It makes no sense that the documentation was lost around 9 years or so before the K2600 went into production.
Young Chang bought Kurzweil in 1990. K2600 didn’t appear until 1999 ish.

That was what was told me by midiquest when I ask when will be a K2600 template.

youre not a hacker, you need to know codes to run a win app

I decided to take the plunge as I own quite a few of the new synths. I'm using it for Virus TI, Blofeld, Toraiz, Deepmind at the moment, gonna try it out for the Microwave XT and MicroQ as well, even though I have the soundtower editors for these, but it's convenient to have everything in one place.
I don't really care about the looks, it's a great way to store preset banks for my hardware setup, the editors work with no major issues (for me) and the randomization features are awesome, very inspiring and easy to come up with new sounds.
Michael has also been very responsive to enquiries, there were some issues with the Deepmind editor as the new firmware changed the sysex format, but he sorted it out within a day or two and is very helpful.

When using any software sysex editor I'd recommend using a multi-client midi interface such as the ESI M4U XT. If you're triggering notes via your sequencer whilst sending sysex dumps from the editor otherwise it's either not gonna work or get very messy.

BS.

I agree on the look. It's ugly. Many editors are ugly :(...


Good graphics are not taxing any CPU cycles. It's plain pixel. You just have to organise the pixels in a beautiful way

While proper graphic elements are not pixel but vector based with the advantage of being scaleable without loosing sharpness

Ok, great, didn't knew it. So no excuses for bad graphics !

Just hire a good graphic designer.

Pretty is not the same as functional.

It's already functional, it just needs to be prettier/bigger widgets and improved layouts.

A little bit less 90's, more 2010-ish. The flat design kind of graphics. It's not even complicated ! Maybe for v.13 ^^'...

Works great on Mac OS X 10.14.4, once you set it up and ensure a correct SysEx delay etc.

WAY MORE STABLE on Mac since it's no longer using Carbon or whatever that thing was called. Now I can edit things while using my DAW to play my instruments without crashing. Perfect!

Each synth has a few kinks you have to remember. My Mininova can't talk to two editors at once, etc, Michael does a great job at telling you why things are the way they are if you have questions.

"Just"

"Just"

"Just"

The 2 are linked - the goal of good usability requires both be done by professionals.

Midiquest 12 is a huge dissappointment for me, now you cannot edit any existing editor layouts, including ones you have even created your self. All editors have become locked and protected in MQ12, so for me (after upgrading - downgrading that should be) the program is unuseable - I've gone back to MQ11.
The only functional difference I can see between MQ11 and MQ12 is that the envelopes enlarge when clicked on - everything else seems to be exacty the same.

After waiting so long for this update, it was just a huge let down.

Well there is one important bug fixed.. MQ11 has an issue with graphics in Mojave so it randomly crashes whenever it wants too (usually right after receiving a bank), its unusable. Im skipping MQ12, all of my editable synths are old, and they're covered by Sound Diver which still works perfect for me in a WinXP virtual machine on my Mac. The one newer synth I have that's not analog is the Waldorf Blofeld. This was the one thing I was hoping would be added and nope, they added the Pulse and another one of the Q variations? Even Sound Diver works with the Blofeld with a little work.

Not worth $400 to edit two synths (and archive my 2 drum machines but not edit) that Im already working with in another app I paid about $200 for already.

The Blofeld is in Beta, email them and tell them you want to use it, they'll send you the file. I'm using it with my Blofeld and it's working fine, with good screen editor, patch management works fine etc.
One thing MQ has over Sounddiver (as far as I know) are the preset generation options, which I find very inspiring. Obv if you got your other synths covered with Sounddiver it's a big investment, they are adding new synths though which might not be covered by SD. Check out the BETA synth editors on the MQ website.

What’s the deal with the pricing? If I have one or two synths I want to integrate to my DAW, I need to buy the most expensive version? Wasn’t there talk about individual plugin versions going to be available too?

I got this yesterday and so far it has been smooth sailing. Very happy with the program.
Brings back life to my old Xpander. Very happy with the new MFB Tanzbar and Dominion integration. A lot of work must have gone into making this.
VST plugins works very well- Only culprit was I had to use a software virtual MIDI router (MIDI-OX+LoopMIDI) to get the multiclient functionality of my MIDI interfaces (Midex 8 + Motu Express 128). A bit of a head-scratcher to set up, but now it works great.
Both VST 2.4 and VST 3 plugins installed. Any advantage of using VST3 vs VST 2?

You can buy licenses for individual synths, the essentials version that lets you use up to 3 synths for $150 or the full version for $250.
Price for individual synths varies depending on the synth.

The way I read this, VST/AU plugins are only included with the 400$ Pro version: https://squest.com/Products/MidiQuest12/Compare.html

I'm pretty sure they are losing awful lot of sales because of this.

On ipad you install one version and then choose the licenses you want to buy.
I presumed it was the same on other platforms.

Just wanted to share if anyone's interested. Here's my experience so far:

I had heard of MidiQuest for ages, and after reading commentary on v11 (on Gearslutz and elsewhere) I wasn't too thrilled and ended up using another vendor's editors for a handful of instruments for a long time through BlueCat Patchworks in Pro Tools. It worked well and stable, but was an absolute nightmare to map automation CCs through a middle man plugin because those editors weren't native AAX.

Just last week I saw this post that v12 had released and looking at the release notes I saw SoundQuest added AAX support in the latest version so I plunked down the $400 for the version that supported generated plugins.

So it took me a few days to read through the documentation and get the jist of the layout and design, but after settings up my MIDI devices and generating the plugins (took me a few tries, but luckily generating new plugin builds was very easy) this software is fantastic!

Not only instruments, but it controls a lot of effects units I have with MIDI functionaility too.

So far I have the following devices set up and working with MidiQuest 12 on Pro Tools (and occasionally Logic Pro X):

• Access Virus C/Indigo2
• Korg Prophecy
• Behringer DeepMind 12D
• Roland JP-8080
• Alesis Quadraverb
• Roland DEP-3
• Roland JV-1080
• Clavia Nord Lead (1)
• Novation MiniNova
• Novation Bass Station II

If you end up purchasing my advice would be to first (if on a Mac) go to macOS's Audio MIDI Setup utility and name your MIDI devices, then open up the standalone MidiQuest 12 program to set up your instruments and build out any plugins you need generated (only build them out after you've set up MIDI port and channel info, otherwise, stuff isn't going to work), then generate them. If you have a single MIDI interface like on an audio interface or a USB adapter, you'll probably have a bad time with the plugins. I have two MOTU Midi Express 128 devices I have everything running through so device ports never change.

One thing I'm still wrapping my head around is the librarian functionality. It's a bit different from other editor/librarians I've used before. Currently for brevity I'm sending my SysEx patches using SysEx Librarian at the start of projects and then relying on the instant recall functionality of the plugins in the DAW project to load in the modified performances and patches.

The demo is kind of limited, I was limited to only automate 4 knobs and I couldn't test the plugin functionality as far as I could tell. That said, I'm up and running with the other devices without much problem.

It's a super deep program, it's probably the first time I opened up software and had to immediately go to the documentation. I've seen complaints that the gui looks old, but it feels alright to me. I've had a lot of these devices for years, but it feels like I've only truly started learning them in and out in the past week with MidiQuest 12.

I hate gambling on software, but this gamble definitely paid off. I'm extremely happy with MidiQuest 12.

Think I'm going to dish out the $400 for this. They don't ever do sales do they? No worries if they don't because I think it's well worth it and I want to support their massive effort with all these synth editors. I like the direction they're taking this editor and it covers practically all my synths. Integration with the DAW controlling hardware looks great.

Too bad the Kurzweil K2600 can't be covered.

I have a question - you know how Korg has their own copy of MidiQuest for Kronos? (as other manufacturers do, which MidiQuest is happy to "boast" about on their website - which by the way looks like it's from 1998 - can't they use one sale of their software to hire a web designer? sheesh.)

Does this mean they will get an update too, or that I can somehow get a discount or free license for that instrument directly with MQ? Or buying direct is its own pathway? (the other one never seemed to work properly, so I would hope they'd update the Korg-provided one, but I assume no such luck... it was probably a one-off?)

This is Korg's from 2016:
https://www.korg.com/us/support/down...re/0/424/2540/

Honestly it was always so ugly (and seemingly slow) to use, not to mention the issues, I gave up. I don't think I'd want to pay for a new version. Let alone $400!

On the other hand I just bought that Mystery Islands editor for the SuperNova, and it works great! Excellent visuals, and all parameters just work. Saving/loading banks and performance banks is a pleasure once I set the global MIDI channel to 16 as requested. I'd much rather pay them $35 on sale or even $50 at normal pricing for any instrument they support if all of theirs are THAT good. Not so much for MidiQuest - the last I remember of the one Korg provided, it felt like I was remote controlling the lunar orbiter - i.e., delayed, simple graphics meant to depict pretty deep programming, just felt a lot worse than using the Kronos itself.

If for some reason I've made a mistake and Korg's editor is NOT a custom version of MidiQuest, I apologize!

still the old boring and uninspiring user interface? didn't liked it

100% true about the interface. This is the main reason why I won't upgrade. It is too ugly to work with.. I can do better with Ctrlr... Ctrlr is free. Here we talk about an expensive software that asks you each time they upgrade to pay again..

yeah. i used ctrlr with my Alpha Juno in the past and still use it with my JV2080 (the JV-XP Editor). it's way better functionally and the layout is far better!

There are for sure a number of options out there. I started with Cubase Pro's MIDI Device Panels, which I never could get working quite right. I own several of the Mystery Islands Music editors and fully support the developer. In fact, I would say his Access VirusHC editor is probably the easiest way to understand the internals of any Access Virus, as it's quite intuitive in its layout. But he supports only 10 instruments, only 3 of which I own.

The value proposition for Midi Quest really comes into play when you'd rather control most if not all of your MIDI equipment in a consistent manner. As far as the design goes, sure the website is standard 90s affair and the generated plugins are basic looking, but I actually rather prefer that. In fact, it's one of the reasons I love MOTU's Digital Performer so much: it can still load older themes way before whitespace in UI design was ever considered a virtue and subsequently overused everywhere.

If you aren't bothered by late 90s/early 2000s era UI design and your studio contains say 5-10 or more of anything on this list, it'd be a no brainer. https://squest.com/Products/MidiQues...struments.html

The instant recall support on MIDI-controllable FX rackmount units such as my Quadraverb and DEP-3 have made me feel a lot more freedom in experimenting with different combinations too. Previously, I found the 3 or 4 settings I liked and tending only to stay with them because I ran them as AUX effects on my mixer and when pulling up different projects I'd always have to spend 5-10 minutes trying to find my original settings if I had changed much before.

The Fast Tips data is also extremely awesome. After discovering it I was able to quickly set up all of my devices with ease. (attached screenshot)

If you have 1 or 2 external MIDI devices, I would say for sure, seek out cheaper/free alternatives. But at the rate my dream gear from the 90s is going for firesale prices on Reverb and Ebay, I get the impression I'm only going to be getting more and more value out of Midi Quest as time goes on. For me, after an admittedly longish 1 month learning period for using Midi Quest and how to manage the software (read the manual), it saves me time and gets me to writing music much faster, which is what I was after in the first place. If another solution does that for you, nothing wrong with that at all

Yeah this is what I figured - it gets better if you have more and more gear that benefits from it... 3 or 4 pieces, probably not worth it. Junkie XL on the other hand, he could use ten copies of MIDIQuest. (I am not sure he uses it though, he probably just has his protege/servant/slave set it all up in Cubase for him, hehe.)

If only it worked better with the Kronos, I'd probably have a much better opinion of it! I'll give it a shot another time I guess... would be nice to actually, you know, use the Kronos sometimes! (only use it for jamming and occasionally recording a riff or two)

Wish I could find some of my "dream gear" at such prices... Was just searching on some old Waldorfs, and they're all twice as much as 5-10 years ago, and I believe even selling as much as they were new back then!