18 January 2009

Kurzweil K2600R Upgrade

Long time ago I bought a Kurzweil 2600 rack mount version. I got it quite cheap, but when I switched it on it was broken. The disk drive didn't work and also the hard disk was broken. I replaced the hard disk with a SCSI disk I had lying around and that worked right away. I though I could also easily replace the disk drive, but that didn't work. So I opened the exsisting drive and found out that it was very dirty. I cleaned it completely and afterwards it worked like a charm. With this new diskdrive now I could upgrade the OS also to the latest version 4.11. The only thing I thought was a shame is that all the digital inputs and outputs were not present. So I started looking for upgrades and I found that they were still for sale. I ordered two upgrades. The Sampling option which gives extra inputs at the front and also SPDIF, but I also ordered that ADAT upgrade. You can see the upgrade PCB's lying on top of the Kurzweil.

Here you see the inside of the Kurzweil before the upgrade. On the left you see the power supply, in the front is a bracket where the disk drive and hard disk are mounted. In the back are two PCB's on top of each other. Below the CPU and memory board and on top the I/O board. The whole thing looks a lot like a PC actually. Well laid out and very accesible. Both upgrade kits came with very detailed explanations how to mount the options, but I found that my 2600R looked different than the pictures in the manual. So apperantly there are different versions around. Also very confusing was that in order to install the ADAT option you can't install the digital outputs on the back that come with the sampling option. I have to remove that again.

OK here is a picture after I installed all the boards. You can see the sampling PCB in the front left of the unit. The ADAT option comes in between the CPU and IO board. So you have to remove the IO board as well. In the kit was also an extra chip you have to install on the CPU board and on the bottom of the Kurzweil you have to install an extra jumper. Unfortunately that was the only thing not included in the kit. I had to search hard to find a jumper somewhere. But eventually removed one from an old PC card. After installing the board you have to run some tests, but the tests are intended for the sampling option and since I had to remove the SPDIF outputs from this option I couldn't run these tests.

Also I could not really find out if the ADAT board is running since you have to hook it up for that. I decided to reassemble it and mount it in my new studio desk. I will test it later. In this picture you can see the extra inputs on the front. I read on the internet that there is also a live mode where you could use the 2600 as an effects processor and that is nice because it has some very high quality FXs on board. Well I'll see about that later. I don't have much time now to test it anyway. I need to cable the new studio. I did this job yesterday because my furniture builder was working on the desk and I couldn't do work on there myself. I can't imagine though that I did anything wrong. But it is not an easy upgrade. I wouldn't recommend doing it yourself when you are no technician. I'll let you know later if it works.

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