At first sight, the Micro Ensemble looks almost identical to the Micro Piano: it's a half-rack, 32-note polyphonic module, the front panel is similarly minimal, and the data and power/volume pots are the same. Photo: Tom FlintFast forward to 2002 and the Micro Piano is gone, replaced by the new ME1 Micro Ensemble, with sounds derived from Kurzweil's PC2 keyboard. Not surprisingly, it had a lot of fans and sold well over the ensuing years. Despite its name, the Micro Piano also offered some nice organs and strings, making it a fine source of quality sounds, and although it was only monotimbral, it did have generous (for the time) 32-note polyphony. For musos on a budget, the 1000 series provided a range of modules with K250 sounds at a relatively affordable price (see my Retrozone article in SOS April 2000), while many players gained access to K2000 piano sounds via the diminutive Micro Piano, a half-rack 'plug in and play' sound module reviewed in SOS April 1994 by Derek Johnson. The classic K250 certainly stood out from samplers of the time, while the K2000, 2500, and 2600 have maintained a dignified presence at the top end of the market with their multifarious upgrades and add-ons. Right from their beginnings in the early '80s, Kurzweil have always done things in their own way. Kurzweil are well known for their high-quality sounds, but less so for affordable hardware in which to house them.
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