The
Best Sounds, The Best Features, The
Right Price
First Things First...
Fantastic sounds, reliable
performance, musical expressiveness,
ease of use; these are the things we
believe are essential to the design
of an affordable keyboard
instrument. Kurzweil's PC3LE8
combines the amazing sound quality
and performance control features of
our enormously successful PC3
with a new streamlined, intelligent
user interface, providing an
interactive experience that is bound
to inspire creativity.
It's The Sound...
Under the hood, the PC3LE
features the same groundbreaking
chip technology that has made the
PC3 the most talked about keyboard
in recent years. All of the PC3's
sounds are included - the famous
Kurzweil grand piano, vintage
electric pianos, Clavinets and
Mellotrons, dazzling Orchestral and
Strings collections, stunning VA
virtual analog synths, KB3 organs,
realistic basses, drums, guitars,
percussion and horns, General MIDI,
plus nearly 200 new programs
developed specifically for the LE;
over 1050 programs in all. We've
improved the method for navigating
through such a massive sound set;
programs in the LE can be viewed and
selected with a new set of Category
buttons. Select "Leads" and you'll
see a list of all the synth leads in
the machine, grouped together. Same
goes for the other 20 categories,
everything from Synth Bass to
Mallets to Guitars.
These
programs take advantage of our
V.A.S.T. synthesis engine, using
pristine samples paired with
detailed programming of literally
hundreds of synth and effects
parameters. Whether it's the rosin
of a bowed string instrument, the
resonant harmonics of a piano's
damper pedal, or the thumps and
squeaks of an electromechanical
keyboard, we've done our homework
and provided a level of detail and
realism that can only be found in a
Kurzweil. Which means you can focus
on the important business of making
music.
The
PC3LE8 comes equipped with over
700 onboard effects chains from
which to choose, all with real-time
controllers already assigned to
relevant parameters. With world
class reverbs that decay into
complete silence, warm, classic
sounding phasers, flangers and
choruses, and burning, saturated
distortions, you'll have everything
you need to make your music sound
like a polished, finished product
from the outset. The PC3LE8's
architecture provides up to 10
insert effects, which can be
distributed among 10 channels, with
an available auxiliary effect as
well.
Interactive...
In
the PC3, we introduced the
"INFO" feature, a soft button-press
that allows the user to see which
controllers have been assigned to
parameters within a program. For the
LE, we've taken this to the next
level, with an interactive user
interface that communicates directly
with you whenever you move a
real-time controller. Turn a knob,
hit a button or move a wheel and the
LE's screen will display the
controller, its real-time value and
the parameter being affected. An
example would be moving the
mod-wheel on an organ program - you
would see the following: "Mod-wheel
79 Distortion Drive". This system
never breaks down - you can change
effect chains freely and all of this
info remains intact, updated to
reflect the new chain you've
selected. Also, this info is
transferred seamlessly to Setup Mode
- you can see whatever controllers
have been assigned to programs used
in any zone of a setup.
Customizing Your Sound...
Prefer to spend your time playing
over sound-programming? Think of the
LE as the preset-player version of
the original PC3. All the
sound, no deep programming
necessary.
At the same
time, we wanted to give users the
quickest, simplest possible way to
adjust the PC3LE's sounds to
suit individual tastes and needs. In
any given program or effects chain,
select relevant parameters have been
pre-assigned real-time controllers
for easy access. Move a controller
and hit the SAVE button - no menus,
no pages with endless parameters -
and you get one touch sound
customization.
Also, we
understand that flexibility is
important when it comes to
customizing your sound. Don't want
filter frequency control on a knob?
Prefer to have it assigned to the
modwheel? No problem. The PARAMETERS
page allows you to re-assign any
controller to any available*
parameter. You can save your custom
sounds to the user bank, with over
1000 ID slots.
*available parameters are
predetermined and vary per program
A Different Drummer...
With the PC3LE8,
we're introducing a new set of
dynamic physical controllers - 8
backlit, velocity-sensitive drum
pads that can be used to trigger
sounds, sequences, chords and
arpeggiations. Every program in the
machine has a drum kit assigned to
the pads, so you'll always have
access to a rhythm track when you
need it. As a bonus, we've included
a set of over 100 new drum programs,
with acoustic brush kits, slammin'
rock kits and a number of heavily
effected techno/electronic kits, in
addition to the 24 existing kits
from the PC3. Just as we put a great
deal of effort into making sure that
our keyboard action feels just
right, the drum pads were
implemented with precision and care,
with utmost attention given to how
they feel when played. After all,
this is a musical instrument and not
just a piece of technology.
Everything Else You'd Expect...
Complimenting
the LE's new features are a few old
familiar Kurzweil favorites; Setup
Mode, Quick Access Mode and Song
Mode, all taken directly from the
PC3.
Setup Mode
enables the LE to act as a powerful
MIDI controller as well as providing
16 simultaneous, independent, fully
programmable arpeggiators, with
factory and user-programmable
patterns. On top of that, each setup
can have up to 16 simultaneous Riffs
- sequences that can be triggered by
buttons, drum pads or notes on the
keyboard. While Setup Mode, with up
to 16 zones each with its own
program, is still as powerful as
ever, we've added a Split/Layer
button to make the creation of
simple setups quick and easy.
Quick
Access Mode allows you to create
custom banks of 10 sounds that can
be accessed by a single
button-press. And Song Mode delivers
a full-featured 16 track sequencer
with all of the powerful editing
features that you'd find in a high
end workstation - event editing,
swing, controller scaling, input
quantize, input filter, and chasing
controls. User memory provides over
1000 ID slots each for your own QA
banks, Setups and Songs.
Connectivity...
Saving, loading and updating the OS
are all made easy on the LE with the
inclusion of both USB Host and
Device ports. You can save your user
programs, setups and songs to a USB
thumb-drive or directly to a
computer. OS updates can be loaded
from a thumb-drive or directly from
your computer, and of course the LE
sends and receives MIDI over USB.
Standard MIDI jacks are also
included for In, Out and Thru. For
audio, the PC3LE8 features
high-quality, hum-canceling, stereo
balanced analog outputs, with 24-bit
DACs as well as a 24-bit stereo S/PDIF
digital output at 48K. |
