Kurzweil 61-key Synthesizer Workstation

The PC3LE6 from Kurzweil gives you Kurzweil’s legendary combination of fantastic sounds, rock-steady performance, musical expressiveness, and ease of use, in a supremely affordable instrument that shatters the price/performance barrier. Kurzweil streamlined the popular PC3 with a new user interface that provides you with an interactive experience that will inspire your creativity. As with any pro-level keyboard, sound quality and feel are absolutely crucial, and the PC3LE6 has both, in spades. You’ll love the feel of its Fatar TP-8 keybed, which gives you the control and response of semi-weighted action, velocity sensitivity, and aftertouch. And the PC3LE6 gets its vast selection of incredible sounds from the world-renowned PC3 synth engine!

All of the PC3’s incredible 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… the list goes on and on. Plus, you get nearly 200 new programs developed specifically for the LE series, for a grand total of over 1050 programs. You can view and select programs by using a set of category buttons. For instance, if you select “Leads,” you’ll see a list of all the PC3LE6’s synth leads grouped together. And just like the PC3’s, the PC3LE6’s programs take full advantage of Kurzweil’s V.A.S.T. synthesis engine, using pristine samples paired with detailed programming of literally hundreds of synth and effects parameters.

To spice up your sound, the PC3LE6 comes equipped with over 700 onboard effects chains, all with real-time controllers already assigned to relevant parameters. Reverbs that decay into complete silence; warm, classic-sounding phasers; glistening flangers and choruses; and burning, saturated distortions all give your sound excitement and polish. The PC3LE6’s architecture provides up to 10 insert effects, which can be distributed among 10 channels, as well as an available auxiliary effect.

You also get specially assigned controllers that let you tweak the PC3LE6’s sounds on the fly. In any given program or effects chain, the parameters that you’d want to tweak and adjust have been assigned dedicated buttons. Move a controller and hit the Save button — no menus, no pages with endless parameters — and you get one-touch sound customization. Don’t want to reassign the filter frequency to the mod wheel? No problem. The Parameters page makes it easy. Plus, you can save your custom sounds to the user bank, with over 1000 ID slots.

The PC3LE6 also boasts a new set of dynamic physical controllers: 8 backlit velocity-sensitive drum pads you can use 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, Kurzweil includes a set of over 100 new drum programs, with acoustic brush kits, rock kits, and a number of heavily effected techno/electronic kits, all in addition to the 24 existing kits from the PC3.

To make updating the PC3LE6’s OS easy, Kurzweil gives it USB ports that allow you to load updates from either a thumb drive or your computer. And of course, the LE sends and receives MIDI over USB. You also get standard MIDI input, output, and throughput jacks for communication with other synth modules and MIDI-equipped gear. The PC3LE6 also provides pristine audio on high-quality, hum-canceling stereo-balanced analog outputs, and onboard 24-bit/48kHz D/A conversion lets the PC3LE6 send out stereo S/PDIF as well.

Features:

• Keyboard: Fatar TP-8; 61-key semi-weighted action with velocity- and aftertouch-sensitive keys
• Display: 240 x 64 backlit LCD w/ dedicated back-panel contrast control
• Polyphony: 64-voice polyphony; dynamically allocated, lightning-fast performance
• Multitimbral: 16 parts (1 per MIDI channel)
• Architecture: PC3 sound engine, complete with anti-aliased VA oscillators and KB3 mode
• Important synth and effects parameters can be accessed and adjusted via the PC3LE6’s front-panel knobs and buttons
• User settings can be captured and saved with a single button press; supports loading PC3 programs
• Factory presets: PC3 sound set, including Base ROM, Orchestral, Classic Keys, String Section, General MIDI set, and over 70 KB3 programs with total of over 800 programs
• Factory MIDI setups: 256 factory-programmed MIDI setups; up to 2,048 user-programmable MIDI setups, each with 16 independent zones, effects, and triggerable pattern-based “Riffs” and arpeggiator settings; dozens of user-editable patterns for both pitch and velocity
• General MIDI: Standard
• User memory: 2,048 locations for user-created preset programs, songs, and setups
• Sequencer: 16 tracks, 960-PPQ resolution; song-editing functions include both event and track-based tools, including quantize, swing, remap, controller scaling and more; controller chasing and quick “set song loop point” functions are also included
• Effects: 10 insert effects distributed over 10 buses, 1 auxiliary send; over 500 of our award-winning effects: reverbs, delays, chorus, flange, phaser, EQs, distortions, rotary speaker simulators, compressors, and more
• Controllers: Pitch wheel, modulation wheel, 5 front-panel knobs (15 virtual knobs with a 2-tiered shift button), 7 front-panel switches (momentary or toggle, software selectable), 2 switch-pedal inputs, 1 continuous control-pedal input and mono pressure. Controller values can be “captured” and stored as part of a program. In addition to all of these, the PCLE6 also features 8 backlit velocity-sensitive drum pads that can be used to trigger sounds, sequences, chords, and arpeggiations.
• Arpeggiator: 16 full-featured independent arpeggiators with multiple latch modes, selectable play order, velocity, duration, tempo, and sync functions, as well as pre-recorded beats and musical phrases
• Riffs: 16 simultaneous “Riff” generators (used for triggering MIDI-sequenced phrases, beats, or complete multitrack arrangements from notes on the keyboard and/or any onboard physical controller)
• Analog outputs: 2 ¼” balanced TRS analog (24-bit DACs)
• Headphones: 1 rear-panel ¼” headphone output
• Digital outputs: 24-bit, stereo S/PDIF at 48K (internal clock)
• MIDI: Input, output, throughput
• USB: Host port for connecting a USB thumb drive and a device port that allows the PC3LE6 to load and save data directly to and from a computer, perform OS updates, and send/receive MIDI over USB