From http://www.vintagesynth.com/index2.html:

It's not vintage, but since it's such an amazing synth it gets a page here. The K2000 uses V.A.S.T. (Variable Architecture Synthesis Technology) which allows you to take any multi-sample, noise or waveform and process it using just about any synthesis technique. The source of these multi-samples are from the 8MB of ROM which hold tons of authentic and superb quality samples. The internal processing is 32-bit with 18-bit DACs. The K2000 uses 31 sound-shaping algorithms to provide a variety of resonant filters, EQs, continuous panning, amplitude modulation, crossfade, distortion, digital wrap, waveshaper, pulse width modulation, high frequency enhancement, low frequency oscillators, hard sync oscillators and mixing oscillators, all with real-time MIDI control.

It's a beautiful synth with an elegant and organized layout and very high quality pitch and mod wheels! Not to mention a 61-note velocity & aftertouch sensitive keyboard with a quality feel and response to playing. The K2000s (pictured above) adds a quality sampler with standard 2MB RAM that can be expanded to 64MB. Sample in stereo or mono, via analog or digital inputs and you have all the sample edit functions you'll need to create some of your own sounds. Use the built-in 3.5" disk drive or connect an external drive to the SCSI port for limitless sample storage.

Other professional features include stereo multi-effects capable of four simultaneous effects including reverb, chorus, delay, multi-tap delay, flange, rotary simulation and more. Up to six polyphonic audio outputs. There's also the 32-Track sequencer, fully editable, with features like 768 ppq resolution and nondestructive track editing and groove quantizing.

The K2000rs (pictured below) is the rack-mount version of the K2000s. Offering all of the same great sounds, power and features as the keyboard version. The K2000's keyboard is excellent and feels great to play, but if you don't need the extra keys the 3-space rack-module is an excellent instrument. The K2000's have been used by Robert Miles, Pink Floyd, Jean Michel Jarre, Depeche Mode, Hardfloor, Tori Amos, Stevie Wonder, Nick Rhodes (Duran Duran), Bon Harris (Nitzer Ebb), Front Line Assembly, KMFDM, LTJ Bukem, Nine Inch Nails, Massive Attack, Vangelis, Tangerine Dream, Laurent Garnier, and Luther Vandross.

Upgrades include the Orchestral Expansion Board (8 Mb) and Contemporary Expansion Board (8 Mb). A full 16-bit sampler with analog/digital sampling options (SMP-K) and AES/EBU and S/PDIF digital I/O ports. The 2MB sampler RAM is expandable to 64 MB for upwards of 19 minutes of sampling time. Sequencer's capacity is expandable from 30,000 events to 190,000. The operating systems can easily be upgraded too.

From http://www.kurzweilmusicsystems.com/Product.php?product=148:

(SMP/K/R) Sampling Options Overview

Go to the source

With the K2000 Series Sampling Option (SMP/K for keyboards; SMP/R for racks), the K2000 Series can sample virtually any analog or digital source. With sample memory expandable to 64 Meg via standard SIMMs, up to 12 minutes of CD-quality sampled sound can be recorded, processed and played back with superb fidelity.

These instruments feature a set of some of the most powerful DSP sample processing tools available. Processing functions such as Crossfade Looping, Normalize Gain, Mix Beat, Time Compression/Expansion and many more, give you complete control over your samples. The sample editing page shows you the sample wave, allowing you to scroll to exact points in the sample for precise editing.

Once sample processing is finished, you can save to a 3.5" floppy disk, an optional internal hard drive, or any external SCSI-compatible device.

The V.A.S.T.® Advantage

Like the internal presets, samples are also processed through Kurzweil's award-winning V.A.S.T. architecture. Variable Architecture Synthesis means that you can select the DSP functions for each voice from a list of 60 available DSP functions, arrangeable in 31 algorithms. Your samples will sound V.A.S.T.ly better! The superior sampling hardware combined with V.A.S.T. sample processing can even improve samples that originated in other samplers.

DSP functions

Time compression/expansion, sample rate conversion, mixing/splicing, pitch shifting, crossfade looping, normalizing gain, fade in/fade out, auto truncate, mix beat, resampling and more. Samples are treated exactly as the internal ROM waves and can take full advantage of V.A.S.T. programmability (31 Algorithms, FX, MIDI control, etc.).

Suggested Retail Price (SMP/K) for keyboard models - $450*

            (SMP/R) for rack models - $525*

(P/RAM) Program RAM Expansion Overview

The K2000 series PRAM expansion increases the amount of battery backed RAM in the instrument from the stock 120 Kb to 760 Kb.

PRAM is used for saving objects such as programs, setups, QA banks, and sequences. In fact, everything that can be named and saved goes into the battery backed RAM except for the actual recorded sample data (which goes into sample memory).

Suggested Retail Price (P/RAM) - $300*

(HDC-1) Internal Hard Drive Mounting Kit Overview

A Hard Drive Installation Kit is required if you wish to install an internal SCSI hard drive into your K2000/R/VX/VP, or K2500R instrument (note: the K2500X/K2500 uses a different install kit - the HDC-25K). The kit includes all necessary installation hardware* and installation instructions**.

*Note: A hard drive is not included with the kit.

Suggested Retail Price (HDC-26K): $19.99

Sound Library - Analog Synth Collection Overview

The factory presets of the most popular analog monsters of the last 20 years from Arp, Korg, Moog, Oberheim, Roland, Sequential Circuits, and Yamaha.

Sold on 30 Floppy Disks.*

Suggested Retail Price - $129 (ANL-30)

From http://www.k2users.org/k2/k_hdw_up.htm#UPGRADE:

If you have a Kurzweil, let's determine exactly what you have installed in your instrument.

# Operating System Version:

When you first power up your Kurzweil, the VAST screen appears. At the bottom of that screen is the version number of the Operating System (OS) version your machine is running, such as 2.08 or 3.18 or 3.18j, or 3.54 for K2000 family models, or 2.13 or 2.31, or 2.80 or 4.0 for K2500 models, or 1.01 or 2.00 for K2600 models. Your machine's features are governed by what OS you have. It determines whether you can import WAV or AIFF files, install certain hard disks or CD-ROM drives, what the on-board sequencer can do, how many "drum channels", etc. When e-mailing about your Kurzweil, try identifying it as, say, a K2000RS v3.18, so everybody knows what you are talking about.

"Calvin" Vs. "Janis" units in the K2000/K2vp/K2vx family

Within the K2000 family, slightly different circuit boards were used when manufacturing the earliest models. When you boot up your Kurzweil, the first screen to appear (the VAST screen) will display the OS version your machine is running. If there is no letter at the end of your OS version number (example: 3.18)  you have an older, "Calvin" unit. If the screen displays a letter "J" after the OS number (example: 3.18j), you have a newer (and current) "Janis" unit.  There is NO difference in performance, features or reliability, but Calvin and Janis units require their own special version of  ROM chips to upgrade the OS.  When ordering OS chips, make sure to specify which unit you have. Don't use "Calvin" chips in a "Janis" unit and vice versa.

K2000 family models can only upgrade their OS version by physically replacing some OS chips. K2500 and K2600 models can upgrade by merely loading a file into their machines. See the Upgrade section, below, for more information.

# Sample RAM and Program RAM:

To check out how much RAM you have installed, press the [MASTER] button. At the top of the screen you will see something like:

MasterMode Samples:40960K Memory:461K

Sample RAM:

The Samples: 40960K indicates how much memory I have available for samples at one time. In this case, 40MB. [NOTE: As long as you have some of this so-called "Sample RAM", you can play Kurzweil samples--you do not need the Sampling Option installed to PLAY samples. The Sampling Option is used to RECORD samples--like sampling your kid playing the kazoo, or drum loops, etc.]

Program RAM (P-RAM):

The Memory: 461K indicates how much "Program-RAM" is now available. P-RAM is separate from Sample RAM. P-RAM primarily governs how many programs, setups, songs and effects your machine can hold at one time. Every Kurzweil has some P-RAM installed. This RAM holds everything you can save (except for samples) plus Kurzweil reserves part of it for various internal operations. For your purposes, the P-RAM stores the "Master Table" containing the parameters on the Master page, Effects page, 3 MIDI pages, and the Song Mode MAIN and MISC pages (also, the Faders page for K2500 keyboards). P-RAM consists of a base amount installed in every Kurzweil and an optional add-on board (called the "P-RAM upgrade") to supplement the base amount. For K2000s, the base amount is 116K, enough to hold "about" 400 programs (sounds) at one time. But P-RAM is dynamically allocated. If you have programs that are just samples, you can load more programs than if you have some heavy programmed synth sounds or anything with lots of filters or some really busy sequences. There's no definitive answer as to how much will it hold. Maybe you can figure that a K2000 or K2500 with the P-RAM add on board has 600% more memory than the base amount. That should do the trick for a lot of Kurzweil users.

K2000 models have a 116K base or P-RAM and a total of 760K of with the P-RAM add on board installed. K2500s have a 256K base and total 1260K with the K2500-specific add-on board installed. In the example above, only 461K are available since I already had some memory occupied by programs 0-199, 900-999, and effects. The thing to note is that since more than 116K is available at all, it's obvious my K2000RS has the P-RAM upgrade board installed.

Serious Kurzweilers often have the P-RAM upgrade installed (the K2500 uses a different board than the K2000), since it can also increase SCSI transfer speeds when you are copying, say, a 20MB sample from your computer to your Kurzweil via the SCSI cable. For K2000 models with OS V3.54 or later, and K2500 models with OS V2.31 or later, the P-RAM upgrade allows you to have a total of 8 "drum" channels (Those capable of playing 32-layer programs). For a K2000 model, the only way to get 8 "drum" channels is to have OS v3.54 or later and the P-RAM upgrade installed. For more info, see Dan Fisher's post about extra drum channel assignments.

All P-RAM is battery backed and uses 3 "AA" batteries. When you replace the batteries, be quick about it, for there is a limited time for your P-RAM settings to remain in memory without the batteries in place. Sometimes when your Kurzweil wigs out, you can remove the batteries for 30-60 minutes to completely erase your P-RAM memory and then restart. See your manual for more info on P-RAM and batteries. Also, take a minute to visit the Launch Pad's First Aid page to see about Corruption of battery-backed RAM, Hard Resets and Draining Battery-backed RAM. Every Kurzweil owner needs to know about this.

Sample RAM is always cleared when you turn on your Kurzweil, but the programs that refer to those samples remain in P-RAM and must be cleared before you load new programs. If you try to play these programs after a shut-down and restart, you will hear nothing. You must delete the banks and reload your samples each time you power up. To clear the banks of "sample-less programs", press the [Master] button and (Delete) and select the bank to delete. However, you can write a startup macro to do this for you. (See your manual for BOOT.MAC instructions) Programs 0-199 use on-board ROM samples and are not cleared when you power up. Read C.K. Haun's explanation of Sample RAM vs. P-RAM for more details.

# ROM Soundblocks: Orchestral, Contemporary, Piano (K2500 only)

To see what, if any, optional ROM Soundblocks are installed in your Kurzweil, press the [PROGRAM] button and go to the 800 bank. If, after power up, you have programs in the 800-899 range, you have the Contemporary ROM block installed. If you have programs in the 900-999 range, you have the Orchestral ROM block installed.

Only K2500s can have the Piano ROM block and its piano programs are in the 770-787 range. The Piano ROM block comes on the ROM daughterboard that is required before any of the other ROM blocks can be installed, so if you have the 800 or 900 programs on your K2500, you've got the Piano ROM block also.

Knowing what ROM blocks you have will determine what GM program files you should use since some make use of the extra ROM sounds for GM programs. You can download the various GM banks from several FTP sites.

# Sampling Option:

To check if you have the Sampling Option installed, examine the front panel of your rack module or the rear panel for the keyboard version. Look for 2 XLR inputs, an Optical-In jack and a Hi-Z jack. If they are there, you have the sampling option. This allows you to make your own samples via microphones, line inputs or directly from digital outputs. If you don't have the Sampling Option, you can still PLAY samples as long as you have enough sample RAM to load the sample. The Sampling Option includes digital input and output jacks to allow you to hook up  your Kurzweil to other digital devices (DATs, digital mixers, computer digital I/O interfaces, etc.). For details on how to use this feature, see my page about Connecting Your Kurzweil via the Digital Inputs/Outputs.