i was fortunate enough to hear an Ion at NAMM so i knew to stear clear of it. wasn't impressed with the sound.

i knew a guy who used to own a MachineDrum. he was totally in love with it until he rediscovered rock music and sold the thing to buy a guitar stack. what i heard from the thing was nice, dunno if that would justify the price tag, tho.

check out the samples of the Monomachine at Elektrons page. I like the design a lot. The demos sound really thin and digital. Not even digital in a harsh way, more like digital in a 8-bit gameboy way. Dont know if youve heard the Sidstation but the samples sounded very similar to it. Then again, maybe the demos were just shitty examples.

nevermind, i shoulda read the thread title, heh.

ok guys, tell me what is wrong with the alesis ion ? currently i'm like trying to deside to buy it or not. i heard small sounds demo's and had a quick run with it in the local music store. the arp sounds nice, the leads are so-so, but those were just preset sounds.
the internal FX looked great.
the keyboard does like like a toy dough :-)

another question about the Ion: Ive heard it has a lot of new filters. Could anyone describe them?

the elektron machinedrum. ive got the m-audio machine drum samplecd.
ive heard some of the samples and demosongs. i know zombie nation uses the sidstation. i know its really expensive for a mos6581 low quality drum sampler/computor/whatever. try the sample cd first i think.

ok, as for the ion. well, we've had hella problems updating the OS and it refuses to accept midi dumps. the midi timing is extremely jittery and trying to use the more rhythmic patches in a looping way often causes stuck notes, requiring the synth to be rebooted. fucking nasty.

the effects leave a LOT to be desired. 80ms delay max. 4 different distortions, which are all pretty cool. lots of phase/flanger and one chorus. no verb, wtf?

as for the sounds, the presets are uniformly grotesque, amongst the absolute shittiest i've ever ever ever heard!!! they require serious reworking before they're remotely usable. out of the 500 or so, there might be 2 or 3 that i would consider working with on a record.

the arpeggiator is absolute bullshit. it doesn't lock to midi clock very well, and the patterns are fucking awful...unusable, although when applied to more "drum pattern" oriented sounds it can produce some interesting results.

now, on the upside, the mod matrix is very cool though it has some weird bugs. nothing too crippling. the filters are cool particularly when they're run through some of the distortion effects. there are about 18 to choose from, and the routing is well designed.

the rotary encoders are very nice, but aren't useable like a control surface, transmitting NRPNs that only the ion would decode. but they are smooth and track well. another interesting feature is there are 2 mod wheels, which can yield interesting results depending on what they're controlling, and they're capable of controlling virtually any parameter.

overall its a good synth if you're willing to dig into some hardcore sound design, otherwise go elsewhere. its ideal for IDM or rhythmic noise bands, i think. not so good for techno or industrial. it makes an alright controller (lacks aftertouch though), which is how i'm using it at the moment. my main complaints are based around the shit midi response, which is utterly unacceptable.

batterycage,

thanks for your review on the synth. hmmm, not that positive after all. i guess i'll have to await the Kürzweill VA1.
but i have also been looking at some user forums for the ion. on a lot of forums they talk about the midi-dump problem. and the solution seams to be unlocking the rom's of the ion. (i don't have an ion, so i'm not sure if it would help)
but after reading your review i was wondering if user soundbanks can be downloaded from the net ? most synths i have, have a good net suport.

It seems that just about every VA priced below $1500 has troubles like that.

My A-Station freaks out on MIDI dumps from time to time, and for the most part the effects are crap.

The MS2000, a well-reputed synth, has few effects (delay, EQ, Chorus, distortion), the arpeggiator delay makes it nearly unusuable, and clock-sync doesn't work right on rhythmic patches.

Even my venerable Matrix1000, which isn't a virtual analog, has weird stuck note issues.

I don't even bother with in-synth effects. Unless they're particularly interesting or unique, I usually just strip them from the patch and add them later with better effects gear.

null: if i didn't read the begining of battery's description i would have sworn that he was talking about the MS2000. i have the original rack version and really love/hate it. the best sounds i get from it are when i ram it thru my Alesis Quadraverb and distort the reverb. those are 2 odd boxes...

...and not to mention the Matrix1000! i recently got my hands on one of those. no controller, tho. for that i'm using the Logic environment and it's a little wiggity-wack. nice sounding box that one.

I have a SIDStation, and I really like it. I'd like a Monomachine, but I don't think that will ever happen now.

Anyway, I recommend Elektron. They're good people, and are responsive with the tech support.

monomachine has a REALLY distinct sound, even when it is trying to emulate another type of synth....its great!!! i think a lot of syths have a very "blah" sound...yeah they can whip out the wanna be 303 sounds or try to make an ober-bass, but they lack character...the monomachine has TONS of character......

I RECOMEND THE MACHINEDRUM!! WOW!