In the premiere Vaporware Synths feature, we look back at the Kurzweil VA1 polyphonic virtual analog Synthesizer from 2004.
Every year, new synthesizers come onto the market. The hotspot for new releases used to be the NAMM show in Anaheim (CA) or the Musikmesse (Frankfurt). The latter belongs to history. Today, you can do it all year round thanks to social media (YouTube, Facebook, etc.).
With the crazy amount of new synths per year, some don’t make it onto the market as finished products. This can have various reasons. In this new series of articles we look back at the so-called vaporware synths of the past and present days. I start with the Kurzweil VA1 from 2004.
Vaporware Synths Kurzweil VA1
At the Musikmesse 2004, almost exactly 20 years ago, Kurzweil unveiled the VA1. It was supposed to be Kurzweil’s new flagship virtual analog Synthesizer. with 61 keys, a big user interface packed with 59 knobs and 108 buttons, a screen, and more.
According to information, it was entirely the brainchild of Kurzweil’s stateside think tank, the Young Chang Research and Development Institute (YCRDI).
With an announced price of $2995 retail and $2395 street price, it wasn’t a budget Synthesizer. Some dealers had listings of it right after the show. Check this announcement from 2004. Google doesn’t forget.
The opinions of the synth press at the time were rather mixed. “It wasn’t a big surprise Synthesizer at the trade fair after fall,” said Synthesizers.de/Sequencer.de. Others were more positive.
The synth, however, offered all the features that a classic virtual analog Synthesizer could offer.
VA1 Features
Funny to see that synthesizers from back then were already at the feature level of today or even higher. Also, without the DSP power possibilities of today.
According to the official Kurzweil specs, the VA1 was based on a proprietary DSP technology capable of 16-voice polyphony and 4-part multitimbrality.
2004 was the time of virtual analog synthesizers, including the Access Virus TI, Alesis Micron, and more. This almost forgotten synth should also be based on this synthesis technology. Interestingly, this made a hardware comeback this year with the Korg microKORG 2 and KingKorg Neo.
The virtual analog engine of the VA1 featured 7 simultaneous sound sources with “power-shaped oscillators”, FM/sync capabilities, and various shapers just before the filters (ring mod, shaper, digital distortions).
Talking about filters. The VA1 featured a dual filter architecture (series/parallel) with various filter algorithms, including a Minimoog style 4-pole resonant low-pass with feedback. High-pass, notch, and more were, of course, also onboard.
On the modulation side, it offered three LFOs (1 local, 2 global), two “lightning-fast” ADSRs, and two standard ASR envelopes. All this was managed by an intuitive-to-use modulation matrix with six inputs and 46 possible destinations.
Each of its four parts also offered an effects processor with a varied collection of presets taken from the KDFX and KSP8 processors, said Kurzweil at the time. Plus, it featured four independent simultaneous arpeggiators.
As a nice extra, it also allowed you to process external signals in the VA1’s oscillator and filter section or through its built-in 48-band vocoder. For this, it offered stereo inputs with Neutrik “combo jacks” and a stereo mic pre-amp with phantom power.
Announcement To A Vaporware Synth
After Musikmesse 04, things became turbulent in the Kurzweil offices. In 2004, South Korean piano maker Samik tried to buy Kurzweil’s parent company Young Chang, the team beyond the VA1 Synthesizer. This failed due to the intervention of the South Korean government.
Hyundai Development Company (not the car manufacturer) acquired Young Chang in 2006. From then on, they focused on producing new keyboards, especially workstations. You can read the full story on Modwiggler here.
After these business decisions, the market for virtual analog synthesizers became saturated, and the new owners decided to cancel the VA1 project. This turned the MESSE 2004 announcement into a vapor synth. The positive, however, is that the VA-1 lives on in the Kurzweil PC3 Synthesizer workstation series.
According to Insider, a total of 10 units were manufactured as prototypes. An owner of one of these super rare synths from the past is the sound designer company Weiser Sound. They published a sound demo a few years ago.
Future?
Kurzweil continues to make high-quality workstations that are packed with synthesis. The last major release, the K2700 synth workstation was a while ago. It came onto the market in 2021.
2024 would be a perfect year to bring the VA1 onto the market. They could market it as “more than 20 years in the making, we have the synth that took the longest time to develop, the VA1”. Or maybe a VA2.
Korg has shown with the KingKORG Neo that VA is back. And since the Virus TI2 is off the market, we need a new generation of virtual analog synths. The time wouldn’t be bad.
But I have little hope that there will be a comeback. I’m almost certain that the Kurzweil VA1 will remain true to the Vaporware synths series forever.
More information about the brand: Kurzweil
Young Chang’s KSP8 is brilliant. have two. never give them up.
VA never actually went a way. Look at the Waldorf Iridium, or Hydrasynth as modern examples. Any of the Akai Samplers that also use plugins are really just Virtual Analog. Roland has the Gaia II, Korg has the ModWave….They most Wave table synthesizers are just evolutions of the VA concept. And unless it’s sample based, all of your synth plugins and VSTs are using the same VA and/or Modeling technology. Its become so ubiquitous as not be worth mentioning in the sales literature.
sure 🙂 I mean more the “pure” VA synths with classic engines (2-3 oscillaotrs, filters, envelopes…) that came back with the Gaia II, microKORG 2… For the Iridium it’s part of a big engine. I keep wavetable synthesis still in a different corner than virtual analog synthesis. The Hydrasynth aims also on wave-morphing than modeling analog synthesis 🙂 So also for me not exactly the same concept.
Most of the newer concepts have a VA underground but goes further and offer new options. Gaia II, microKORG 2… brings back the “pure” VA sonic feeling that knew from the early 2000s 🙂
I think the question has become, how do we define a Virtual Analog synth, versus a software plugin? VAs were generally based on flexible but dedicated DSP chips, which existed because specialized chips like that were generally faster and better at dealing with digital signal processing than general purpose processors. Now that general purpose processors are fast enough and cheap enough to do the processing involved perfectly well, DSPs are largely being phased out of production and now everything uses a commodity ARM processor (or in the case of some boutique synths and Korg’s digital line, just plain old Raspberry Pi boards). At a certain point, it stops making sense to have dedicated VAs because, as you point out, you can just throw the software on any old keyboard these days.
Unless there’s something specifically useful or necessary, why make a dedicated VA when it’s effectively just off-the-shelf software? The MPC Key line come with analog emulation plugins out of the box for example.
Hey guys, thanks for posting this! Glad to see you got the facts right. Working on the VA1 was one of the highlights of my time workin for Kurzweil R&D. While it is sad that the VA1 was never released, on the bright side, many of its oscillators and filters live on today inside of their current boards like PC4 and K2700. And Kurzweil continues to add more synthesis features – the current boards include a powerful FM engine that sounds amazing. Here’s a little taste: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3tCW4Wf31Dc
I hope to do a few more VA1 demos in the upcoming months. In the meantime, anyone with Kurzweil related questions can feel free to contact me. I’ve got custom sound sets for PC4 and K2700 that I’m happy to share free of charge. The sets include sounds that I’ve created for Broadway shows and big acts like The Who and Brian Wilson.
weiserdav@gmail.com
http://www.weisersound.com
Cheers!
Thanks Dave for your input 🙂
The synth engine from this is available in Kurzweil’s Performance Controller keyboards and any of their modern keyboards with V.A.S.T synthesis editing.
Awesome! As a proud owner of many Kurzweil synths I was happy to see an authority reply about the legacy of the VA1 living on inside the newer products