The most professional keyboard players I've talked with on the subject have always admired the personal style of the synthesized sounds that KURZWEIL has long achieved so successfully in each of its products. And they differ a great deal from the competition, perhaps because their electronic circuits incorporate chips designed exclusively for them, called ASICs, which they keep refining over time and which undoubtedly give them personality and spectacular quality, along with very low latency that is almost imperceptible.
It's clear that this company works “in its own way,” not trying to “compete with anybody else,” but setting a style in both the processing and sampling of its sounds (with a marked personality) and in how it organizes them, lays out its controls and builds painstaking reliability into each of its designs.
The keyboard I'm presenting here, and which I'm lucky enough to try under my own hands, has, among many other things, 88 keys like those of conventional pianos. And not only in size but also in the feel when pressing them with our fingers, I'd say this is a “semi-weighted” keyboard, not as soft as many of the synthesizers in our stores that the competition also offers. A professional pianist who has studied on a “regular” piano will surely prefer this style and will even feel somewhat more comfortable with it than playing the same thing on a “classical piano.”
Its polyphony is up to 128 sounds working simultaneously, which is welcome when doing musical work with it and using, for example, “string” groups (violins, violas, cellos, basses, etc.). Of that type of group alone it offers more than 250 combinations or different forms right out of the box. These sections, along with the sounds of its various pianos, are among its strong suits. But it also contains any sound you ask of it from an orchestra, both conventional and symphonic. And of course it includes others that might seem less conventional, for example synthesizers or the so-called “pads,” both monaural ones and those with broader, more complex spectra in their wave generation. There are also others such as “choir voices,” which some people are CRAZY about... With me, for example, it's the bank called “NYC in LA,” where those “human voices” seem to be “almost articulating words” and respond to the “opening of their vowels” according to the pressure we exert with our fingers on those musical keys. If just one of our ten fingers presses harder than the rest, that one will seem to be “carrying the melody...”
Some of its piano sounds, suitably amplified externally, will undoubtedly give you the feeling of playing on some magnificent grand piano...
But there are other very successful styles of piano, for example in its good collection of Rhodes-style sounds, some as expressive as the one called “Hotrod Dyno Rhds.” And of course, I find every style of “conventional” piano with extraordinary expressive force that responds to the intensity or force of my key presses, just as happens, more or less, on pianos of a certain caliber that aren't electronic.
As a sound module it is so highly satisfying (and sometimes very, very surprising...), especially if before trying the PC3X you had already come across some products in this line made by other brands... And you'll reach the same conclusion as many others: This is another world...!
It's intoxicating just to explore, one by one, the different combinations or sound banks that the PC3X can bring to your playing styles; but just that task starts to seem crazy when we notice that it comes with, to begin with, more than a thousand different sound samples, expandable of course if you wish, each one very carefully crafted, both in its expression and in the different acoustic nuances that are produced depending on the sensitivity with which you press the keyboard at any moment on this model. Some banks have certain splits prepared that seem “logical” and can “support” you. When you play your tunes on the PC3X, you get the sense, for example when using the “strings,” that the different “instruments” are well spread out, from the double basses on the left, with special nuances, to the violins that will logically be on your right, passing through the intermediate sounds of other instruments, all in perfect stereo and even with subtle “clicks” of the bows on their strings. They will surely enrich many of your recordings, with the feeling of having had the collaboration of many other top-caliber professional musicians...
An Abundance of Sound Styles
Without turning the page on what we've already discussed, they have also devoted many resources to achieving other types of musical sounds in this product that are equally and pleasantly surprising. For example, it contains vintage emulations and magnificent guitar patches, some of which emulate very well the authentic sounds of various “Spanish classical wooden-body guitars,” as well as some very specific electric guitars.
Other very specific ones recall the highly successful ones on some 1970s “Mellotrons,” the famous Rhodes pianos in many styles, from sweet sounds to the most aggressive or energetic ones used for some Funk styles, other types of electric pianos such as those closer to harpsichords, and even those of the legendary “Farfisa.”
In the chapter on organ sounds, it of course includes, among others, church styles, through less solemn ones, to the famed B3, not only with its much-demanded Leslie effects but also allowing us to use the nine sliders located on the left side of the PC3X's top panel to bring out, to our taste, whichever harmonics or effects we most want to highlight at any moment. You can, for example, vary them successively in real time whenever you need to, without ceasing to play your musical pieces on this machine.
Of course, they have also included many percussion banks, with a very wide range of sounds and possibilities of every kind you can imagine. It also contains excellent vibraphone, xylophone and even harp sounds, some of which perform “string sweeps” that would otherwise be hard to do with this machine's keyboard, giving the sensation of actually using that harp, whose original instrument has a musical playing layout very different from that offered by a keyboard like the one the PC3X uses.
They have created a series of programs in this model's machinery, distributing the different sounds through the DSP by means of up to 32 different layers that can be combined in so many different ways that a single sound, with its characteristics altered to our liking in real time, can end up seeming like a different bank.
Checking the Changes Made
On a backlit display measuring 244 x 64 mm located in the center of the PC3X, we can visually check the changes made. In addition, each message comes with explanations in the form of help. These can also be accessed by gently pressing a button called “info.” This constant operating information makes it unnecessary to silk-screen its various functions around the control buttons, as is usually the case on other competing products.
Added Effects
It contains 16 added effects, plus two auxiliary ones. All of these effects can be used chained or in series and distributed as we see fit among the 16 multitimbral channels of this PC3X. Among them we have distortions, compressors, phaser, different reverbs and EQs, etc. The parameters can also be assigned, to be activated in real time with its sliders, pedals, the wheels on the left side of the cabinet (modulation and pitch), etc.
The PC3X contains a sequencer with an unlimited number of tracks and a resolution of 1,536 PPQ. Of course it also offers classic song-editing tools (cuts, duplication, copying of fragments, deletions and corrections of every kind) and it also stores a collection of preset musical phrases for different tempos.
Something that surprises you when you watch a keyboardist who has already experienced this model use it is seeing that, in real time and “on the fly,” they generate different sequences and reuse them in other parts of the same tune before it ends. There are several video demos of this kind online, for example showing the mastery of Jordan Rudess, who is becoming very popular right now because of it.
But it also has a pair of switches on one side that provide various types of arpeggios and musical phrasing that are spectacular with many of its sounds, for example when using certain types of strings or guitars, harps, pianos, etc. It supports the General MIDI (GM) standard and also has up to 1,024 user locations to store different blocks of our own, through its built-in programs. It also has two ROM sound expansion slots.
Its EQ and compressor control system does not consume extra resources.
A Few More Features
- It has four analog outputs on the rear panel, as well as one for headphones.
It has 24-bit digital outputs, stereo S/PDIF (from 44.1 to 192 kHz, including various intermediate settings). - Also DIN-type MIDI connectors, “in” and “out.” That MIDI connection can also be made through USB, which in turn can also be used to transfer different jobs or configurations, both into and out of the PC3X, as well as to obtain through this means its possible new and future updates to its operating system.
- There is a slot for inserting xD-type Flash Memory cards, which can hold an endless amount of data and sequences useful for working with this PC3X.
- The price at which the PC3-X (88 keys) came to market is 2,395 € including VAT. And with the same features but only 76 keys, 2,125 € including taxes.
- Its KSP8 processor, a great internal engine that lets it internally handle more than 800 programs, is already famous worldwide.
- Its central visual display has brightness and contrast adjustments.
- Its software works equally on PC and Mac.
- It comes from the factory with 96 MIDI setups, with another 128 programmable by the user, and each of these comprises 16 independent zones in which the effects and arpeggiators that suit each user's taste will, among other things, be set.
- Cables from pedals plug in at the rear; these can perform different functions as we see fit, and not just sustaining a sound.
- Dimensions: width 138 cm, depth 35.5 cm and height 11 cm. Its total weight is 25 kg.
It reached me along with some connection cables, a pedal and instructions with plenty of drawings and good descriptions of use, but only in English. I assume that, if you need it, the distributor can supply it in whichever language is most useful to you. - It runs directly on 120 or 240 volt mains, with no need for an external transformer (as is the case with other competing units, which is sometimes a nuisance, especially if it gets lost).
Personal Impressions
It is undoubtedly a very efficient workstation with a lot of personality and inimitable sound banks, whose synthesis differs from most of the competition in its power, nuance and expression, especially those aiming to emulate the analog sounds of “real, old-school” musical instruments... for which it undoubtedly achieves exciting differences compared with other brands that also try to do so. Especially in the string instruments and some of its “human voices,” KURZWEIL has a very personal identity and the PC3X delivers abundant successes.
I would perhaps give it a larger window or display, since it seems more useful on this machine, for example when editing songs in multitrack. We can always link it by USB to a computer and view the work done on the PC3X from its screen. For “live” use, and especially as a sound source and for playing, it really doesn't need a computer attached.
Other workstations have direct controls for triggering some of the rhythm or percussion sequences, and even forcing “breaks” in real time, something not provided for here and often unnecessary, especially when used together with a group of musicians on stage, where others already take care of that percussion sounding, with instruments or other electronic machines prepared for the job. I think anyone looking for a PC3X knows that such a thing is secondary here, though it doesn't lack the resources to do that and other, far more complex jobs.
