Before opening the box of the PC3X I imagined becoming intimidated by gadgets and lights. I guess when I hear the term “workstation” I have a preconceived notion that I will need to spend days just to figure out how to make sounds. This is not the case with the PC3X, its sleek design, bold marked buttons and perfect sized screen make this workstation inviting to jump right in and be creative. The screen has a perfect tilt for visibility and the brightness can be altered. The sturdy feel of the soft keys and sliders is the major clue showing you how durable the PC3X is.
I immediately jumped into sounds-and there is no better patch to start off with than the Standard Grand. The pianos are absolutely gorgeous and the hammer weighted action help you bring out expressiveness and dynamics in the music. The low end response on ALL patches is amazing. I knew Kurzweil would deliver when it came to pianos but I was pleasantly surprised with the response of the multi-layered pads and hard leads. The analog synths are perfectly aggressive with grit and bite. Plus the organs paired with the sliders serving as drawbars are superb. The feel of an organ and how the drawbars respond is top notch in the PC3X. When it comes down to it-sounds are the most important quality of a keyboard and you won’t find a better sounding keyboard than the PC3X.
While I was amazed with the sounds I did not forget that the PC3X is a workstation. I found it easy to set tempo and then make a mix tracks. Of course speed and flexibility is most important when building songs and the PC3X provides simple navigation. The editing capabilities are fantastic. Most of the the sounds/patches are layers which are easily “borrowed” and applied to other patches. For instance say you love the pads behind ColdPiano but could use that sound backing an electric piano. With the punch of a menu soft key you can easily import separate layers to build custom sounds.
All-in-all the Kurzweil PC3X has all the capabilities you would want and need in a keyboard and the bottom line is it sounds amazing.
