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Alesis Fusion 8HD Keyboard Workstation Price Paid: $999 Guitar Center Special ($1499 from musiciansfriend, etc.) Specs: 88 Weighted Keys Several Synth Engines, at least one of which is amazing Built-in Hard Drive, 8-track recorder Sequencer Built-in Sampler Lots and lots of customizability, e.g. assignable control knobs, triggers, switches and wheel; everything about a sound is tweakable in software as opposed to hard-wired. I forget how much sample memory it has but I can preload everything I want to. Lots and lots of output options Full MIDI capabilities Sound: 9.5 / 10 One of the reasons I got this board is because I'm a pianist and I don't have room for a piano, but I also use it to play with others and occasionally gig out. The live sound is fine (as far as I can tell?). The Holy Grail piano sample is a tiny bit inconsistent velocity-wise; there are 3 samples for each note, corresponding to 3 dynamics. I can hear the step-up between the bottom two and no amount of tweaking has fixed it. In short: don't buy this keyboard just for the piano sample. (Although aside from this minor complaint, I am astounded by how good it does sound through headphones) The synthesizers are pretty awesome though. It has "Virtual Analog Synthesis," which means that it models analog processes. You can start from the ground up, building on basic wave-forms, combining them, putting envelopes and filters on them... it's really been limited only by my (admittedly mundane) imagination. It's tough for me to describe, so I'll link you to a tutorial put up by the Alesis guys on the VA engine: http://www.alesis.com/downloads/tutorials/ALESIS_FUSION_Editing_an_Analog_Synth_Program_Tutorial.pdf (PDF) There are two other synth engines, FM (which I guess is standard) and "Physical Modeling" which attempts to model wind instruments in real time. I haven't really touched these yet so I'm skipping them. I should also mention the tons and tons of free libraries available from Alesis and Hollow Sun, who apparently work for Alesis or something. They sound OK, I guess--I'm new to this whole thing so I don't have a reference, but I've recorded with these sounds and they sound pretty good to me. Alesis has also provided a bit of software that will convert .wavs and other formats into alesis sample format. I haven't used it, but I imagine this would be useful for some folks. Thus because of the built-in hard drive you aren't limited to the sounds that they give you; not even close. Instrument Quality: 9.5 / 10 For two bass octaves, some of the black keys scrape the chassis just a little bit. Well, scraped--a dremel fixed it easily. It did go clickety-clack though. Everything else seems solid, however. I'm chalking it up to the law of averages. Here's where I'm going to throw in the bit about it being USB-recognizable. You just plug it in and you can mess around with the hard drive straightaway. It also becomes a Compact Flash Card reader in this way. (CF cards are how you upgrade the OS) Playbility: 10 / 10 This is what held me back from buying this board for so long. As I've been playing piano for years and years, I was very afraid of getting a keyboard. I didn't even get to try this one out before I bought it (and believe me I tried). Luckily, I am in love. I actually prefer it to my school's practice pianos and I can transition very smoothly from my Fusion to an acoustic piano. So the keybed is extremely playable. In addition, I like the controls a lot; they are well-placed and responsive. The whole thing is wonderful to play on. Overall Value: 10 /10 I'm so pleased that I got this instead of the Yamaha MO-8 I nearly bought. It has really lived up to all the hype. The price was very right--When I got it Alesis was doing a promotion and giving away some active monitors on top of Guitar Center's crazy 500 dollar discount, so I really got a steal. It's done absolutely everything I've asked it to. Highly recommended.
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Feb 16, 2007 05:14
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| # ¿ Apr 29, 2024 01:59 |
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