Ldizzy wrote: i know they speak midi
Yes, but not very well. IMHO
Elektron's first product did not nearly live up to the quality standards of their later gear. I briefly owned one of these and sent it back, for three major reasons:
1. The Sid chip died. Most likely killed by a transient voltage because
Elektron did not incorporate any kind of isolation between the chip and the audio I/O jacks. It's just straight metal to metal. Considering the Sid is the single most fragile, sensitive, rare and valuable part of the machine AND they don't warn you about this in the manual I got with it (if I'd known I probably never would have connected it without an iso transformer) I found this to be unacceptable. Actually, if they had just used a single TRS jack instead of the dual 1/4 inch jacks that might have prevented the problem as well.... and even cost less...
2. It can't take midi. No matter how much or how little I sent it, sooner or later the thing would crash and corrupt it's entire patch memory. I found I had to reset and reload the thing waayy too many times. Glad I never tried it in a live setting.
3. Flimsy construction -- Actually it's not quite that bad, unless you have to take it apart. I did, because they were supposed to send me a new Sid chip that my dealer never received. If they had sent it, they would have had to send me a new set of larger self tapping screws, since the soft aluminum will only hold those things snug the first time they are put in.
I know these complaints aren't specific to my unit because I've seen other former users online say the same, and I also got the same crashing problems out of a friend's SidStation (which he's left disused in the corner for some time and may soon hit the auction block)
I like the sid sound, but all in all that design seemed more like sid chip abuse to me. It does have it's good points such as the user interface and the wave sequencing feature, but when it's crashing every five minutes those points don't amount to much. There are other sid-based synths out there to look into, such as the MIDIbox SID or the HardSID and HardSID Quattro PC add on cards. I'd check those out first.
BTW like I said don't take this as a dissing of
Elektron in general -- the stuff they came out with after the SS showed they had learned from their mistakes and are much better products, IMHO.
), but he never uses it b/c he thinks the interface sucks and it's pretty noisy. I would say it's probably not worth the $$$. I don't know if you're any good at DIY, but check this out:
a little bit of noise never bothered me.
