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Best keyboard action ever of any synth, even today. Wooden weighted keys. It was a pain to program, which is a shame cause it sounds SO good in person, and is a joy to play. John Shykun plays synths on Pink Floyd's The Wall, and was a hell of a demo guy - bought my first synths from him at Hanich Music in West Covina.

I also took classes from Mike around 2013 and was hoping to reach out to reconnect, anyway this channel can help?

Are people aware of what Ray is up to these days? It ain’t pretty. By the way, I own three Kurzweil keyboards.

Funny to see in these comments how the resource-spoiled people today just don’t get this product. The ‘compression’ wasn’t generic. It extrapolated an acoustic model from samples then interpolated notes & velocities to generate a wave table.

The K250 was basically a nice sampler with a lot of eprom for it's time. "Computer modeling" is Ray's marketing BS. The sound is a recorded sample. By early 90s it lost ground to Emax, Akai, Ensoniq.

I must admit that I didn’t know anything about this instrument. It sounds fantastically and I would like to have one, but I don’t know where to get it.

Great that you stlil have this. Also cool to see more of Mike in his product specialist days. I guess concerts like this were the 1980s equivalent of TH-cam synth videos.

I think this still somehow sounds better than modern sample libraries.

Sounds great now in 2024. I can't imagine how mindblowing it was back then! 😮

I worked for Norwegian Kurzweil distributors in the K250 era as well as in the K2000 and beyond era. The K250 was ridiculously hyped, but still unique at the time. Lot of BS from Mr K and the company, using "scientific" computer terms in the marketing. In fact, The K250 was just the first "ROMpler", but the samples, the editing and the voicing was done better than any other company at the time. So cudos to the sound design team! And also to Mike Brigida who was one of the best demonstrators ever! The K250 was also many times the price of most other instruments. Comparison to Fairlight and Synclavier is not relevant, very different concepts. The only common factor was high pricing, but the K250 was still way cheaper at the time. So hype aside, the K250 was immediately welcomed by both artists and institutions. We sold surprisingly many for such a small market as Norway.

What's amazing here is how good it was, back then, without sampling like the Fairlight. And soon to follow cheap Ensoniq Mirage.

Kurzweil Musical Instruments sure knew how to generate media coverage. Mike Brígida deserves to be in the demo artist hall of fame. This is a nice compilation.

I have the PX1000 (rack version) It's the sound! ...natural...

👍Î LOVE ! 💙⚪❤

I had the good fortune of being able to play and learn so much from Mike in my younger years 11-15yrs old. I was the drummer in a church band.

Great sounding in 1984 yet cheezy compared to even under $1000 instruments today. Also this was only 12 note polyphonic while the modern instruments are more than 100.

i have a bout a dozen of those in my basement

♥🎶

Whose the guy with the mustache

Kurzweil created the world's first synthesizers and keyboards that sounded like real instruments, but Yamaha and the Japanese stole the technology and commercialized it to where it is today. Kurzweil is the living history of the world's best and oldest electronic device.

This Chroma has the "ARP" knobs on the sliders.

So it was probably Mr Brigida who caused the earthshaking experience a young fella had on Christmas 1984 or 1985, far away on the other side of the big pond: I was listening to the Voice of America on my brandnew shortwave receiver when they transmitted a very similar program about the Kurzweil 250. It's not that sampling was news to me back then but when I heard that the strikingly realistic jazz combo I just heard came out of that one keyboard in realtime it was like I heard the future, sampling blown up to a multi-timbral dream of an instrument that promised to fulfill all of my dreams about producing music. Well, thanks for that memorable moment VOA, Mr. Kurzweil and Mr. Brigida! :)

❤️

Wow ! thanks for this footage ! I still have mine, bought in 1983. All is original except for the ac power unit. Still doing great and using it on most of my productions.😃

Thanks for the documentary, really interesting!

8:50 ... only this is enough reason to buy a chroma rn

Love Kurzweil Keyboards.

Nice! The Chroma is a wonderful instrument with a dedicated following to this day. I'm glad the ill-fitted jacket isn't mandatory though. :D

Did Ray kurzweil lie this are rom samples so they are recordings of an actual instrument.

Thank you for posting this. I love the Rhodes Chroma, it's interesting to see this part of its history.

Then a dream comes true

anybody notice the Title lack of Z in the KurZweil. =)

Wow, Mr. Brigida's got some chops! I don't know if he'll remember me, but I took his FM and Sampling classes back in the early '90s. He was, by far, my favorite professor and I fondly recall our chats about his time at Arp and Kurzweil. He might be interested to know that I came across this video because I just got a 250 (finally!). And a side note: I have Lyle Mays' old K2500XS. Basically, thanks to Mr. Brigida I've got a ridiculous collection of Kurzweil gear.

Great vintage video. Thanks.

How come I can't a buy or find a plug-in that sounds like this over 30 years later?

i have here the kurzweil k2500 with sample option. (and the sticker american technology inside!!)

I actually own two working Kurzweil K250's. Original owner of both. Bought from a college firesale back in 1990. One is my baby, the other I'm considering selling to clear up space. Has to be a CA, U.S. buyer as these are just too heavy to ship. If anyone's interested.... lemme know.

Did this first entry, the K250, produce some good Mellotron sounds (the "three violins" among them)?

those were days of wonder, first the Yamaha DX7 blew minds off, then this, K250 which was way out of league for most keyboard players as it could cost as much as a small studio, then came the D50 in 1987 and Korg M1 in 1988.. all of them went on to rule the next few decades or so

But aren't they technically recordings?

thanks