Kurzweil K150 Fourier Synthesizer
Here is some information about the K150FS, a rather rare
additive rackmount synth.
I'm interested in anything about this beast (it could really
use more support, IMO), so if you have additional information,
documentation, sowftware and especially more of those precious instrument
models, please
contact me.
Hardware and user interface
The K150 is a rather huge machine: 4 height units, very deep
and a considerable weight.
On the front panel you will find a huge red alphanumeric
LED display, 24 buttons including a numeric pad, a volume
knob and the headphone output.
The back panel has the MIDI trio, a jack to connect two foot
switches, a cassette interface and the mono out jack (yes,
there is only 1 mono out).
The K150 is 16 voice polyhonic, but instead of voice stealing,
it implements partial stealing which is of course more economic.
The downside is that with "only" 240 oscs, heavy layering etc
may result in what is essentially 3 voice poly.
Nevertheless the partial stealing may have a particularly nice effect
on shifting chord pads and the like.
The sound hardware uses a 16 bit DA converter at about 20 kHz.
The rolloff of the anti aliasing filter is rather smooth but the
instrument models may compensate for this.
Main CPU is a 10MHz 68000.
The user interface is - well - usable.
The one line display and the OS have their limits but after a few days
you get everywhere with a few button pushes.
What leaves most other synths way behind is that all parameters
are in real units: semitones, cents, dB and Hertz.
This adds up to the general impression that someone was really trying
to do it right.
MIDI
The MIDI capabilities are quite amazing:
omni, poly or multi mode, 16 part multi timbrality, 35 (!) control
destinations may be freely defined to any MIDI CC, pitchbend, aftertouch
or poly pressure.
The patch memory can hold up to 256 sounds but only one multi mode
assignment.
When patches are switched, pressed notes keep sounding, very nice!
The synthesis engine
The K150 uses 240 hardware oscillators that can each be switched to
produce either a sine wave or one of two noise samples.
Each oscillator may use its own 256 stage (loopable!) amplitude
envelope.
The definition of an additive spectrum including its dynamics
can only be done on the FS version of the K150 and it
can only be done via the external SOUNDLAB software
that runs on the Apple ][ (be it real or emulated on a Mac).
Such an additive sound model is called an "instrument" on the K150
and additionally to the preset sound models you may define up
to 64 in the user RAM.
Each instrument may contain up to 64 partials which
in contrast to e.g. the Kawai K5 can have any frequency,
i.e. the spectrum does not have to be harmonic.
On the K150 itself, the user can access only the higher level
parameters - which are however quite powerful.
You can have up to 3 keyboard regions with up to 7 layers
for each region for all sorts of splits/stacks/velo switches and so on.
For every layer you can select one of the low-level instrument models
and then globally assign controllers, set up the very flexible pitch LFO,
add chorus/delay effects (not via DSP but by stacking up voices)
and apply timbre shifts.
I find the parameters offered quite nice and very "musical":
e.g. the response to attack velocity and the timbre is nicely
adjustable - even via MIDI CCs if you like.
Together with a fader box and maybe an arsenal of pedals, switches,
joysticks and wheels you can do what the terminology implies:
adjust an instrument to the musical context or playing style.
It is really a fun to play expressively.
What is essentially not possible is to completely change the character
of a sound in realtime by other means than crossfading between layers.
Sound
The overall sound character is a little dull and thin like on
most early digital synths, but compared to e.g. the Kawai K5
it seems to be much less limited and more versatile.
The bass is definitely "there", the noise level is basically OK.
Concerning the presets that my Version 1.6 ROM came with:
The piano, clarinet, acoustic bass and acoustic guitar patches
are very realistic given that this is an additive synth.
Things like the electric pianos are nice but in this arena there's
no comparison to FM of course.
The only reference recording I know for the K150FS is Wendy Carlos
"Switched on Bach 2000". In the liner notes she says that she used
three of them - together with other early digitial pearls like Synergies
and a SY-77.
Support
If you are interested in the spectra of acoustic instruments have a look at
the sharc timbre database.
There is a file with discussions about
additive synths.
And another file with
Kurzweil K150
discussions.
The K5 geek page, KULT5000, SY-Links, SY-List, Music Machines, electronica, Analogue Heaven