Sound files tend to be fairly large. Fortunately, SCSI is a fast interface, making it possible to do saves and loads that are literally 10 time faster than floppy disk. This kind of processing speed frees the end user up from the frustration and tedium of slow data transfers and generally makes housekeeping chores much easier.

SCSI hard drives are cost effective. One gig is the equivalent of 10 Zip 100 disks which run about $14 each. People complain that Zip is not cost effective and becomes less so over time with new additions to your sound library. And then there is the "click of death" problem - the drive physically destroys the disk with metal particles that have loosened up from routine wear and tear. Jaz drives are also known to have high failure rates, and the manufacturer does not honor the warranty if the device is used with a musical instrument. The Orb is more cost effective than Zip and Jaz, but reports on its reliability have been mixed.

Smaller hard drives are now almost impossible to find except used. We feel fortunate to have found a wholesaler who had a small inventory of brand NEW 1, 2, and 4 gig drives. They come with a one year manufacturer's warranty.

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Passive terminators are "intelligent" devices that constantly adjust the amount of termination they provide based on the voltage of the signals. They are useful in computer applications that have very fast SCSI transfer rates. Although the thruput on samplers has improved greatly in the past few years, they are not comparable to computers in terms of the kinds of SCSI transfer rates they are capable of. A passive terminator is adequate for most state of the art samplers.

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The message you're referring to has nothing to do with sample RAM. It relates to Program Memory. If you were exceeding the sample RAM capacity, you would get a message telling you only have enough room for so many samples and you would get a prompt as to whether to proceed with the load anyway.

Sample memory (RAM) - which is where sample data reside - is different from program memory (ROM). The 64MB you mentioned relates to sample memory, not program memory.

To make room for more programs or sequences, you'll need to delete songs (sequences) and/or programs. Make a point of backing them up before deleting unless you already have them stored.

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Samples are transient objects. They'll be gone after you power down. You have to reload samples each time you want to use them.

In contrast, program memory is for programs, keymaps, sequences, setups, quick access banks, "master" table, etc. It's battery-backed, meaning that information will be there every time you turn the machine on. A PRAM expansion gives you more program memory. SIMMs are giving you sample memory.

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1. If you are keeping multiple copies, do not put the other copies on the same drive until you are sure it is the cartridge and not the drive. 
2. It is not a good idea to test the hypothesis that the cartridge/disk went bad by putting it in another drive because a bad cartridge/disk can damage a good drive. Assume the drive has gone bad and test it with another cartridge/disk- preferably a blank one or one with non-critical data.  
3. If the drive has gone bad, best to play it safe and assume the cartridge/disk is now bad, too. Do not use that cartridge/disk with another drive because it could create problems for that drive. 
4. If the data is very important, you might send the cartridge/disk to a professional data recovery service. 

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Although the new K2000 operating system upgrade will handle a 2 gig drive, the official word from Kurzweil is that the K2000's power supply is inadequate to run a 2 gigabyte drive. Consider an external hard drive. 

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Question: "Why do I need a SCSI CD ROM drive for my K2500?" 

IDE drives are incompatible. A SCSI drive give you access to large sound libraries dedicated to a group of instruments. Typically, CD ROM libraries feature realistic, high resolution, stereo samples. Sounds load much faster via SCSI than floppy drive. No additional hardware or software are needed to run an external SCSI CD ROM drive with the Kurzweil. The SCSI interface is part of the operating system.  "External SCSI" refers to the fact that the drive is mounted in an external SCSI case that includes a full fledged, built in rectifier power supply, a fan, SCSI chips to regulate the data flow, AC line cord, SCSI ID selector switch, connectors, and with some models a terminator switch (instead of a terminator block).

The Reference pages at the Kurzweil site provide some general guidelines with respect to known CD ROM manufacturers. It does not, however, include information about specific mechanisms. At any given time, a manufacturer may have several models on the market. The computer industry is in continuous flux, and minor variations in drive mechanisms can pose a compatibility problem. At any given time, a manufacturer will have several models on the market. Some of them will work, others will cause the Kurzweil to crash.

Pyramid has been carrying Kurzweil compatible CD ROM drives for some time. A supplier recently advised us that read-only CD ROM drives will be phased out in favor of read-write drives, which are not supported by the Kurzweil. This trend apparently has to do with the fact that it now costs about as much for an assembly line to produce the read-write variety as it does to make read only drives. In other words, from a cost effectiveness point of view, as CD ROM burners become more popular, there is less incentive for manufacturers to continue to make Read Only CD ROM drives. If you don't already have one, maybe now is the time, especially if you want a new one. We have them in stock and we can give you complete assurance that they will work with your Kurzweil. 

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If you don't mind taking a chance on a used one, you can find them on Ebay, although bidding will tend to raise the drives' auction price well beyond street value of a used unit. Also, be aware a lot of the cheaper ones are NEC type mechanisms which as a rule are not Kurzweil compatible.

Long term reliability is an issue. Some of the quads (4X drives) being sold on Ebay are going to be 5 or 6 years old. Some of them are sold "as is." There is no telling if they are going to be any good. They could be DOA (dead on arrival). If you buy a used drive and it is in working order, it's hard to say how long it will last.

It's also important to note that used drives that are being auctioned off are sometimes only raw mechanisms - that is, no power supply, no AC power cable, no SCSI ID selector switch, no 50 pin interface connectors for hooking it up to the Kurzweil, no terminator, and probably no documentation about the layout of jumpers, connector pins, etc.

It is possible to track down a SCSI enclosure, but there will be some variation in the leads for SCSI ID switches. It can be tricky finding one that matches the drive's pin configurations. If it's a mismatch, the only way you'll be able to change the SCSI ID on the unit is by opening it up and changing jumpers around. With a new external SCSI device, you don't need to worry about these issues.

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CR ROM compatibility has nothing to do with speed. It has to do with the SCSI chips used for the interface. Minor variations in those chips can result in compatibility problems. Case in point: At one time Panasonic had two 12X models. One of them worked great, the other caused the Kurzweil to crash. The model numbers were identical except the earlier version had the letter A at the end, and the other one had a B. The earlier Kurzweil compatible model A was discontinued and no one in the industry had an explanation why the newer model wouldn't work.

The K2000 somewhat fussy and several OS upgrades were designed specifically to improve the K2000's SCSI compatibility. A drive may not work depending on which version of operating system you have. The only way to find out if it is compatible is to actually test the drive with your model. Your other option is to purchase a drive from us. We have tested the drives we carry and know for a fact they are compatible with different model samplers and various versions of the operating system. Question: "What do I need a hard drive for?"

A hard drive is very useful for compiling frequently used material so that you can load your sounds without having to sort through all your floppies, CD ROMs, and Zip disks. Just to let you know I have a few super quiet 9 gig external SCSI hard drives that I'm making available to Sonik members only. They are new and come with a factory warranty. I can format the drive for you, but it's easy to do from your K2500 or K2600 if you'd rather do it yourself. Here are some other reasons you might want a hard drive:

(1) Once you've moved your files to the hard drive, you'll save wear and tear on your valuable sample CD originals. Frequent handling of CD ROMs can scratch and damage them to the point where they become unusable.

(2) If you save your onboard sequences along with the sounds you used for the various parts you have on different midi channels, it will be much easier to load all the different objects the next time. If you are a prolific composer and don't use an outboard sequencer, you can easily generate 1 or 2 gigs of material this way. Not having the kind of storage capabilities that a hard drive gives you can be a deterrent to the creative work. No one wants to spend time piecing things back together from floppies, just as it is too frustrating just and time consuming to load sounds from various different sample libraries.

(3)Hard drives are more cost effective and more stable than removable media like Zip or Jazz. I get emails on a regular basis from people whose Zips have gone out who can't get to their files anymore.

(4) If you've been using a Zips or Jazz drive, a hard drive provides a good backup. Even if you already have a hard drive, having a second drive as a backup is not a bad idea.

(5) A major advantage of hard drives is speed. A hard drive makes sound file loads and saves go very fast. Plus the convenience and time savings of having all your files organized in one place. When you purchase one of our hard drives, you don't need to worry about compatibility. All of the drives we carry have been tested with the various models of K2x00 and different versions of the operating system.

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Hard drives use two voltages to operate. The mechanics usually need 12 volts and the logic takes 5 volts. The K2x00's power supply provides both of these voltages, but it is important to make sure the hard drive does not draw too much current (amperage) on either circuit. For example, if you have a K2000, you will want to run as internal a drive that uses less than .625 Amps (625mA) for the 5V circuit. On the 12V side, the drive should draw less than 1.0 Amp (1000mA) at start up and less than .75 Amps (750mA) for normal operation. These issues are unrelated to line current (110V versus 220V).

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This drive exceeds would draw too much current and should not be used as an internal drive with a K2000. Sooner or later it will burn out the K2000's power supply.

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First of all, do you know if the drive is Kurzweil compatible? Many SCSI hard drives do not work with the K2x00 series. Unfortunately, no one is keeping a data base on compatible and incompatible drives. There are literally hundreds of SCSI hard drives made by companies like Conner, HP, IBM, Maxtor, Micropolis, NEC, Quantum Seagate, Sony, Western Digital, and others. Computer retailers carry SCSI drive made by companies we've never heard of. Any one manufacturer has made numerous models to choose from and they can vary quite a bit in terms of specifications. Some will work with an Kurzweil or Akai sampler. Many don't work. We can only vouch for drives that we've tested and know for a fact are compatible.

Apart from SCSI compatibility, something else that comes up quite often is an auto spin up problem. By default, a hard drive should spin when current is supplied to it. If it's not spinning, that probably means it was originally an internal drive that was turned on by a computer operating system switching sequence (Of course the drive could be dead, too). In order to enable auto spin up, you will need to find out which jumper settings regulate auto spinup for that particular model drive.
Another issue to look out for is SCSI ID. If there is a conflict with the Kurzweil's own ID, you will not be able to do any data transfers even if the drive is in working order.

Disclaimer: you can fry a hard drive in an instant with the wrong combination of jumper settings. We will not be held responsible for any damage you may cause to the drive or to the sampler/keyboard by changing jumpers around or by any other experimentation you might get carry out in an attempt install a drive inside your sampler or to mount it in an external enclosure.

It's a good idea to have your data in more than place. You might consider adding another hard drive for backup. All of our drives come with a one year factory warranty, appropriate SCSI cable, and a terminator. You definitely need a terminator for K2500/K2600 and newer Akai samplers. Also, some hard drives won't access without a terminator. We have seen Seagate SCSI drives that won't let you get to the data on the drive unless the drive is terminated.

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Condenser mics have internal amplification, but the amount of gain is usually not nearly enough for your K2000 to record with. (K2500/K2600 are a different story.) The sampling option of a K2000 is looking for a standard line level input. An amplified microphone with the kind of gain you need can be very pricey ($5000.00).

A microphone-to-line-level preamp might be a way to go. They can and do vary quite a bit in terms of quality, amount of gain, features/adjustability, and cost. Choice of preamp may be influenced by the type of microphone. Its impedance might be a factor, for example. You may want to have the microphone picked out before shopping for a preamp.

If the long term goal is to build a studio, maybe consider getting a mixer with a built-in preamp, like a Mackie. That kind of mixer would give you the gain you need for microphones, but would also give you more control of your sound and the ability to manage different parts in your recordings. A mixer might be a better investment in the long run.

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You do not need the sampling option to load or to edit samples. If they are .krz, .k25 or .k26 files, they should load immediately and play properly unless they are corrupted, which is not at all uncommon for sounds from the Net.
If you're downloading .wav files or Akai sounds, you'll have to do some tinkering to make them work properly on your sampler. How quickly and easily it goes for you depends on your skill level. Also, you will need to find a way to get the sounds from your computer into the Kurzweil. If the samples are larger than 1.4 megs, they won't fit on a floppy disk.

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An answer from Larry Hopkins: "The sampling option serves three purposes. First, the sampling option provides both analog and digital sampling inputs for making your own custom sampled recordings. The K2500 sampling option provides two balanced mono analog (Lo-Z) XLR inputs and a single stereo 1/4" unbalanced analog hi-Z tip ring sleeve input connector.

Secondly, the sampling option provides an XLR digital input connector that accepts AES-EBU and SPDIF digital signal from the digital sampling source. There is also an optical digital input that accepts a standard SPDIF digital signal. (This is not an ADAT lightpipe optical connection, rather a stereo SPDIF connection.)

The sampling option can record 16-bit stereo samples at 4 user-selectable Sampling Rates - 48 kHz, 44.1 kHz, 32 kHz and 29.4 kHz. The sampling option also provides two digital output connectors for sending the audio output of the K2600 to an external device that can receive a digital signal.

The third function the sampling option provides is the input and output connectors for Live Mode processing. Live mode allows you to use your Kurzweil just like an outboard effects processor. You can run a "Live" external signal into either the analog or digital inputs, process it through VAST (and also an installed KDFX option), then run that processed signal to either the analog or digital outs.

You do not need the sampling option if all you want to do is load in samples from floppy disk, Hard disk or CD-ROM drive. All you actually need to load samples is Sample RAM installed. If you want to record your own custom samples, you must purchase both the Sampling Option and some Sample RAM. If you want Digital I/O or live mode, you'll need the Sampling Option.

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It can be done without a special computer program, depending on which version of operating system you have. With Rev 3.01 onward of K2000, you can either do (1) a selective save or (2) a selective load. After loading a file into one of the Kurzweil's user banks, do a selective save like so:

1) Go into Disk Mode 
2) Press 'Save' 
3) Press 'Object' 
4) Press 'Select' for each of the programs you want to back off. Note that each push of  the 'Select' button puts a * by the patch you are selecting. 
5) After having made your selections, push OK to proceed with the selective save. Be sure to save under a new name so you don't overwrite the originals.

The other option is a selective load, as follows: 
1) Go into Disk Mode 
2) Press 'Load' (allow time as the Kurz scrolls through all the patch names 
3) On the far left press the 'Select' button for each of the patches you want to load. Again, each push of the 'Select' button will put a * by the patch you are selecting. 
4) After having made all your selections, push OK to go forward with the selective load. You can keep loading programs selectively from different files until you have compiled the ones you want. At some point, you can combine the programs you've extracted from different files by loading them one after the other with an "Append." When you save those, you'll have all of the programs you're most likely to use in one final "Tool Kit" file.

Note: Be sure to save all of you new files under a new name so you don't overwrite your originals !Selective loads and saves require Rev 3.01 or higher of the K2000 operating system. If you have an earlier version (2.01 or older), consider getting the latest upgrade, Rev 3.87. It will be the last one for K2000. It makes the machine run more efficiently and has powerful data management and sequencer features. Visit the Reference pages at Kurzweil's web site for a complete breakdown of all the added features. Rev 3.87 runs $99 and ideally should be installed by an authorized technician.

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Answer: Monosynth leads typically have portamento, which is a problem for a sample playback machine. Portamento is a bending/ pitch shifting effect that a sample playback machine does by grabbing adjacent samples, which is what causes those clicking sounds. One solution to stretch an existing kemaped sound across the entire keyboard, so that the portamento effect will no longer transition between two or more adjacent samples. 

However, you will then be faced with aliasing because of some keyboard ranges simply won't have adequate sample material. Another way to go is not to use any samples at all and use only the Kurzweil's internal tone generators -- on algorithm 9 use the sine, square and saw waves. These provide a continuous stream of sound without any splits between adjacent notes, hence you will get smooth bending portamento, with no annoying clicking sounds. 

Also, sounds created with these internal tones are much more efficient in terms of polyphony - only one note!  The Kurzweil K2x00 is a virtual analog synthesizer with sample playback capabilities. It's two different units in the same box. The Kurzweil's analog tone generators can generate mono synth leads that range from classic Oberheim type fluty fifths to Mini Moog screamers. This is actually unexplored territory (except for what our team has done) because this is really using the Kurzweil as a synthesizer rather than as a sample playback machine. Most soundware available for the Kurzweil is sample based. The Pyramid Collection features a wide variety of portamento monosynth leads that were done using the Kurzweil's onboard analog tone generators.

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Any "vibrato version" of a sampled flute will give you wobble or chipmunking. With a modulated sound like this, these are unavoidable artifacts of transposition. Moreover, samples with vibrato in them in them are a problem because the rate of vibrato will vary depending on where you are playing on the keyboard. Pitch and the rate of vibrato are going to be positively correlated. The rate of the vibrato will increase as the sample is played back at a higher pitch. Further up from the root you will get very rapid modulation - chipmunking. Going in the opposite direction (lower notes) the rate of the vibrato will slow down to an unnatural rate - wobble.

One way to minimize the transposition effect is by sampling more often, but then you will end up with a large array of multisamples to cover the keyboard that will take longer to load and will use more sample memory. Also, with frequent multisampling, the transposition effect is still there, but it's less noticeable because of the narrow range for each multisample Apart from the space efficiency issue, there is the issue of realistic, real time control. Modulation that is part of the sample cannot be controlled. There is no getting rid of it and not really any way of changing it. (Of course you could add more vibrato to a flute sample that already has vibrato on it, but then you'd have so much flutter that it would cease to be a realistic flute sound.) 

The key is to start out with an unmodulated sound and add modulation "after the fact" at the program level. This is true not only for flute sounds.  Take for example Sweetwater's Pocket B3, which was programmed by Daniel Fisher.  He started out with plain, stationary B3 sounds and made the Leslie emulation controllable by adding the modulation - e.g., pitch shift and/or tremelo - "after the fact" at the program level. This approach allowed for relatively few samples and also fairly small samples since. If the Leslie had been part of the samples, each organ sound might have ended up being 10 megs or larger because it would have been necessary to sample much more often to avoid transposition artifacts.

The solution is to have a sample a flute without vibrato, so that the modulation can be added with the Kurzweil's own LFO.   That way the vibrato effect will be consistently the same speed across the keyboard. The LFOs that produce the vibrato can be assigned to a controller (modwheel, foot pedal, aftertouch) to make the vibrato completely controllable in real time - instigated when you need it. The amount (rate/depth) of vibrato can likewise can be made completely controllable so that you'll have the right amount for a particular passage of music. You'll find some of these controller routings for vibrato on a lot of the brass and winds sounds on The Pyramid Collection - the vibrato is instigated at will with after touch and/or mod wheel. 

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Make sure you're getting a decent level on your source.  Synths can vary quite a bit as far as output levels.  Microphones can vary quite a bit, too.  If you're sampling another synth, turning the volume up all the way may not provide enough gain for the Kurzweil.  You might be able to take care of that later with normalization, but you'll make life easier by starting out with a decent signal. Avoid clipping though.  Here are some useful tutorials on sampling:

http://www.users.interport.net/~thefront/tips.htm  http://www.kurzweilmusicsystems.com/html/sampling_tutorial.htm 

If possible, when sampling go through the Kurzweil's digital in rather than analog in. A good D/A converter may be worth considering if you plan to do a lot of sampling because it will really make a difference in sound quality.

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Do a "preview" from the master mode page:  
1. Press the master button 
2. Press the "sample" soft button 
3. Press the "preview" button, which will automatically keymap the .wav file across the entire keyboard in the userbank of your choice.

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Kurzweil doesn't like any IDE drive. You need a SCSI drive.

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This question comes up quite often, and there is no simple answer because it depends on the type of sounds. As a general rule, simple, straight-ahead sounds (e.g, drums or basses) don't require as much work as more complex sounds. Also, you usually won't have to do much programming with sounds that are basically stand-alone sonic events (e.g., drum loops) that don't need to be sensitive to real time changes in your playing. Lack of appropriate programs can be a problem for some sounds. 

When you load a nonnative sample/keymap, the Kurzweil automatically assigns program #199 to the samples. That generic program may or may not work depending on the type of sound. For keyboard and orchestral sounds, you might need to adjust release times. Some people have more of a problem with this than others. Here's an email from someone who knows the Kurweil pretty well: "I was looking for affordable orchestral samples (I have the Orchestral ROM board, but wanted something *bigger*, so I bought a collection called 'Orchestra Kurzweil' -- it had Peter Siedlaczek's name on it.   I could have bought Siedlaczek's Akai-format strings, but I thought the Kurzweil version would be less hassle.   It turned out the 'Kurzweil format' was just the CD itself with the sounds having been dropped into the generic #199 program.  This resulted in horrid 'natural' envelope releases - the sound would cut out as soon as you let go of the keys. I had to tweak everything to make use of the CD-ROM." 

"Kurzweil native" is much more than the format of the disk. Really outstanding Kurzweil sounds are the ones that implement the Kurz's synth features, its filters and sound-shaping capabilities. These are in fact the features that set the Kurzweil apart from other sampling keyboards. Things you might take for granted will be missing nonnative sound libraries. For example, Akai and Roland samples will have no effects (reverb, chorus, delay) attached to them. You'll have to take care of that. As for any additional programming steps, that really depends. Some sounds will need more work than others. For example, controllable filter sweeps are obviously going to be more involved than assigning an effects patch. 

Even if you have some basic templates for sweeps, you will probably have to adjust the pitch of the filters so that they'll make sense given the tone qualities of the samples. Just some things to keep in mind if you're thinking about purchasing a nonnative CD ROM. 

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Yes, you just need an appropriate adapter. Most WIDE devices use the 68 pin "P" connector so you need a 68 pin to 50 pin adapter. You do need to make sure that both the upper byte and lower byte of the bus will be properly terminated though. Some adapters provide Hi-9  terminators, others do not. If the wiring adapter is placed right at the SCSI host adapter, you can usually configure the host adapter's onboard terminators to only terminate the high byte. You need to be clear on what type of connectors are present where you want to do the conversion. You also need to plan your bus so that there won't be any narrow cable between any of the WIDE devices. Certain host adapters with auto-termination make the assumption that when the low byte is terminated the high byte is also. When using WIDE/narrow adapters this assumption is not valid. Another purpose served by the hi-9 terminator is supplying pull-up current to the upper data lines which would otherwise be left floating.

Special note for LVD drives: It is recommended that if you connect a WIDE LVD drive to a narrow bus that you use a 68 to 50 pin adapter which has high byte termination. It may seem that the termination wouldn't be needed in this case because the bus is narrow. However, the drive needs to have those signals "pulled up" (logically negated) to avoid the floating signals from confusing it.

If for some reason you attach a WIDE device to a WIDE host adapter using a narrow cable, you must be sure to disable WIDE negotiation in the host adapter BIOS or the device will hang when it is accessed.

One further caveat is that if narrow devices are attached to a WIDE adapter, the adapter's ID must be between 0 and 7 because narrow devices would not be able to see it if the ID was any higher than 7.

It seems that the manufacturers of many of these adapters (even ones with a good reputation) have designed their adapters visually rather than by signal description/function. I say this because I have taken a couple apart and I can see where they went wrong. If you look at the layout of a circuit board which  makes the connections between a HD 68 pin and a HD 50 pin you see a nice symmetrical fan-like pattern, and for the most part following this pattern gives you the correct wiring. HOWEVER; there are 3 signals that must NOT follow the obvious pattern or TERMPWR can end up shorted to GROUND. This is NOT a good thing.

The pins in question are: 17,18 and 51 on the HD 68 connector. These are TERMPWR. If you follow the obvious pattern:
- HD68 pin 17 connects to HD50 pin 12 (which is RESERVED in SCSI-2)
- HD68 pin 18 connects to HD50 pin 13 (which should be OPEN)
- HD68 pin 51 connects to HD50 pin 37 (which is RESERVED in SCSI-2)

To make things worse HD50 pins 12 and 37 were originally defined as GROUND in SCSI-1.  Also, the Pioneer DVD-U02 DVD drive neglected to leave pin 25 (which turns into HD50 pin 13) open. Which also causes the shorted condition.

Unfortunately, most of these adapters are molded in plastic so that you can't easily open it up and cut those connections. In order to fix them you need to break off the pins in question on the HD68 connector.

Source:  http://www.scsifaq.org/scsifaq.htm

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