Kurzweil's K2000 is already a covetable, prestige instrument, and now a new hardware option adds sampling to its armoury of facilities. Paul D Lehrman checks it out.

Owning a Kurzweil K2000 is sort of like having a child. It arrives in your home so cute and cuddly, and you want to make sure it develops to its full potential. So you nourish it and nurture it, and it gets bigger and more powerful, and pretty soon it wants its own car and you never see it again.

Well, no, it's not quite that bad, but feeding and caring for a K2000 can be an expensive habit. There's sample RAM to buy, up to 64MB of it; internal and/or external hard disk drives; Program RAM; ROM sound blocks (due out soon!); and now the Sampling Option.

The Sampling Option turns the K2000 into a true sampler. Whereas previously you could load in samples recorded elsewhere from floppy disks or through the instrument's SCSI bus, you can now have your own audio inputs, and not rely on other hardware or other people's libraries for your sounds. It comes in two models, for the two models of K2000. The SMP-K is a circuit board and set of connectors that goes into a K2000 keyboard, while the SMP-R goes into the rackmount K2000R. The rack version is slightly more expensive, because it includes some extra hardware. Installation is not trivial, and is best left to your dealer. Both models come with new version 2.0 software on EPROM chips. The software is available by itself and, as you'll see, it's highly recommended even if you don't plan on recording your own samples.

A full array of inputs is provided: a stereo quarter-inch jack for analogue sampling (the SMP-R also adds a pair of XLR analogue input jacks); two digital inputs, XLR and optical. No RCA input for S/PDIF? Fear not: the XLR input does double duty for both AES/EBU professional and S/PDIF (AES/EBU consumer) formats, and is switchable in software. To sample from a consumer DAT deck or CD player that lacks an optical output, you'll need an RCA-to-XLR adaptor cable, but that's hardly a major problem.

The hardware upgrade also includes a digital output, which normally duplicates the signal at the stereo mix analogue outputs. When the unit is in sampling mode, however, the digital output carries the signal that's coming into the analogue inputs. This allows you to use the K2000 as an analogue-to-digital convertor for other digital gear. The output jack is XLR, but it can feed either AES/EBU or S/PDIF inputs (with an adaptor).

SAMPLING

Recording samples with the K2000 will be a familiar procedure to anyone experienced with other high-end samplers. The sampling page lets you select the input, the length you want to record, whether you want mono or stereo, and the trigger threshold if you use automatic recording. If your source is analogue, you can select input gain (from 0 to 21dB in 7dB steps), sampling rate (29.4, 32, 44.1, or 48 kHz) and whether the audio monitor is on or off. If you're sampling digitally, here's where you select the format; the sampling rate is automatically determined by the input signal.

Recording can be initiated either manually; automatically when the input signal exceeds the preset threshold; or using a 10-second countdown timer. Part of the LCD display is devoted to a pair of simple but usable level meters, complete with a peak-hold function, which turn off as you start sampling. After you finish recording an analogue sample, the display tells you the maximum level of the sample, and how many samples have clipped, if any.

A Preview function automatically creates and stores in RAM a keymap and program using the new sample, so that you can go to work editing the program immediately.

EDITING

Once the sample is recorded, you can edit it. There's lots of fun to be had here, and remember that with the new software you can use the edit functions on any sample, whether you've recorded it with the sampling hardware, imported it via MIDI Sample Dump or SMDI, or loaded it in from a disk. (Some of the functions you can even perform on the ROM samples. We'll deal with this a little later.)

Originally the K2000's sample editing functions all fitted on one page, but in the new version they've been expanded greatly, and have gone graphic. That same old LCD is now being used to show sample waveforms — the designers have done some clever things to allow it to cope with the task. Nevertheless, I wouldn't mind a video monitor output.

"The fancy part of the sample-editing software is a page called DSP, hiding nearly two dozen digital processing operations that can be inflicted on an innocent sample."

The sample editor has three main pages:

• THE MISC PAGE: This page has no graphics. It contains parameters like volume and pitch adjustment, loop on/off switch, loop mode switch (forward, reverse, or back-and-forth), and an 'Alt Sense' parameter which works in conjunction with controls at other levels to determine when the alternate starting (or ending) point for the sample will be used. An 'Ignore Release' switch gives you the option of telling the sample to play all the way through even if it receives a note-off — particularly useful for percussion sounds. There are also slopes for decay time and release time, which impose a simple envelope on the sample, non-destructively.

• THE TRIM AND LOOP PAGES: Here you can change the beginning and end points of the sample, as well as the loop starting point and the alternative starting point. You select the parameter (Start, Alternate, Loop, or End) with the cursor keys, and change its value with the alpha wheel, numeric keypad, or increment/decrement buttons. The alpha wheel responds to turning velocity: move it slowly to change a parameter one unit at a time, or give it a hard spin to go in large leaps. Likewise with the increment buttons: hit a button once to move one unit, or hold it down to accelerate the rate of change. You can link two or more parameters so that changing one changes the other(s) by the same amount. This allows you to preserve loop or sample lengths while you edit.

Waveforms are shown graphically on these pages, and when you change a parameter, a vertical line corresponding to that parameter moves across the screen. The operations for both TRIM and LOOP pages are the same, but their displays are different: on the TRIM page, the waveform covers the whole screen, while on the LOOP page the waveform appears on the left half, with a close-up of the loop point on the right. There are vertical (gain) and horizontal (time) zoom in and out controls, so you can see as much or as little of the sample as you want. If you've zoomed in tight on the starting point of a loop, and switch the active parameter to the end point, the display will change to show you the end point at the same magnification. There is also a 'units' switch, which toggles the parameter values between milliseconds and sample numbers.

If the loop switch is on, and you hold down a key or the sustain pedal, you can hear what you're doing while you adjust parameters on these pages. This makes editing and finding good loop points relatively easy.

PROCESSING

The fancy part of the sample-editing software is a page called DSP, hiding nearly two dozen digital processing operations that can be inflicted on an innocent sample (see sidebar). Many of them will be quite familiar, while some of them are unique. All of them can be used either on an entire sample or a selected segment. A number of them allow fades or crossfades, with adjustable times and selectable curves: linear; exponential; cosine; and a couple of modified equal-power curves.

The DSP functions all allow you to try before you buy: choose the function, set the parameters, push a 'Go' button, wait a few seconds, and you're presented with a screen that says 'Keep this change?' Before you answer, you can audition the sample by playing a key. If you then press 'No', the sample reverts to its previous state. Pressing 'Yes' changes the sample in RAM. The sample on disk is not disturbed until you save the bank to the disk using the same name — this provides an extra measure of protection should you screw things up completely.

When you leave the sample editor, the software asks if you want to save the new sample, either in the same location or a new one. If you choose a new location, it asks whether you want to duplicate the sample data, or save memory by storing just the edited parameters. The trimming functions are destructive: if you lop off the beginning or end of a sample and then save it in the same location, you can't get those sections back without re-loading the file from disk.

The other functions of the sample editor are Split, which takes a stereo sample and splits it up into two mono ones; Name; Save (in RAM); Delete (from RAM); initiate a MIDI sample dump; and abort the dump.

EDITING ROM SAMPLES

ROM samples, as we mentioned earlier, are treated a little differently. The editing operations you can perform on ROM samples haven't changed much from the original K2000 software, but the new user interface makes them a lot easier to do.

DSP functions are not available for these samples, and you cannot move a ROM sample into RAM. You can save an edited ROM sample to a RAM location, but the only data that get moved are the edit parameters: the sample itself stays put. You also can't initiate a dump of a ROM sample. This is how Kurzweil copy-protect their samples. (You could sample a ROM sample into RAM, but the sample's envelope information, which is stored separately, will not go with it, so this is of limited use.) When you trim a ROM sample, the operation is non-destructive, so that the original is always retrievable — which is why they call it ROM.

Since ROM samples are stored end-to-end in the K2000, you can give the start point of a sample a negative value, in which case the sound will start with a section of whatever sample precedes the current sample in memory. The visual editing screen shows this happening clearly. You can similarly give end point a high value, thereby 'splicing' the next sample in memory onto the end. In fact, if you set the start point low enough and the end point high enough, you can play all of the samples in ROM with a single keystroke. Cute, but you don't need to hear this more than once.

"The Kurzweil K2000, which had been a synthesizer with sample RAM, can now be turned into a world-class sampler."

IMPORTING FILES

One of the smartest design decisions Kurzweil's engineers made when they were writing the version 2.0 software was to incorporate the ability to load samples and other files created with a number of other popular samplers, either from floppy disks or SCSI drives. This means that K2000 users have access to the huge and ever-growing world of sample libraries developed for Akai's S900 and S1000 series (and probably the S3000 series, although I can't say for sure); Ensoniq's ASR10, EPS, and EPS 16+; and Roland's S770 and S750 (although it can't load Roland floppies).

I worked extensively with some Roland files, and found the loading process quite painless, and the fidelity of the transferred samples excellent. Some parameters didn't translate very well — but the architecture of the two instruments is so different that it was a pleasant surprise to see how much did come across correctly. There was some confusion over the key assignments of some samples in very complex programs, but this was easy enough to clean up. Not unexpectedly, realtime filter controls (what Roland calls TVF) didn't translate, and neither did velocity switches (SMT). Nor did release loops, mostly because the K2000 doesn't have them — the release loop point, however, was translated accurately into the alternate starting point.

You can load files from non-Kurzweil disks at most levels supported by the original samplers' operating systems: from Akai disks you can load files or volumes; from Ensoniq disks you can load programs, samples, sub-directories, or directories; and from Roland disks you can select samples, patches, performances, or volumes. Since the higher-level objects contain multiple lower-level objects, a single load operation can bring in one sample or 500.

In point of fact, this is a heck of a lot more flexible than the way the K2000 treats its own files: it can only load entire banks in an operation, not individual items, and trying to pull off a single sample from a Kurzweil disk and load it into a bank already in RAM can be extremely difficult. Hopefully, Kurzweil will do something about their primitive file management before long — it's the most frustrating aspect of an otherwise extremely well-designed instrument, and now that users can build up custom sample libraries, it promises to become even more of a thorn.

IS THAT ALL THERE IS?

No, because they've cleaned up a few things in the operating system for version 2.0 that have nothing to do with sampling. It's now simple to mute and solo layers in a multi-layer 'drum' program — previously, it was a very awkward job. The intonation table editor has been given a graphic interface, and is much easier to use. You can now set a sound to trigger when a note is released: good for guitar lift-offs, high-hat closings, or harpsichord quills falling back to the strings.

Two new operations are available when working with disks. The Copy function transfers a file directly from one disk to another. Previously, you had to load the file into RAM and then save it to the target disk. The Backup function will copy the contents of an entire disk in one operation.

In summary, the Kurzweil K2000, which had been a synthesizer with sample RAM, can now be turned into a world-class sampler. The version 2.0 software has almost all the features you could want in a sample editor, and is surprisingly easy to use, considering it relies on the built-in LCD. The price of the Sampling Option is quite reasonable for such a significant upgrade. If you're a K2000 owner and you don't want to spring for the sampling hardware, I don't think you have any excuse not to get the software. Now if I can just find some way of getting 64 Megs of RAM really cheap...

Further Information

K2000 Sampling Option currently £890 inc VAT. Installation by Washburn £25.50 inc VAT and return carriage.

Washburn UK, (Contact Details).