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Another great sound module from Kurzweil. This one has a great sample library of horns and has 20 note polyphony, but don't waste your time if you want pianos and synth sounds, buy the 1000PX instead. What the 1000HX offers is an excellent collection of brass sounds, almost everything you'll need.
Mine has the optional HXA soundblock. There are trumpets, muted trumpets, trombones, baritone saxes, tenor saxes, alto saxes, and soprano saxes. I'm sure there's more but I'm working from memory right now. There's also a great sfordzando brass sample in there for awesome horn stabs. The baritone horns come with only the 1000PX, the SXA soundblock for the 1000SX includes a great french horn, but alas no tubas anywhere. Small omission actually. There are different variations of all the samples, IE soft, medium, bright, mellow, etc so there is plenty of variety here.
Sweetwater may be able to supply you with the HXA soundblock, that's just a guess but they seem to be the center of support for pre-Young Chang Kurzweil products.
This is a very musically useful box. The sounds blend in nicely and when I orchestrate scores with it the 1000HX sounds incredibly realistic. I know because I spent years working with real orchestras. The MIDI implementation is one of the most extensive I have ever seen and I've never seen the OS crash, it is so solid. I never noticed a latency either, I can choke the MIDI cable with tons of CCs and note on/off over all sixteen channels and there's never a noticeable lag in the sounds. Wow.
Don't use the onboard effects, they'll reduce the polyphony and they're not DSP effects (read: no reverb). Use an outboard multiFX, especially a good plate reverb FX. There's also no on-board filtering, which might be useful for brass but I don't miss it. The quality of the samples make up for it tenfold.
Very easy to find today for under $200 and it's a great bargain. If you need a great horn section, snatch one up!
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