The Open Letter to Kurzweil

[chilly7]

This letter is intended to be reading by the top people of Kurzweil Music Systems

Dear Kurzweil

In a past I have been a loyal costumer to your company and I was always exited about really deep editing and controllable of advance futures of your keyboards which was offered by the VAST technology and KDFX which were not available anywhere else and I was always waiting that Kurzweil will bring those goodies in to the new modern level technologies, but it seems that Kurzweil just slowly going down and while it has VAST and KDFX the other core parts which makes a modern synth almost haven’t involved and stay at 90s keyboard standards

1 day ago Korg announced new synth, Korg Kronos.
This synth is obvious step up in synth technology and obviously Korg wanted to bring this synth close to VST competitors because now days Workstations could not compete with VST with sound quality and the futures and awry day more and more professional musicians go to VST, because now days Workstation are more like for cheap gigs or garage bands keyboards. Korg Kronos is not perfect at this point but it changes the game and obviously Korg wanted to bring Workstation again to the level they were designed for and close to VST competitotors.

Awry claver man can see that Korg Kronos completely changed the game and such manufactures like Roland, Yamaha, Nord and Kurzweil were not ready to face the true that people are tied of the same old technologies that companies are selling them again and again.

But I is really does not meter what those companies might think right now, with Kronos on the market only fools will buy something else

So I don’t have to be a superman just to figure out that those companies such as Roland, Yamaha, Nord and Kurzweil will have the terrible blow and all their current products will be almost junk, so the sales in few month will drop up to 95 %

Speaking about Yamaha and Roland, As I know Yamaha was not even ready for this, but Roland is a half way on development of such workstation. They are huge corporations and they will lost a lot of money, just a lot!!! But because they are huge corporations they will withstand this. And they will have enough money to created something competing to Korg Kronos o even a bit better in a year or a bit more.

Speaking about Kurzweil and Nord.
Nowadays Kurzweil trade off were VA-1 and toneweel organ technology and very flexible VAST and KDFX while they offered and old sample playback technology wich was drawback.
Nord offered dedicated keyboards such as Nord Piano, Nord Electro, Nord C2 which offered more flexible and better sounding keyboards that it was achieved in digital workstations by other companies
But seen Korg Cronos has many synth engines which are not just mediocre engines but which were very solid in the past products all those beauties now possible to have in a one keyboard while maintaining the same sound quality and even more possibilities and futures.

So it is pretty obviously that Kurzweil and Nord if they are not going to do anything ground braking right now they will be bankrupts in a year or two. Because they are not big corporations and they don’t have enough money to make such mistakes.


Now day computer parts are more and more cheaper and it is possible to heave such dsp power under hood for as little money, however about 5 years ago it was only a dream. So it is really possible to tomake so many things in a single keyboard




So let me just speak about Kurzweil k series successor.
So it is pretty obviously to me that Kurzweil was not going to put any physical modeling to k successor and just keep the old sample play back technologies from pc3 on the top of the more advanced Vast and KDFX. But now with Korg Kronos the sales of such keyboard will be very low if it will come out

So my advice is Kurzweil should not wait and hope that in few weeks alliance will drop a virus on the planet Earth and most people intelligent will drop to the level of like the most people on sonikmatter.com forums are and Kurzweil should not hope that black hole will open and it will suck Korg corporation so Kurzweil will be able to sell old technologies to musicians for the reason that there is nothing better on the market to buy right now

Kurzweil should make a very bold and big steps. It is pretty obviously that your planes to release K successor in the next upcoming namm show was ruined, because it won’t completion with Korg Kronos almost in any way even thought that it will have such beauties such as VAST and KDFX. And it does not meter how u will call it, Swiss army knife or Kurzweil mother ship it won’t competit with Korg and it will be the big fale.

So my advice is what should Kurzweil consider to do with a new Workstation
Take time, don’t psychopathically hurry and make all things done, but work efficiencies

1)Improve sample playback engine to the level of Korg HD-1 which offers 24bits samples resolution and all factory sound should have 24 bit/48 khz sample resolution and all sound with some exceptions like bells sounds should have all notes have it’s own dedicated and should be at list sampled at one velocity level. Two velocity levels are better and 3 levels are the best

2)User sampler will support user samples in 24 bit resolution

3)User sampler memory should be 22GB non violated

4) Let third party developer like DSP Sound Production, Digital Factory and many other be involved and to create the very high quality samples liberties for the keyboard the same way like Yamaha on Motifator.com in the Shop did with Motif XF and XS

5)88 note double action keyboard and 61 note organ tape keyboard with polyphonic afterdeck

6)a 12 size colour touch screen with customizable themes

7)Glass buttons with lads (Blue on) (White off)

8)Ad and DA converters if to speak about Top grade are very expansive and just to reduce expanse, don’t put 12 analog inputs on it, Because it is very useless for professionals, because all professionals use digital connection and analog outputs and inputs a just for convenience.
Just put:
Analog: L and R output and L and R inputs balanced and headphone output.
Digital connection: S/pdif in and out, Adat in and out and Firefire400 or 800 (expansion)

9) It needs a physical modeling!!! And Kurzweil should carefully select what that want to physically model and it will be also a good move to make a physical modeling something which competitors don’t have, so it will be possible that a keyboard player will decide to have both keyboards instead of deciding to have Kurzweil or other brand.

10) There should be done the minimum attention to guitars, basses and drums because all professional keyboard players or producers use are real guitar players, reel bassists and drummers.

12) There should be done a minimum attention to the Sequencer because it is just on Workstation for convenience and it cannot competite because all serious job are done with external DAW on pc like Live, Sonar, Cubase and so on

So my advice is what should model Kurzweil

Pipe organ
Acoustic Piano (Steinway D)
All Orchestral instruments (from flutes and percussion to String sections)
Virtual Analog
Tonewheel organs

10) There should be additional accessories available to purchase for the keyboard like Pipe organ manuals, pedals and etc

11)The colour of it is Gloss black


Additional Tips:

1)Kurzweil should wright an official letter and try to cooperate or even merge with Nord, because Nord are in the same situation as Kurzweil. Nord has some goodies that Kurzweil does not have and Kurzweil has something that Nord does not have so if Kurzweil and Nord will merge it will be a huge benefits for both

2) Find some very financially unlucky but very pashionable about music and hardworking VST maker and let them create a physical modeling for you (http://www.hauptwerk.com/ might be interesting to do it for u J)


The Best Wishes!!!


This massage was sent from the fake mail address. If u want to give me any kind of response or at list let me know that my letter was redden and was not trashed please email me at ****************.ru or at *********.ru

this letter also was mailed to Kurzweil Music Support section and to technology@kurzweiltech.com, edspeng@ycrdi.com

[ozy]

Kurzweil should merge with Nord

are you out of your effing mind?!?

Just politely asking.

I refuse having instruments from one single producer, all following the same strategy, all souding the same...

I want to be able to abandon suppliers when they flunk a product.

I want different ideas to choose from, I want a producer to be stimulated by competition.

I don't want to live in a musical Microsoft world!

[chilly7]

Kurzweil should merge with Nord

are you out of your effing mind?!?

Just politely asking.

I refuse having instruments from one single producer, all following the same strategy, all souding the same...

I want to be able to abandon suppliers when they flunk a product.

I want different ideas to choose from, I want a producer to be stimulated by competition.

I don't want to live in a musical Microsoft world!

Kurzweil is small company, Nord is a small company.
Thay won't be able to competit wich such monsters as Korg, Roland and Yamaha. Ya Thay all have huge resourses, thay can make almost anythig if thay will want to

What i wanted Kurzweil and Nord they got the the best from the bose world and putet in to one prodact.

[SpIdErWeB]

Kurzweil merging with Nord?

No way, it won't happen... the same way they won't release the VAST as an EXi for the Kronos. That would be pitty, because they would make a lot of money by releasing a piece of software for a couple hundreds of bucks.

They could even use any sample from the 12 Gb on the SSD or even have their own EXs and release the KDFX as an EXf.

Release the EXi VAST for $299, each EXs ROM bank for $199 and the EXf for $249, they could easily make thousands with Korg customers

But, we all know it will probably never happen, saddly

Send this post to them, and we'll see what they think about

[ozy]

Ya Thay all have huge resourses, thay can make almost anythig if thay will want to What i wanted Kurzweil and Nord they got the the best from the bose world and putet in to one prodact.

I am sorry man.

The fact that we don't speak the same language (heck, apparently we don't even share the same alphabet!) confused me at first.

Now, I gotcha.

But you forgot mentioning that Moog and DSI should merge as well.



You probably miss one point: creative people don't like to work in anthills.

Hope Kurz, Clavia, Moog and DSI keep their independence.

I'd hate to have a prophet with yamaha sliders.

[synthdogg]

You do realize this is a Korg forum, right?

Why the heck would you send a letter to Kurzweil here?



btw, having talked with some Kurz techs...I much prefer the direction they're going with their new designs then anything you described.

[McHale]

while you're at it. Please write a letter to Roland and ask them to shut their doors. Their crap just takes up valuable space in music stores.

[yakoronor]

while you're at it. Please write a letter to Roland and ask them to shut their doors. Their crap just takes up valuable space in music stores.

+1

[vEddY]

+1

I couldn't for the life of me figure out what's so good about the Fantom G when they launched it, the same thing I went through with the Motif XS. Fantom G seemed to me like a half-cheap plastic keyboard that's gargantuous in size, with a cool "hook mouse and check the screen" vibe, but sound wasn't really all that impressive to my ear. And I did stand there and listen to all of the presentations they had, and checked it out myself. I just couldn't see it. Maybe I'm blind or something.

Motif XS struck me as unfinished, small upgrade to Motif and ES, with a lot of basic functions missing and laughable "COMBI" mode.

The thing I did want to have, however, was the V-Synth XT. Just that I didn't see a point in giving such amount of money for it however cool it sounded. It was just not worth it. I did some checking on Motif rack and Fantom XR, and although I feel they might be a nice addon for my studio, I'd rarely use them. So I restrained myself from buying any of those.

Maybe all of them need to get back to drawing board and invent something new and better. It's becoming really, really boring.

[Slovenec]

The above letter is also at Motifator. What's the point of writing a letter to Kurzweil in a Korg or Yamaha forum site????

As for me, I sold off most of my Korg gear and now have just my classic, vintage 1990 T3EX left. I'll never sell that great instrument unless someone offers me a huge amount of money for it!

Regarding Kurzweil, I'm really enjoying playing my PC361 and whilst I know the soon to be released Kronos will offer much more for the money, I'm not about to give up on the lovely Kurzweil! The sounds are amazing and I can tell you that Korg have taken years to catch up to Kurzweil when it comes to synthesis power.

I'm certain that the Kronos will be a huge success for Korg but for now, I'm sticking with Kurzweil unless Korg can bring out an instrument that makes me want to stop using my Imac and 3rd party plug ins to make music! LOL

[orpheus2006]

The letter is useless entirely.

Many musicians don't need a swiss-army kind of instrument and will not be willing to spend more money for something they just don't need. Although the Kronos has an attractive price tag (for what it does), it has to be seen how many musicians can afford it. The buying descision is influenced by so many factors: design, loyality, sound characteristics of an instrument, ease of use, costs to migrate, reliability of the instrument, usage (stage or studio), price, etc. Some won't change because the lack of pads, or missing synth action keybed on the 73 model.

Clearly the Kronos changes the game, but all synth manufacturers will adjust their plans if sales declines. No need to tell them.

[RadekK]

Major problem for companies like Kurzweil (and to a degree even with "big three") is limited sales volume. Sure they have a great potential but if not enough money is flowing then it's nil.

So an Kurzweil's employ get the message but what really can be done? Every move costs money and there is just enough to keep company afloat...

Hardware improvements take lots of $$$. Software as well. Musician... we are a niche market for electronic products after all. Thought I yet to have a Korg synth it's clear that Korg just amortized R&D costs with Oasys. That's to implement software based workstation platform able to run on a common hardware. With Kronos it's approaching "rewards back" time.
IMHO within 5 years we'll see much more SW based Oasys products from Korg.