Quote:
Originally Posted by
felis
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I was surprised at the amount of functionality coming from this board.
A pretty good all-arounder if you can get past the Casio name.
There are just a whole ton of excellent bang for the buck products to choose from these days.
Older romplers/workstations are good value. And for those looking for more straight synth type things, the older older Ion/Micron/MiniAK and the newer inexpensive Waldorf stuff offer good programmability and sound.
Enough good stuff around to make your head spin.
Really the part that's tough to get around is the user manual and the UI. The user manual might as well be tossed in the trash because it makes it harder to learn the machine than just poking it with a stick and figuring it out intuitively.
The UI isn't terrible for editing the synth engines but the relationship between the sequencer and the part mixer is obtuse in the extreme. And the Control Tracks could have been thought out better - why the CC values need to be entered numerically and not with a slider is beyond me. And forget the USB, it's a joke. Luckily the editor software communicates via Midi. Anyways once you get accustomed to working with these niggles it does have great potential. I use it in my music constantly now and despite the weirdnesses its step sequencer beats the pants off of my Beatstep Pro.
I also agree about the Ion/Micron. Extremely capable machines and for the money a guaranteed win whatever style of music you make.