As far as I can tell, the only advantages this thing has over the MPC One is that it will run on battery power, and has Roland badging. For the $300 it would cost me to get a tablet for it, I'd do better getting a battery pack to run the MPC One. Then I'd still have a better sequencer, I could still...

I have not had the opportunity to try the remake, and frankly some of the reviews haven't been all that great so I'm not in a huge hurry to do so.

What do you think of the music?

I have the BCR2000.

I never Zaquencered it, I use it as originally set up, and I still use it today. It's just a great tool for what it is.

I think that I will be buying this.

Perhaps not quite what you were looking for, but in harmony with Rost + Licht's suggestion of the MPC family (an opinion I share) also consider a keyboard workstation. Unquantised recording? Check. Song mode? Check. MIDI transfer? Check. Playfulness? Depends on what you mean. If you get a Kronos (ob...

I tried to get a microstation! I really, really tried. So hard that I dealt with people who totally pinky-swear promised me they'd have a microstation for me, no question, and then tried to push me on a Kross. I have a Kross. I like the Kross. But it's not a microstation. But in this particular case...

I'd like a nice, at least velocity-sensitive keyboard which is relatively small, with plenty of octaves. Kind of like KORG's microKEY-61, but ideally capable of talking DIN MIDI. Anything like that out there? (For the minikey haters: yeah, I know, I'll grow hair on my palms and go blind. I got the m...

I was thinking of the XW-PD1, but I have an open mind unbiased by, as I said before, any real-world contact with any of the above.

Again, it seemed just ripe for the "bad gear" treatment, if only because it seems to have real power, while looking weird and being mocked by the market.

Anyone try one of the Millenium Falcon looking things? I keep waiting for Audiopilz to do a Bad Gear episode on one, but honestly from what I saw of the initial presentations, they looked pretty credible. If it has some of the same sequencing processes that the XW-P1 has, it's a surprisingly nice bi...

Don't knock the possibility of some multi-effects pedals. Plenty to choose from, from various manufacturers, but I'll put in a word for Zoom's G3n because not only does it have a wide range of effects that you can stack up, including some pretty decent lofi-related ones, but it's surprisingly compac...

KORG Kross 61 keys. Original if you like - it has the handle - but II isn't bad either. Lightweight. Easy to move, runs on batteries, II has a couple of knobs that you can set for parameter moves. Linear sequencing plus an arpeggiator and drum track. You can overdub multiple things into audio tracks...

I should add that I'm really looking forward to the delivery (Q1 next year) of my Synesthesia Pipes. Should be able to load some pretty massive sound libraries into it, according to the specs.

Who needs politics to polarize and damage a community. This whole discussion effectively is about politics. Regulation of businesses (current, future or hypothetical) is a political topic, and if you read closely you'll see that many are applying their own moral codes to their analyses - again, a t...

Who needs politics to polarize and damage a community. This whole discussion effectively is about politics. Regulation of businesses (current, future or hypothetical) is a political topic, and if you read closely you'll see that many are applying their own moral codes to their analyses - again, a t...

Hardware: In that budget, you can get her a nice recorder. Even something like a Tascam DP-006, which incorporates mics, two inputs, and can actually be used to put together a production or demo on a serious amateur level, if you have the chops. Software: On android, my immediate go-to options would...

I guess that shows how much I care about fitness equipment. Good catch! Anyway, the general point stands that this thing is too expensive for what it is. The old-school touchscreen technology is not great, and without aftertouch its strongest argument is that it has a bunch of virtual synthesis engi...

You may be thinking of the nordictrack. But yeah, it's substantially more expensive than the Krome, and lacks some key elements of the Kronos. It's kinda-sorta Kronos lite. If the objection to a Kronos is money, then someone would go elsewhere (Casio has some decent options, the MPCs are riding high...

It looks like a Kronos, without Karma, aftertouch, the set of faders or, for that matter, much else that differentiates it. OK, the knobs you can depress to prevent accidental tweaks are a nice touch. For the same money, I'd get an MPC One, a studiologic controller keyboard, and a couple of nice ext...

@Kokepan Solaris? Don’t know that. Will check it out. Good idea on the modular expansion. www.johnbowen.com I met the man himself briefly - my one and only gripe was that the price was high enough that I could build a low-end bedroom studio for less money. But for a retirement gift to self? I don't...

grip a solaris and call it a day A solaris is an excellent idea. I haven't had time to noodle one much, but I did have hands on one and I was very impressed. That said, another option would be to get a really solid expansion for the modular world with the intention of populating your MPC with lovel...

My take:

Build quality: solid

Sound quality: great

Usability: fine

Gripes: wish it had more patching options

Price: a steal

The people who are selling it are selling it because they either don't want or don't understand what it offers. That's their loss and your gain.

KORG Gadget, Hardware Edition. Some of them would be quite tasty. I wouldn't mind getting my hand son them. Phoenix, for example, or Wolfsburg. Dublin would be fun. Kiev and Chiang Mai would be definites. Milpitas so much fun, Warszawa too. Make them all USB powered, MIDI and audio over USB, and the...

I'm trying hard to remember, but ... wouldn't a Kronos do all this as well? OK, it doesn't have a piano roll editing mode, so there is that. Right now Akai Professional are pretty much owning the high ground on workstation class devices, although their sound design is a little weak for now ... altho...

This is a bit off the wall, but ... don't ignore how VA some romplers can be. For example, the KORG Krome will get you two digital oscillators, for which it offers pure waveforms, and then you get some LFOs and filters and envelopes to play with. It's pretty configurable, and then on top of it you g...

I will add: the Neutron is a beast of a synth, and a genuine delight to use. It's my favourite semi-modular, and in fact my favourite analogue in my arsenal. If there's one that deserves the love of extra faceplates and general electronic snuggles (or to be ridden harder than a mechanical bull on fr...

Clarification: I have a Neutron, but as I'm colour-blind (the same reason that I, with deep regret, don't buy a Deluge) I don't really have a problem with the front panel colour. That said, your design looks really cool, and I can't say that I'd never want it - but for the foreseeable future, I woul...