kurzweil makes a really great second layer with its lighter keys and very raw organs / synth leads / etc.

The only problem is that, despite being very impressed with the way it is sampled, I don't love the sound of the Kronos pianos! I have spent the last two weeks comparing them and the Kurzweil pianos, while less crisp and perfect, just have an amazing warmth to them - almost an appealing low-fi quality! Pianos such as the "Rubeinstein SW Comp" and the "Grand Evans" are just magical to play.

However, I really like all the other sounds of the Kronos, and its action and size make it a better master keyboard for the bottom tier of my rig.

So to my question... where could I get some of the Kurzweil pianos, sampled across 88 notes with the same number of layers (3 I believe) as the Kurzweil itself, to load into the Kronos?

If anyone can point me towards a good resource for this, I'd really appreciate it!

Cheers and thanks,
Mike

[SanderXpander]

Not the answer you're looking for probably, but why don't you just midi the Kurz?

The other "obvious" answer (since you have the actual Kurzweil) would be "sample it yourself". Hard work for something like a piano though....

[sani]

I don't see the point in having the kurzweil piano sampled on the Kronos, while at the same time you use the Kurzweil as part of your setup.
Sampling it by yourself would be one option. As a matter of fact, sampling a piano from a keyboard is not harder and not more difficult than sampling any other instrument out of a keyboard.

[SanderXpander]

No, but creating the correct loop points and capturing the velocity layers and making them work smoothly on the new board is somewhat more difficult than, say, sampling an electronic kickdrum.

[yeloop]

[SanderXpander]

But again, why don't you just put in a midi cable? Kronos midi out, Kurz midi in, a tiny bit of programming and you're done...

[sani]

[aron]

Within every piano program is a subset of different grand pianos in the popup menu on the left (I think). There are plenty of darker pianos that work just great. I posted something a while ago. These darker pianos work very well.
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[kbrkr]

I was going to echo what Aron said; there are other Piano's to choose from on the Folder Vintage keys included on the hard disk that are warmer. Why don't you just do what I did and tweak the stock Piano's to your liking and warm them up a bit. Should be easy since the Kronos has the on-board tools to do it and you can A-B the sound with our PC3?

[burningbusch]

Yes, for me this magic piano is to start with the Dark German Grand program.

Change the piano type to "German D Dark 2"
Change the VELOCITY INTENSITY to +64
Change VELOCITY BIAS to -10

Make sure VELOCITY CURVE is set to 9 for either the semi-weighted 61 or the weighted actions.

I've added a little richer reverb setting for ballads and such. It's a BEAUTIFUL piano.

Kronos Dark Piano

Busch.
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[danmusician]

Actually, sampling a piano would be much more difficult than most other instruments because you have the decay to deal with. Finding a good loop point is problematic because of the natural decay. The easiest thing to do would be go to the raw samples in the Kurzweil and sample them. If you can process them on a computer, you might actually be able to see the loops in the waveform, but long loops might be tough to find.

It's a painstaking progress because of the number of samples across the range of the instrument and then the velocity layers. Then program decays and such, it's a big task. I admire folks who can do it well. As Bill Cosby used to say about his wife, "I've seen the boss's job and I don't want it!"

I'm curious, is there a reason that you can't simply play the Kurz via MIDI from the Kronos?
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Kronos 2 88, Kronos Classic 73, PX-5S, Kronos 2 61, Roli Seaboard Rise 49

[SanderXpander]

I'm assuming the decay is caused by an ADSR so you could just set it to not decay for the purpose of the sampling.

But yes, please just use midi to avoid the whole hassle.

[Zeroesque]

Two points:

1) If you like it, just sample the Kurz piano. This is certainly simpler than an actual acoustic sampling session. Really, the work has been done for you, but you have to take the time to figure it out. Turn off all the synthesis and effects (including envelopes), figure out the original keymapped notes (within a semi-tone) and start sampling. This will take time, but you will eventually find decent loop points and such. You will get a lot of practice, have fun and have your raw multisample that you like. There is also auto-sampling software out there to help with this, or you can even have the same software just sample the actual patches that you like (if you don't care to have the raw multisample or don't care about memory size).

2) You might "warm up" to the Kronos' pianos in time and eventually not like the Kurz piano nearly as much. This has happened to me several times over the years when presented with newer and arguably better technology. The newer pianos are initially a shock and not as good because you've spent so much time getting used to your old pianos: playing, tweaking, listening, recording, etc. At one time I thought the M1 piano was awesome. Then the Trinity blew that away. But then I got a PC88 and used that for years. After playing around with a borrowed Generalmusic Pro2 for a while, though, I realized I could be more expressive with it, and it sounded more like a real piano performance when played or recorded. Years later, software replaced that (I finally settled on the original TruePianos vanilla sound rather than some of the larger libraries or Pianoteq), but now I think the Kronos is the best thing for me...heck, at least I can carry it around me!

Somewhere in there, I had the PC3x and an M3 at the same time. Both of these keyboards disappointed me in different ways and I never really gave them much of a chance or got used to the pianos. I did, however think that the PC3x piano was more usable than the M3 Xpanded piano, and I created a soundfont of it for use in the M3 (which I though I was going to keep). It wasn't too bad, and sounded quite like the source, but I didn't take much time to get it perfect. I think I even did just one velocity layer to check it out. I don't know if I still have this because I knew neither synth was right for me. I will look for it, but it's probably incomplete and if you want something done right, do it yourself.

Good luck, have fun and, of course, YMMV.
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Kronos 61, Kronos2-88, Hammond B3, Baldwin SD-10

[Jon Lord]

Maybe this? http://www.korgforums.com/forum/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=65572
It does not mention anywhere that it's a kurzweil sample but the name does seem familiar
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