Sample 250

Little is documented about the Sample 250. The surviving period references are scattered and often fragmentary. What they describe is a professional sampling-based keyboard from the mid-1980s, likely the same instrument marketed elsewhere as the Kurzweil 250. The record suggests a big, rack-mountable unit: 19 inches wide, 7 inches high, 15 inches deep, and 47 pounds. Mix Magazine (December 1986, p.191) called it a multi-timbral, 12-voice polyphonic instrument with 88 touch-sensitive wooden keys. It also said this was "the only sampling-based instrument with which you can" - and then the sentence cuts off in the available copy. The same source stated that by late 1986 the instrument offered up to 87 ROM-based sounds. Another period account, in Recording Engineer (October 1985, p.194), mentioned an auto-split function with an override that let the player set the split range by striking the lower and upper notes. It also noted that two samples should occur on the F or F# above middle C, a detail that hints at the multisample mapping.

Beyond these snippets, almost nothing is firmly recorded about the Sample 250 under this exact branding. No further specifications, production years, or original pricing have been confirmed. What survives places it among the early serious sampling workstations: large, heavy, and built for studio use.