“I recently read that the new K2600 will read EMU CD ROM discs as well as all the others. Is there a software upgrade or a translator that will allow my K2500 to do the same?”
First of all the K2600 cannot read EMU discs. The current versions of the K2500 OS do give it most of the same features of the K2600. The best way to get EMU sounds into your Kurzweil is to use a program like Digital Performer or Peak (among others) to transfer them through your computer. We’ve written about this process in past Tech Tips, but the short version is you have to connect the EMU via SCSI to your computer, dump the sample on to the computer’s hard drive with a SMDI transfer, then connect the Kurzweil and dump them from there into the Kurz. From there you will have to reconstruct playable instruments manually (keymaps, layers, etc.). It’s a bit of a pain, but you only have to do it once.
I have a dream. One day all samples will be stored in a common format (.wav?) where any instrument can read the sample data off of any CD ROM. The silence you hear now is me holding my breath…
