Lampdog wrote:Yeah I've heard about the 5k synth. I've never heard or played with it personally.
Good friends have said it sucked and/or left them wanting for something way better. I can understand
that feeling.
I had the 5000 for quite a while. Sold it when I first caught wind of a new MPC. I really found myself not using it too often, as I was doing everything faster and with less hassle in Ableton with Touch. Always wanted a hybrid MPC. I could never bring myself to let the 5000 go, because I liked having it in the studio. But the truth is, it was less efficient for me so I didn't use it much.
I tried the VA synth in the 5000 very briefly. It sounded ok, not great. You could probably get some stuff going with it if you worked at it. But personally, I wouldn't bother. There are a lot of great, cheap VA synths out there (I think the 5000 was based off of technology from Alesis Micron/Ion which are actually two fantastic VAs). I personally don't bother with a synth that doesn't have a ton of knobs that are quickly adjusted. The smallish screen on the 5000 just didn't cut it for me in terms of synth programming.
Bottom line, all I'm expecting from the X is a stable sequencer, decent sampler that doesn't color the sound, and something that I can jam out with in my living room, then take it to the studio and connect it to the computer to flesh things out, and when I'm done throw everything back on the X to jam or play out. I personally don't want an all in one solution, I like using several (read many) different synths/samplers because they all inspire me to work in a different way. I'm firm believer that playing an instrument is a two way interaction. Anyways, getting a little off topic. But if Akai can pull of a stable OS, with a workflow similar, but improved, compared to older MPCs, with projects that can freely communicate between machine and computer... That's all I want. And the price is worth it to me.
I ordered mine from Thomann. I think it was 1540 euros shipped to the US (no VAT). Not sure what I'll pay in import duties. But I've ordered quite a bit of modular gear from Europe and paid no import duties in the past. From what I could find, I believe import tax on synthesizers (which I think Thomann had this classified as) is 5.3%. It's still well below Sweetwater's asking price even if import taxes are added.