Alesis ML9600 MasterLink

I???ve had the Masterlink for over a year now and use it quite often. I find the unit easy to operate but a better remote with jog dial would be a blessing. I find myself using only a fraction of the units abilities: track crop, track normalization and some fades. I did have to upgrade my ML to the latest firmware version to resolve a bug. Making the ISO disk was a bit tedious but I got it done. Other than a minor bug that was fixed via firmware the unit has operated flawlessly.

I started with the unit hooked up via the balanced inputs and had no issue. A few months later the unit started recording noise ??? it was bad. The problem must have been a ground loop issue that I unwitting created. I switched all inputs and outputs over to optical and haven???t had any further problems. I???ve compared the recordings to my old ADAT and the ML sounds the same to me. The CD???s I???ve created sound identical to the source or at least no one that heard the recordings ever noticed anything abnormal about them.

Except for the firmware issue the unit has worked flawlessly.

I have an AC line regulator (big transformer box) feeding this units AC supply so that may go far in explaining why I stand out of the majority on the reliability point. I also went overboard and put a Monster Power filtering surge suppresser following the regulator. Both protection devices set me back about $300.00 but it???s worth it in my opinion.

I had to use customer support on the firmware issue. Although they did respond within a reasonable time, the help was a bit on the blunt side. I think his bedside manner could have been a bit better. For what it???s worth they did respond.

I really like the Master link. It has a rich feature set for a unit of its size and price. I wish it had a better (bigger) remote control (with jog and editing/DSP buttons). A removable hard drive would be nice as would computer control.

As is though it???s worth the cash (at least my unit has been). I???d say give it a shot and return it if you have issues.

I bought this as I was recording analog and needed to get mixes onto CD. I remeber it cost heaps, but at that stage it was my only alternative other than buying and setting up a computer. Previously I'd been using stand alone CD recorders, which I difficult to use because they burn straight to CD. Recording to disk first was a heaps better idea. However, my advise to potential buyers would be to get a computer and good soundcard. It will work out cheaper and you ghet heaps more it terms of functionality. (ie. an mbox and you get a pro tools package to boot)
Its reasonably easy to use in that you can just record into it and print a CD fairly easily. Using the onboard processing is really clumsy. There are no knobs for eq / compresion so everything involves scrolling through menus. Its quite fiddly and really counter-creative in my view. Trying to use parametric eq, peering into a little text screen, when you can only see one parameter at a time - well it sucks. For example, if you are on band 1 and decide band 3 needs tweeking you have to scroll through Q, gain, freq, Q, gain, freq, Q, gain, freq the edit ect ect then go back. it sucks so bad compared to using a computer screen or analog equivalent.
Also, some operations such as splitting tracks or shortening them have no dedicated buttons - so without a great memory you have to refer to the manual each time to find what the secret sequence of button pressing is - so you have to hold one button down while pressing another etc. Really frustrating. I actually sold my one after a while cause although it could potentially deliver good results its really a battle to get them.

I was reasonably happy with the sound quality. I agree its perhaps a little on the brittle or clinical side but it was alright.
The onboard processing is quite good, but as said its hard to navigate so you don't really get its potential.

The first unit I had was faulty. At high sample rates with some processing, it made a chattering sound, kind of like a little cricket in there. Then it crashed entirely. I hassled and hassled till the rep personally came around and delivered another unit, which was alright.

As said, the rep supplied a new unit so I guess its alright. Before that I contact Alesis by email but never heard back from them.

A good idea at the time but I reckon you can do better for the money.

This unit is vey easy to use, and pretty self-explanatory. It has a low learning curve. The manual is fair. The software version on the one I purchased was 2.?. It has the 40G hardrive.

The sound quality was not as good as I had expected. When you A/B a mix listening through it, you will be dissapointed. You will get 85% of the true fidelity of your mix. This is because of the A/D converters in it. It sounded like someone put a sheet in front of my speakers. I bought an m-audio flying cow A/D converter to feed it and now I get 99% of the true fidelity of my mix at 16bit/44k. Now!!! I'm happy with the sound. The rating in this category I am giving it is "without" my front end converter for it.

It seems well made and dependable, but it's new.

They have responded fairly well for other products that I've had.

This unit does a lot. It is a one unit mastering machine. You can store 52 hours of mixes and burn CD's from 16 to 24 bit. You can edit, master, EQ, clip, etc. Now since I'm using a different front end converter, I am very happy with the unit. Now instead of the flat, colorless, dull, muffled, almost mono sounding mixes I would have been recording, I now get vibrant airy accurate sounding mixes, thanx to the flying cow. I would imagine that it may sound even better with an apogee, or lucid front end, but the cow will suit your needs and it's blowing out at $249.00

Very easy to use. Manual is well written and the unit is very easy to navigate even if you don't have the manual handy. There are buttons on the front panel for editing a particular function. You just press one of these and use the cursor and arrow up/down keys to change values. Couldn't be simpler.

The unit sounds very good and seems to reproduce audio with no discernable distortion or artifacts. It's very clean and uncolored. Basically, whatever you put into it you get out of it. It has a 20 gig hard drive and you're able to record at 16 bit, 20 bit and 24 bit at 44.1kHz, 48kHz, 88.2kHz or 96kHz. You can make CD24 or RedBook CD's. It has XLR and RCA I/O.

OK...this is where things start to get bad. As soon as I started using this unit I had problems. The first of these was "static" upon playback. Sometimes I got it and sometimes not. Eventually, the problem mysteriously resolved itself on its own. Curious. Then, upon filling up about 6 or 7 "Playlists" ( the unit allows you to record upto 16 playlists ) the unit wouldn't finish the CD burning process for later "playlists". The CD's themselves would be fine and would finish OK. I tried to "restore" the unit and reformat the internal hard-drive but that never solved the problem. Eventually, the unit would fail to "Initialize" and it was impossible to burn any CD's from the material I had recorded onto the internal hard-drive.

I e-mailed Alesis a few times and gave them a short description of the problem and they never got back to me.

I really wanted to like this unit and, when it worked, sounded quite good and was easy to use. However, for a unit that cost about $1,000 I would think it should work and perform much better. By the way, the internal "sound processing" such as limiting/compression is basically useless. If you're looking into this unit to do final mastering then look elsewhere because the processing is worthless for mastering or mixing purposes. I don't even know why they include it !!!
Perhaps I got a lemon, I don't know. I haven't read much about other people's experience with this ML9600 so I can't comment on that. However, I cannot recommend this unit. It has been so unreliable. By the way, I keep this unit in my smoke-free home studio...it has NOT been "on the road". I hope to get rid of this unit and eventually buy a Denon / Marantz CDR420, which is basically the same thing as the Alesis. I trust Denon to make a better product, to be quite honest. I've never been a fan of Alesis and the only reason I bought the MasterLink is because it was the only unit of it's kind and the most economical choice for my budget and purposes. I have had so much trouble and poor performance with this Alesis product that I don't think I would buy from Alesis again. I wish Tascam made a product similar to the ML9600. I have a Tascam TSR-8 which works great despite it being a 15 year old unit.
Overall, the Alesis MasterLink is not worth the money it's being sold for...way overpriced. If they sold it for $350 it would still be unreasonable. I've had crappy cassette multitracks that have worked longer and better. if I could give this MasterLink a -50 I would, so I will end up rating it with an OverAll Rating of...1
Spend your hard-earned money elsewhere and support companies that stand behind their product with good customer service.