Kurzweil 1000HX Horn Expander

In the late '80s, if you wanted access to the fantastic sounds of the Kurzweil K250 (£12,000) you either had to dream on or have a very gullible bank manager. I wanted one as soon as I saw one on BBC2's Micro Live series in the middle of the decade, round about the time Philip Meehan, who wrote the Retro on the K250 in February 1999's SOS, began lusting after one. Philip, however, got lucky and managed to source one years later; the nearest I got was buying the considerably cheaper 1000PX module when it arrived in the UK in 1988.

The 1000‑series broke new ground in many respects, being the first of the ROM‑based sample players that have since become familiar (indeed, Emu's current Proteuses follow the principle exactly). The range comprised four — later, five — 2U modules (the 1000PX, SX, HX and GX — see the 'Which Kurzweil?' box for more information on these, the rest of the range and the difference between them). All were full of high‑quality sounds, multisampled, looped, split, detuned, and raring to go, without any of the usually mucking about that you had to do with a sampler and disks. No operating systems, loop points or available memory to worry about: just switch on, dial up a sound and play. Each module was not just a sample player but a full‑blown digital synth, 16‑part multitimbral and 20‑note polyphonic. In fact, the PX was 24‑note polyphonic — double what the K250 offered.

I loved mine. It was also satisfyingly naughty, when friends brought over their latest pride and joy and said 'have you heard the sounds on my M1/D50/Proteus?', to be able to say 'very good, have you heard the PX?' and watch their faces drop! The sounds were peerless at the time and even now knock most of the opposition into a cocked hat. You might expect this, as they are based on those in the K250.

The 1000‑series uses Kurzweil's high‑quality K250 samples (which they call 'soundfiles') for its basic building blocks (see the 'Sounds' box for more details). You can layer up to four soundfiles in a program (albeit with a corresponding reduction in polyphony), set volume, MIDI range, split points, detune, pan, polyphonic limit. You can even create your own envelopes and loop points on sounds (backwards pianos, for instance, are a doddle). If the idea of losing polyphony worries you, you can 'chain link' up to 12 K1000 modules together via MIDI for a blistering 288‑voice PX megasynth! Wendy Carlos, for instance, uses four PXs in her rack. One aspect of the K1000 that might initially seem strange is that there are no filters; soundfiles come in various versions, so you'll not just be offered strings, piano, and guitar, but bright, mellow, Vbright and Vmellow versions of the relevant sound. At the time, some people bemoaned the lack of separate outputs, as each module sports only a stereo out — more on this in a moment.