Our Tech Support Department continues to get inquiries about the feasibility of using computers to manage and load sounds for Kurzweil K2xxx keyboards. We know this has been covered up here before, but due to the popularity of this type of question we feel we need to hit it again, a little more thoroughly this time. The typical question involves whether or not a PC or Mac will read and transfer Kurzweil files from Kurzweil CD-ROM sound libraries via SCSI. Also at issue is whether or not you can transfer files directly from a Kurzweil to a computer, and vice versa, via SCSI. Although in the past some success with transferring, renaming and/or backing up Kurzweil files has been known, the current recommendation from Kurzweil, and therefore Sweetwater as well, is that the keyboard should have its own dedicated CD-ROM drive.
Furthermore, it is not at all possible to access a CD-ROM mounted by an IDE CD drive within a Mac or PC that is connected to a Kurzweil via SCSI.
For the K2000, or older versions of the K2500 (KDFX K2500 before v4.44, Non-KDFX K2500 before v2.98) and K2600 (before version 2), the SCSI disk format is not a true DOS format. It is very similar to DOS, but does not fully follow the DOS specification (it does not support partitions). Therefore, your Mac likely will not be able to recognize a SCSI disk formatted by the Kurzweil. With PCs in particular, attempting to connect the above-mentioned keyboards to a computer could result in a computer freeze or crash. Also, attempting to mount a disk formatted by the above-mentioned keyboards may produce a freeze.
According to our Soundware gurus, CD-ROM sound libraries created from the previous versions of Kurzweils stated above will not be readable by Macs. This would include the following Sweetwater Soundware titles: Grand Piano Collection, Stratus Vol. 1 (Classical Collection), Stratus Vol. 2 (American Standard Collection), and Stratus Vol. 3 (Exotic Instruments and Synths). According to our internal tests, none of Sweetwater’s floppy or CD-ROM Soundware titles are readable by PCs (except the Performance Instruments Sampling CD, which is an audio CD and can be read by both PCs and Macs). Other titles are usually not readable, but in some cases (especially with newer titles) they are. You may need to contact the manufacturer of the title in question to verify.
Even when your computer can read a disk with Kurzweil files on it, the Kurzweil file format itself is a proprietary format, so the computer can’t do anything with the file besides rename it and move it around. However, these two features can be very handy, especially if you need to reorganize a complex file hierarchy.
