Kurzweil PC3 Improvement Effects

T. Verelst

Introduction

For qute a while I've worked on the sound of the Kurzweil PC3 (in my case the original 76 semi weighted keyboard version) because the sound didn't work for me. On my extensive monitoring system, which works reliable on many sound sources, the presets sound harsh, often strange and a least a little ugly, have strange distortions and are rhythmically and harmonically unbalanced. Of course, that was my opinion, some my well be happy with it.

In a number of phases I've combined working on generally applicable studio processing (mainly digital) with an analysis of how the building blocks in the PC3 respond to programming and playing the instrument. After I had achieved acceptable sound first with individual edits, and more recently for a bigger set of ROM sounds, my lastest (very complicated, seriously) sound iterations culminated into a more generally usable correction setup that lets me play most ROM sounds in program mode with a dedicated AUX2 effect chain and specific (ficed) master effect settings to a degree of sonic satisfaction never achieved (by me) before on the Kurzweils, and probably not comparable with most other (digital) instruments, including PC software.


What does the correction effect do, exactly ?

It is my observation that hidden in probably more than a few layers of internal processing, the Kurzweils handle an amount of A-grade studio processing logic, where there is attention for a number of digital sound properties, which includes loudness control, Equal Loudness Curve related effects, stereo width and depth controls, instrument 3D "appearance" control, DAC reconstruction error control, and various methods that allow for sound control that are harder to sum up, corresponding to original good quality (usually popular and commercial) recordings.

These effects

 

and their specific settings use the internals of the machine to "shape" an output sound at either the analog outputs or the digital out that corresponds more to my standards of estethics, si still under a sort of "warning" control of mid-frequency range sound elements, and is much closer to the original instruments, and has more pleasant stereo properties (also on headphones) than the stock instrument offers ()also when software updated.

The used effect chain is downloadable from the bottom of the page, you can look at the following settings, which must be set exactly as shown.

Nothing to adjust, just observe there are 2 effect used by sound layer "1", the other five come from the correction effect:



It's questionable if you use more than one "program mode" layer that the aux1 effects of layer 2 correspond to those in layer 1, so I set the send to "off" (-96dB):


Here is the essential setting for getting the correction effect to work, override, -15dB with effect EqPhasrChDi2g I created:



Every active layer must have a send paramter of -15dB exact to this effect (here layer 1 and 2)

Why do I need to accurately adjust the Mastering Section effects

The master effects (in program mode press "Effect")



just like the above effect settings must be set absolutely accurate to the shown settings, to the digit accurate, because that's how these settings have been made, accurate to the smallest change, and most settings actually require this exactness, or the correction fails.

Here are the Mastering Equalizer pages:







Small signal changes it seems, but these and the below Multi Compressor settings are tuned to a number of complicated signal properties:










Download the settings and try it all out

If you want to give it a try, here are the effect and mastering settings ready for loading into your own Kurzweil:

chain2027_mastersetup_works.pc3

May be used for non-commercial use, i.e. no reselling, and this place is the dlown,oad site, use the downloads only for yourself.