finetales's Reviews

Worth every penny

Possibly the single greatest upgrade you can make to a home studio. Absolutely pristine audio!

Heavenly!

I got obsessed with the Prologue the day it was announced, and when I finally got my hands on one it lived up to all my expectations. It sounds amazing and is a pleasure to play. Now that Korg has resolved the tuning issue this synth is epic!

Great Live Mixer

I've used this at countless live gigs and it has flawlessly stood up to all the abuse that gets thrown at it, including drunk audience members spilling beer on it. The only thing that would make it better is a USB interface like the ProFX line.

Nothing Better

There is no better harmonizer pedal you can buy, period. It just so happens to also come with really amazing live sampling, effects, and looping. It's worth every penny.

Great VA

Awesome synth. One of the sleepers of Novation's old lineup. It isn't just a cut down Supernova; it has its own sound. They don't come up for sale very often so nab it (or the KS Rack version) when you can.

Fantastic Live Workstation

The Kross 61 has been a trusty companion for live gigs since the day I got it. It weighs only about 10 pounds (including recessed carrying handle), has a slim backpack gig bag you can get for it, has more usable sounds than you know what to do with, and has an awesome Favorites interface for recalling patches with just one button press. It's one of the most live-friendly boards I've ever seen.

It's not perfect (hence the four stars); 61 keys is enough for most things but no octave buttons is a downside, there are no real-time editing controls for cutoff etc. like most other workstations in this price range (new or old), and I don't think the PC editor is very intuitive. But overall if I were to pick between a Kross and any other entry-level workstation from a different brand, it would be the Kross every time. I'd pick the Kross over the Krome, to be honest.

However, unless you find one for a really good price used (I've seen them as low as $300), don't buy one. Buy a Kross 2. It's better in every way, and I really wish I had known it was coming when I bought my Kross a month before it was released.

The best thing this side of a DX7

The Reface DX is:

1) The best way to get into hardware FM synthesis on the market. 2) The easiest to edit hardware FM synth there is, by a long shot. 3) The best 4-operator FM synth ever made. 4) An amazing ultra-portable tool, like all Refaces.

I can't speak enough praises about this synth. As a complete package it might be my favorite synth I've ever owned. If you're at all interested in hardware FM, get one ASAP.

10/10

Fantastic case. The wheels seal the deal.

Solid

My cheap sustain of choice. Get the FC4A if you want a more traditional feel.

Decent

It's 44 lb. and only puts out 40 watts of power. Not the greatest output for that weight, but it works fine and can take lots of abuse because it was built so heavily. Two line inputs, individual volumes + master volume, 3-band EQ, and that's about it (besides the power switch). Also doesn't come with the pictured castor wheels so don't count on that.

It's an Amp

It's a tiny practice amp. Nothing special, nothing bad.

Preset Machine

It's just a preset home keyboard, but pretty fun to jam on. Unlike the sought after old Casio keyboards that have sound editing capabilities, this one only has an EQ panel (which is still pretty cool).

Great Manual Harmonizer

The predecessor to later TC pedals with "Notes Mode" like the Voicelive Touch, Voicelive Touch 2, Voicelive 3, Voicelive 3 Extreme, Perform-VK, and Perform-VE, the Voicetone Harmony-M is a great harmonizer pedal that lets you play the harmonies you want via MIDI in a mode this pedal calls "Manual Mode".

I used it for harmonizing myself on both horns and vocals live and it worked well. That said, I upgraded to a Perform-VE and that's in a whole different league. It's been long discontinued and there usually aren't any for sale so they're hard to track down. If you can find one for cheap get it, otherwise I'd just go with the Perform-VK (or VE if you can afford it).

The Standard

It's the standard for a reason! Works on everything in every context.

It's OK

Pretty average interface, but it does what I need it to. Definitely get a separate preamp if you're going to record vocals or acoustic instruments with it.

I'd avoid it

It's...not great. I bought it in a Black Friday sale and there are some positives, so let's get those out of the way:

• The keys and wheels are actually not bad at all.
• It's really light.
• If you play softsynths from a tablet (especially an iPad or iPad 2) there is a dedicated tablet holder front and center that is a great feature. It was actually one of the main reasons I bought it, and then I never ended up using my tablet live. Oops. But still a great feature.
• It's cheap, especially used.

Ok, so that's the good. The bad is that the quality is pretty terrible. Things stopped working properly almost immediately and after a few months the volume knob didn't do anything and the volume would stay stuck on around 55 (I say around because it was never still on it...constantly fluctuating very rapidly up to 10 in either direction) and the octave buttons were finicky, often either not responding or going up 2 octaves. I didn't abuse mine, it just started falling apart.

Good for Travel

I bought it dirt cheap because it fit in a tiny strip of space left on my desk. The minikeys are not great but for what I use it for it's fine. Octave buttons are great, but I wish there was a joystick or something (like the Korg NanoKey) instead of 3 buttons for pitch and mod. Overall though it's great for traveling and the 32 keys do make a difference over 25 (though it's weird that the half octave is on the top rather than the bottom like most).

Why not?

It's fun to mess around and make chaotic noise with, but where I think it shines the most is as an external filter for a different synth. There's an awesome YouTube video of someone running a Kawai K1 through it that inspired me to get it in the first place. Really cheap to pick up (even though this classic version (which is the best one IMO) isn't made anymore) and a fun way to get an MS-20 filter sound. It's noisy but for <$50 what do you expect? The MS-20 is noisy.

Nice Virtual Analog

Positives: Light, compact, portable, can run on batteries, has an XY touchpad, 3 oscillators, built-in effects, easy to use software patch manager, has the "X-Gator" that I don't think any other Novation synth has, capable of a wide variety of sounds.

Negatives: Although many parameters are accesible via the 11 editing knobs, there are many more that can only be accessed with menu diving on the tiny screen which is a little tedious and slows creativity (for me anyway). Build quality is also not the greatest.

A Classic for a Reason

I've tried all the free VST emulations including Dexed (which works as a patch editor/creator for the real thing), the sampled sounds on a Nord Electro, and even put converted MK1 patches on my SY77 (which has an enhanced DX7II inside). Although the SY77 and indeed the DX7II both sound lovely, there is nothing like an actual DX7 for that '80s FM sound. It is fairly heavy and programming it is notoriously difficult, but nothing can replace that sound.