Chapter 1 Introducing The Kme61; Introducing The Kme61 Welcome; Kme61 Overview; Programs, Setups, And Midi - Kurzweil KME61 - REV A User Manual

Chapter 1
Introducing the KME61
Welcome!
Congratulations, and thank you for purchasing a Kurzweil / Young Chang KME61. You've
got your hands on an excellent-sounding and flexible-yet economical-performance
instrument and MIDI controller.
This manual will get you started with your new instrument. You'll definitely want to keep the
manual handy as you become an advanced user.

KME61 Overview

The KME61 is a great live performance instrument. It has many excellent sounds, including
most of the famous Kurzweil PC2 sounds, already programmed and ready to go. It is also a
convenient MIDI controller ideally suited for controlling additional sound modules and as
input to a sequencer.

Programs, Setups, and MIDI

We'll use these three terms throughout this manual. They're the components of the KME61's
performance features.
Programs are the 256 internal sounds of the KME61.
Setups specify a combination of several performance features. Each setup contains three zones
that can cover any part of the keyboard, or overlap across the entire keyboard. You can
program each zone independently – with different programs, transposition, and MIDI
channels. You can split and layer up to 3 KME61 sounds and control up to 3 external MIDI
instruments at the same time. There are 32 setups, and you can edit and save 16 of these.
You will use the MIDI mode to control external sound modules or interact with a computer-
based sequencer

The Keyboard and Controllers

The KME61's keyboard has 61 standard-sized, organ-style keys. The keyboard is velocity-
sensitive, meaning the harder (faster) you press a key, the louder the voice (except for organ
voices which, realistically, are not velocity-sensitive). The keyboard is also release-velocity-
sensitive, meaning that MIDI signals expressing how rapidly a key is released get sent to
external equipment. The keyboard also has monophonic aftertouch which means that the force
used to hold a key down can affect the character of the sound being played.
The KME61 also has several controllers. There are 2 wheels, a slider, and 2 pedals.
The Pitch Wheel (the one on the left) makes the pitch of a sound go higher when the wheel is
rotated upwards, and lower when the wheel is rotated downwards. The Modulation Wheel
controls different characteristics of the sound for each program. Likewise, the Data Slider
controls a different characteristic of the sound for each program.
The KME61 has 2 Pedal Inputs; one is for a Switch Pedal and the other one is for a continuous
Control Pedal. The Switch Pedal is used as a sustain (damper) pedal, and the Control Pedal is
used to control expression.