neur0mancer

Loaded with high quality sounds that the Triton line is known for. Versatile arpeggiator, with plenty of options. Wish it had a built-in sequencer, but at least it can be sequenced externally from Ableton or other DAWs. Good build quality, feels nice and solid. The pads are a little finicky, I find I need to tap with 2 fingers; if I just use one, sometimes it doesn't register.

This is basically a Roland Alpha Juno emulator VSTi, so it's got the classic hoovers, which sound pretty accurate to me, very similar to the ones on my Dominator and Mentasm 12"s, plus a wide range of other sounds. And of course it's analogue modelling, so you can make your own from scratch as well. But lets face it, for people who buy this, it's those hoovers that matter. And it nails those.

Got mine on sale for $10. Has a built-in mic as well as 1/4" input, so it works for any instrument, including acoustic instruments and voice. It also includes a metronome, a drum track, and a distortion effect, though I haven't tested the latter. Runs on a 9V battery.

Picked this up at a time when I needed a sampler and was about to become unemployed, so it was a bit of a desperation purchase. And as it turned out, it really wasn't the sort of tool I needed. I eventually ended up getting an SP-505 and a Korg ES-1 to replace it, and between the two of them they do what I need better than this thing does. And my SP-808 has been stored away in a box for about 12 years. That's not to say that it's not useful or powerful, though. It's got some great capabilities, great effects and such. But it has a bit of a split personality. It's best thought of more as a studio workstation, rather than just a sampler, yet it's designed for live performance. And it uses a zip drive and zip disks, which can develop the click-of-death issue from being moved around too much.

It doesn't come all that close to a realistic electric guitar, but in a track that may not be noticeable. It's definitely not that far off either, though. And it does sound good for a guitar-like sound, especially with the addition of a distortion plugin.

This is my go-to plugin for electric bass and synth bass sounds. Just wish it did pure sine subbass too.

For a free program, it's great. Basically capable of meeting any audio editing needs, and then some. However, I really dislike actually using it, I find the interface somehow counter-intuitive. I guess it's just that I'm still used to SoundForge; I love SoundForge, and dislike Audacity, but I use Audacity because I don't want to buy Sony software.