I’m actually sad though cos the new mBase is definitely a good bit better than my mBase01 if it has the built in compressor :( – when I first saw the press release I thought it was just ‘oh an extra knob and some more presets’ maybe – but now Im depressed lol

The Dark Energy looks cool – but it does have a fair bit of competition in that price and class these days – Blofeld and Mopho (actually I cant think of any others but theyre must be :p)

The Micron sounds amazing and has incredible features, unequaled in any other synths in that price range – or even above it. What other portable synth can you name that has 8-way multitimbral splits, an x0x grid drum machine, a real-time looping sequencer, transposable midi-clips (a la Ableton Live), a great arpeggiator, a very nice sounding vocoder (more JMJ than Kraftwerk), and basic effects?

The problem is the Micron was hampered by an unusual user interface, which many people found too minimal. Once you learn it, its quite easy to navigate, and very fast. But of course, everyone just wants a million presets and a filter cutoff knob.

I’m excited to see Akai’s revision of the Micron synth engine. Hopefully they will have made some improvements to the UI.

Oliver – not everyone loves Live unconditionally. :)

I use it extensively, but I always end up mixing down and doing automation in Logic. Additionally, for sequencing external hardware, Live is pretty basic and doesn’t handle bank switching easily. Of course there’s work-arounds, and the productivity enhancements are hard to turn away from, but Live still has some maturing to do as an app. I’ve been using it since its first beta, and have followed its evolution very closely. I’m excited to see what version 8 brings, but ultimately I would be happy if they finally got really solid midi sync, and a few other minor fixes.

I applaud Presonus for bringing a new DAW out. It looks to be a far better product than the lite version of Cubase most FW interfaces ship with, and it can’t hurt to have fresh ideas and more competition in the field. Of course being a crusty Logic/Live user, its going to take a lot to get me to use it. :)

The Dark Energy, however looks VERY promising. Chasing one of those as soon as I can..

As for Vocoder, Orange was classic and has a nice specifictone. There are a lot of methods available to Vocode now (EHX = fun, TC = sort of Vocoder, Korg Triton was not too bad of a vocoder, etc…).

In the software side you can do anything you want. Live, you are still limited. I would love to see someone’s review who is pushing the EXH voice box. The Holy Strain (pitch shifting) makes me a little concerned running my weird stuff through it… For the non-software it is all about tone, but not at the compromise of tracking speed.