Kurzweil 1000GX User reviews -Page 1

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Average rating: 4.6 out of 5

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David Etheridge a professional user from U.K. writes:

Hi again folks, I've had my GXs retrofitted with the V.5 OS which brings the whole synth alive with extra MIDI controllers plus the expanded memory. Here's an interesting thing- Even though a v.5 OS GX has no extra sound ROMs, for some reason the onboard RAM memory is more than doubled. Currently I've loaded in bank after bank of sounds and STILL not got to the limits! V.5 offers up to 1000 sounds vis playlists. Even though the theoretical limit is 255, I'm sure I've exceeded this! Ah, I hear you say, where to get the sounds? Well, Kurzweil's own ftp site has a bunch of sounds, which really show what this beauty is capable of: stereo guitars, strums, twiddles, and otherwordly stuff you'll find just about nowhere else. Now I'm lucky enough to have four of these guys, which seems like overkill; you can connect them up in chain link mode, so I've quadrupled the polyphony! (If you're even more over the top, you can connect up to 12 at a time!). Check out the 1000/1200 users group on Yahoo for more links to sounds, and www.alzerom.com who do the upgrade chips and repairs, hints and tips for the range. You just can't lose! This is a best kept secret that just matures with age!

Rating: 4 out of 5 posted Tuesday-Jul-31-077 at 08:30

Steve a hobbyist user from USA writes:

Really nice module to have. Think of it as an electronic guitar - if you want effected sounds, add effects unit or stomp boxes as you would to a real guitar. Just a wide collection of clean guitar sounds.

Rating: 4 out of 5 posted Thursday-Mar-09-066 at 14:20

David Etheridge a professional user from U.K. writes:

The GX is the perfect unit for guitar sounds, with one omission: distorted lead sounds. Still, there ARE dist gtr sounds on the Pro 1 so check that out if you want those sounds. However, the GX does have terrific guitar and synth sounds. More sounds are available from the yahoo 1000 users group. The GX could be upgraded to a Pro 3. This comprises a GX with HX and HXA soundblocks, and v.5 software. So you have guitar sounds allied to brass and saxes. Overall for me the entire 1000 range are peerless for the time, and even now only exceeded by Kurzweil's newer products. Forget the Emu Proteus range; the Kurzweil's run rings around them!

Rating: 5 out of 5 posted Tuesday-Jan-20-044 at 10:19

MC a professional user from USA writes:

A great box... definitely approach it with a guitarist or bassist mindset. You'll get the most realistic sounds if you pay attention to the playing technique. I use a Roland GM70 MIDI guitar converter with mine and it's wonderful to play strummed chords with acoustic and twelve-string samples and have it all play back over MIDI.

There were fewer of the 1000GXs made than the 1000PX, 1000HS, or 1000SX, and there were no optional soundblocks for them. Consequently, I haven't heard the 1000GX samples in any of the succeeding Kurzweil models either. Other than a fully loaded K250, this is the only Kurzweil box you will find these sounds. This is a specialty box, don't buy it if you want a piano/string/synth module. The GX fills a special niche.

The electric guitars is primarly Strat territory, no Les Paul stuff here. A nice touch is muted and harmonic samples, you can make a wickedly awesome Clavinet-style patch using three layers triggered by velocity: light velocity is muted, medium velocity is regular guitar, hard velocity is harmonic squeal with vibrato. FUNKY!

There are some nice jazz guitar samples, hollowbody stuff. I don't use them much but they sound nice and warm.

The bass samples sound way better than the 1000PX: more variety of acoustic and electric basses, including great slap samples.

Now we get to where the GX shines... acoustic guitars. Steel string, nylon string, and they sound really nice. To get the most out of these, a MIDI guitar works best. Playing it on a keyboard will come off sounding like a harpsichord.

Don't use the onboard effects or you'll lose polyphony, they're not DSP effects. Use an outboard multiFX instead. A lot of the factory patches are pretty good as they are, although I made several of my own acoustic guitar patches.

Sweetwater sells an OS upgrade for the GX that brings it up to par with the rest of the 1000 series (version 5). Kurzweil never developed the version 5 ROM set for the GX so Sweetwater made them instead. The biggest benefit for version 5 is MIDI bank select for expanding beyond 127 patches.

Rating: 5 out of 5 posted Thursday-May-17-011 at 13:04

Rick a part-time user from USA writes:

Incredible guitar sounds. Use it with the Oberheim Strummer and stompboxes and its like having a whole room full of different kinds of guitars to work with. Plenty of good usable sonic images in this double space rack unit.

Rating: 5 out of 5 posted Tuesday-Oct-31-000 at 05:31

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