One Hundred Chip Wonder
This amazing new mega-keyboard was created by a mate of Stevie Wonder’s. And Stevie Wonder can get uptight.
Words Matt Hussey
Kurzweil PC3X Keyboard, £1799.
I was once blessed with an inkling of musical talent. I had a piano teacher who smelt and didn’t like me, a shelf full of Beethoven, and a Casiotone MT70. But I got bored, as I did with most of my childhood hobbies. Practising was rubbish, and I found playing the pre-programmed beats at 120bpm much more stimulating. So I gave up. The MT70 was given away and my finger dexterity turned to computer games for satisfaction. But I’ve always wondered what life would be like had I continued piano lessons. Pretty damn good had I something like the brilliant Kurzweil PC3X to start over with.
The recent reinstatement of futurist, author, mega-boffin and pal of Stevie Wonder’s Ray Kurzweil as head of strategy at the company he founded in 1984, and the oodles of cash kindly provided by Hyundai, has made the PC3X arguably the company’s best ever product. Not to mention a contender for 2008’s top bit of kit.
With a sleek new look on the outside, and a bevy of Kurzweil’s latest cutting-edge chip technology on the inside, the 88-note PC3X delivers 128 voices of top sound quality along with a host of powerful, easy-to-use features. The new Dynamic V.A.S.T. architecture is a huge step forward in synthesis, which is great news for lovers of all things electronica as the improved processing power and integrated VA-1 Virtual Analog Synthesizer manages to replicate organic sound almost perfectly.
In addition, they’ve thrown in hundreds of new noises; basses, drums, guitars, and synths suited for every style and taste; and a collection of flawless vintage keyboard emulations, not to mention the KB3 Mode tone-wheel organ simulator that screams, sputters, and sizzles, just like the ones of old. Add in USB, flash XD card ports, a newly designed keyboard action and intuitive user interface, and you’ve got a hybrid of vintage sounds with contemporary features. Which beats the pants out of lugging an old Moog and a Yamaha around and lashing them together with a bit of cable.
The thing that sets Kurzweil apart from the competition is their insistence on making their own chips for their products. This means they’re designed for optimum audio performance instead of some other techy appliance. The result? All the processing power in a Kurzweil chip is devoted exclusively to sound. With up to 16 insert effects plus two available auxiliary sends, the PC3X offers more than twice the processing power of Kurzweil’s KDFX engine producing, without doubt, some of the most authentic sounds ever to come out the back of a keyboard. Burning distortions, transparent compressors, perfect reverbs, warm phaser and chorus effects - everything from flawless vintage emulations to concert halls, which decay into complete silence. And all parameters are assignable to any of the PC3X’s real time controllers - sliders, pedals, wheels, you name it. Plus the three-layer limit found on the old K26 is no more, meaning you can stack as many layers as you like. Well, not too many, otherwise it’ll sound like musical vomit.
The summation of all this technology and gadgetry makes even the most ill educated of players sound like an audio God, even though the mind-blowing level of flexibility can be intimidating at first. I managed to delete two hours of work with the touch of a button. But that’s largely down to my man habit of not reading instructions. Either way, I put together two minutes of electro with a slash of Beethoven crowbarred into the middle in less than an hour. It didn’t sound bad at all. Without the 800 programmes and best samples in the industry, however, it would’ve sounded like my best attempt at ‘Greensleeves’ when I was 12. Not pretty.
