jesse_cian_fawcett's Reviews

Next best thing to the real thing

I'll likely never own an actual Roland TB-303, but for my budget, this does the job perfectly, and cheap enough that I could buy 2 of them. There may be some subtle differences in the sound, but that's also true between individual TB-303s. When it comes down to it, what matters most is not whether it's an exact duplicate of the 303, but what it sounds like and what it's capable of in its own right. And in that respect, it's an acid machine, with the full range and capabilities of a 303, plus the added benefit of MIDI and a USB connection for easy programming, and saving and loading sequences. I have yet to find anything about it that warrants criticism, though I haven't used it that much yet. I've heard criticisms from others, that seem legitimate, but don't correspond to my own experience.

Great sounds

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.

The classic Juno sounds

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.

Cheap and effective

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.

Pretty powerful, but not what I needed

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.

Not that close to realistic, but not bad

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.

Great bass

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

Sounds good, but has stability issues

I used this in my recent recording of JS Bach's Air on the G String, using it for a woodwind ensemble (oboe, clarinet, bassoon, and flute). It has a nice sound, at least for those instruments. However, I had serious stability issues with several DSK VSTis, including this one. This is the second ensemble one I tried, since the first one crashed so often that I was unable to render the piece. This one did better, but still crashed Ableton during multiple attempts to render the song, before eventually succeeding. So it can definitely be a bit of an exercise in frustration, but if you can get it to work, it can be worth the effort.

Does the job

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.

Great sound, pretty close to a real guitar

I haven't really gotten the hang of using it yet, though, but i haven't played guitar in a long time, so that's probably a major factor.

Great for studio and live performance

I use it both in the studio and for performing live (though so far I've only done that in the studio). It completely revolutionized my music and my production workflow when I switched to it from Acid. I've tried a number of other DAWs, and Live is definitely the right one for me--it's intuitive for me to use, and works well with my style of production. My only major issue with it is stability, though often that's a plugin-related issue. Rendering my most recent finished work took about 10 tries due to it crashing partway through.

Worth the price

There are plenty of free VSTis out there that can somewhat approximate the sound of a 303, but nothing comes anywhere near as close as this. This plugin takes me back to my roots of producing with ReBirth, but with the addition of 17 years experience as a producer.

Built like a tank

Solid portable 8/12-channel mixer. Only 2 channel EQ though, and channel faders are knobs, rather than sliders, both of which make it less than ideal for live performance.

My first midi keyboard

Served me well for a while, though at this point I'd like to replace it.

Cheap condenser microphone

Cheap, does the job. Sound quality isn't great, you somewhat get what you pay for, but it's far better than other mics in its price range. I've heard that, except cosmetically, it's identical to the MXL V67G, for about 1/4 the price, as a result of a patent infringement settlement. I'm not sure if that's actually true, though. In any case, at some point it seems the two companies merged, so if you find one now (seen one recently on Amazon), it's now an MXL SP1.

Difficult to program, but cool

This is a pretty decent lead/pad synth, dual oscillator, 5 voices, 8 notes polyphony. It's quite complicated to program though, so people who use it tend not to go much beyond the presets, which are mostly more pad-oriented sounds. It doesn't have a built-in sequencer, so it needs to be controlled externally.

Nice little drum pad

Good for programming rhythms in the studio, or triggering samples live. The knobs feel good; the pads a little bit less so, but not bad.

Decent little keyboard

Nice and solid construction, does the job pretty well, but tends to lose its connection from time to time. Lack of a pitch bend control is the only serious flaw though. I use this mostly for working out note sequences in the studio, rather than for performance or anything like that, and for that it's perfect.

Fantastic controller

This is a great controller for live performance, giving hands-on control of software parameters.

Hindered by obsolescence

The sound quality from this interface is beautiful, the feel of most of the controls is decent (though I dislike the hard plastic buttons). Working with it is a bit unintuitive, but once you get the hang of it, it's a great unit. And it was a pretty good bargain for what I paid for it (CAD $800), compared to other similar interfaces (eg. Digidesign 003 desktop, about CAD $2400 at the time). The big issue with it is drivers. The most recent driver for it is for Windows Vista, and that driver is pretty buggy. I use it under Windows 7 with that driver, and it's even more buggy in 7. If I want to upgrade to a future version of Windows, I'll likely need to replace this unit.