Alesis ION

Best user interface I've ever used, uncluttered spaciously laid out silky smooth continuous controllers that are fixed to the panel (so no wobble)with an edit button for each section if you need to get deeper. The envelope buttons can feel a little awkward at first being over the level/rate controls but you soon get use to it.
The decent large LCD automatically jumps to whatever parameter your editing and gives a nice graphic of waveforms, envelopes ect and also has a small sub menu at the bottom for more in depth parameters which is a simple back and forth affair to get to whatever you need.
I'm not a newcomer to synths but I pretty much had this synth licked inside and out in just over an hour.
Some people moan about the LCD being flat however I have my Ion mounted quite lower down so it's not an issue.

Only 8 voice 4 part but not a major issue as I use one 5 voice poly part and three mono parts and there's no need to layer sounds as it sounds pretty phat already. It also keeps the cost down as with say a Virus your paying more for polyphony and mutiFX.

The overdrive FX are excellent for giving this synth the grunge of a real analogue at it treats each voice separately so chords don't sound a mess. The other regular FX are a little disappointing but you do get four outputs so external processing is easy enough.

Sadly isn't now discontinued giving the Micron a few extra features like reverb and a simple sequencer.

Keyboard feels a little cheaper than some synths but I've had no trouble with it although I'm not really a player as such. The three mod wheels are nice to use and glow red when moved which looks really cool.

The synth engine is pretty comprehensive and gives you everything you need this side of a modular; X3 VCO with continuous wavform shaping, FM, ringmod, twin multimode filters with various routing options, 16 path mod matrix, X4 banks of 127 memories, 3 very comprehensive envelope generators with various looping and level stages which can be as simple or as complex as you like and is another virtue that puts this synth ahead of most.

First thing is NO STEPPING thanks to the high resolution 12 bit encoders that is soooo much better than the naff old 127 MIDI standard and gives the synth a quality feel and fine tuning ability of programming a real vintage analogue.

The waveforms are decent enough with a slightly nasally vintage 'US' sound about them, not bright as say a Q or Nord but this adds to the synths warm analogue factor.

The filters are the best sounding I've encountered on any VA and do some very convincing emulations of the real analogues they're named after. Ok they are not a 100% substitute than the real thing (no digital synth is) but they sound good (especially the Moog and TB)and as most synths are judged on the quality of their filters you certainly get your moneys worth with the variety on offer here which you'd be hard pressed to get on any other VA. The comb and other 'none analogue' filters are also a bonus to the synths sonic pallet.

Alesis have tried really hard to get rid the harsh side effects of digital sound and the overall tone has an attenuated (similar to the earlier Nords) quality too it in an attempt to keep the sound as warm as possible but I find a little external high end eq boost brings back a little sparkle and when, as previously mentioned, you use the drive FX wisely you can get some very rich analogue sounds that sound very convincing and whilst purists will always nit pick that it doesn't sound totally analogue it really doesn't sound a typical digital synth either.

In short a very rich sounding polysynth that comes closer to the analogue sound (especially with resonant filter sounds) than any other VA I've tried. Not an ideal synth for bright airy pads but it certainly has a warm individual character of its own and would compliment any setup.

Imho the presets are pretty lame and don't really show off the synths sonic pallet but this is a programmers synth so it's not a biggie.

Solid with no software glitches that I've encountered, very solid build quality with, decent (if a little small) buttons and silky smooth knobs that are attached to the front panel.

Discontinued a couple of years back but I guess parts will still be about for a while yet.

Great value easy to use polysynth that does a great impression of the vintage classics of the past and a lot more in a modern reliable digital package.
An ideal synth for those wanting to learn analogue style synthesis on hardware thanks to the excellent UI whilst enough depth for sound experimentation for the more experienced synth user.

The presets sound okay, standard VA stuff. Best to ditch and create something on your own.

Editing patches is a breeze. No patch editor necessary, as this may be one of the single most intuitive keyboards I have ever played.

Did not even need to bother to look into the manual, and I was already messing around with the more complex functions of this synth.

It is an 8-voice VA. It has some built in effects. I wish I can go through the features in all of its glory, but it is rather cut and dry, 3 osc., 2 filters (16 filter choices), and mod-matrix, and lots of knobs. It is how a VA should be...an analog, but some perks of being digital. Oh it has a really nice display too.

This is where I love this unit. Honestly, I don't know about aftertouch, but it does have velocity. I am not really going to concern about that and get to the nitty gritty.

This thing is a beatiful VA. Still. The very fact Alesis discontinued this keyboard and kept the micron around is kind of surprising. Yes, they both sound the same.

I have owned nearly 24 vintage synths. Ensoniq sq-80, Korg Polysix, Roland JX-8p, JX-10, Several Sequential Circuits keyboards ( Including a Prophet VS), a Moog Memorymoog (which died on me, RIP).

I have also owned numerous VA's all that I found disappointing. I will note, I never did get a waldorf, or Virus...but save for those...very few companies were left untouched. Roland, Korg, a Darkstar, a Nord Lead, and on and on.

When it gets down to it, when I compare in my head...the Alesis is as close to the weighty analog monsters as you can get. It has the certian it there with regards to how it sounds. I am going to say, it sounds closer to the roland and Oberheim side of things sometimes, but I have delved into Yamaha's analog polysynths with this keyboard, just accidentally. The reason why...this thing actually paid attention to the subtle differences in filters between the machines. It is one thing to have a low pass, bandpass, and hi pass filter with 2/4 pole system, its another to offer 16 different types. Oh the modulation matrix helps as well. Yeah, not something I found on my old rolands so much, but routing is a huge feature to some synths. My SQ-80 for example depends on it.

I could go on and on, but there is so much this synth does right, and the payoff is in how it sounds. I would say its not purebread analog, but it certianly competes with the best hybrids out there (SQ80, Juno 106, JX-8p/10, etc), if not hands down beats them. While its no waldorf or virus, its worth the price of admission. One to keep the long time synth player like me very happy.

Great sounds come with very little effort, and this is the mark of a great VA. Emulation is important, but ease of use, and ease to get what you want is key as well. And the fact I could get a great sounding Oberheim pad in the matter of minutes that was nearly identical to one I created on an OB-8 that took me nearly an hour to create, speaks volumes of how versatile this synth is.

By the way, this is a synth, and I am judging it as such. Beautiful pads, leads, basses, complex randomness...oh can this synth do complex synthesis brilliantly. I am not looking for realism, I am looking for an instrument that can sound unique and synthy.

I heard it can be glitchy, but this thing is good enough to gig.

never used it.

I rate this a 10, because it is a fantastic value. While it only has 8 voices of poly, so did my jx-8p, and it was my favorite that I ever owned. The poly does not hold this keyboard back. Its a VA, that kind of shares the limitations of analogs...who cares.
The fact that these are going for around $400 used is a bargain. Nothing in its price range is as brilliant, and as intuitive, and in fact it kind of beats stuff out of its price range.

What made Alesis cancel this is beyond me. Yes, the micron is nice, and has some additional features, but it is not comparable to this affordable master piece, that brings real time control synthesis at a budget price. I am hoping Alesis only retired it because it was planning Ion 2. The truth is, while it is a great machine, it can use improvements like anything else. It will be a mistake for Alesis to stay out of the full control market too. This is the one thing they do MUCH better on a great budget than the Japanese rivals. The fusion was a mistake, the Japanese just do workstations to damn well. Alesis refocus! You make a better budget competitor to Clavia, Access and Waldorf on the VA front than you do making dime a dozen romplers.

I would replace this in a heartbeat, I am honestly wondering why I took so long getting one, as they were always inexpensive.

Again this is a fantastic synth for the money. So it deserves a ten here, if only because it is worth every penny plus some. Please Alesis, the discontinuation of the Ion was a mistake, bring it back, and if possible, bring it back better (yet still affordable, keep it under $700).

OS v106
presets are fair, but not top notch
great with all the knobs, but the modulation matrix takes time to master. manual is not much help to understand the synth structure.
all my older synths had a graphic structure to explain the sound flow.

8 voices is OK. Keyboard is mediocre. FX are OK, but I miss reverb for live performance.Midi realtime tveaking is great.

great VA synth sound. no acoustic sounds and no sample sounds, so it's not a workstation all-in-one machine. sounds are very dynamic and respond to velocity, mod-wheels and knobs like a analogue machine.
the Roland Jupiter filters are lame and have no resonance feedback. other filters emulations are very realistic.

I do miss my old Jupiter-6. Why did I sell that beauty 5 years ago?!
I wouldn't take that machine on tour, but I see no reason not to to bring my Ion in a gigbag.

If I was to buy a new machine again, I would try to get me an Andromeda or the new Prophet 8.

This is an addendum to my previous review of the Ion. I've played with it for 5 months now. A couple of things to add; the keyboard scanning circuit as a major flaw when it comes to velocity, as the black keys are twice as sensitive as the white ones. So it's near impossible to have a consistent control over it when using it as a control parameter.

Second, the mod wheels are glitchy, especially when moving them slowly.

Third, a bug in the noise generator software produces a short looping-type sound from time to time when using the white noise source. (a known bug on the part of Alesis but no other software update is planned yet to correct it and other bugs too, since the synth has been discontinued)

Other than that everything else is as delightful as when I first bought it; the analog sounding oscillators and filters, the full control via the knobs, the reasonable price, the (almost all) metal casing sturdiness, the display...

Using OS 1.06
Presets are not as good as they could have been. But they're a great way to start by tweaking them! Anyone who has ever used or played with an analog synth will feel right at home. The high resolution of the pots (knobs) was a huge selling point for me. When creating sounds, I don't feel at all limited by the lack of resolution of the front panel controls like on soooo many other VA synths out there, with their 127 or so values! This baby has 8192 possible values!! And a bonus is that this eliminates ALL undesirable stair-stepping or quantization artifact when tweaking in real-time in live situation.

Editing patches on the Ion is a breeze, thanks to a well designed layout. Although some parameters could benefit from having their own knob like portamento, or glide rate. That can be solved by assigning the second mod wheel to that parameter though.

The manual that came with my unit was outdated. I bought the Ion brand new and it had the latest OS already installed at the factory, but the manual was for OS 1.0 . Not a big deal, since there wasn't any major changes, except a lot of corrected bugs. I seldom needed to consult it anyway.

The 160x160 LCD display is great for the graphical info it provides, and is such a relief from the usual 2 lines display found on other VA synths! Although the angle of view is a problem. No matter what the contrast level you set, you have to lean a bit over it to have a better view. They should have provided a way of tilting it. But it's still readable sitting down.

The gradually lit mod wheels are eye candy and are sure to make a good visual impression. One curious thing; there is only one LED displaying the LFO speed, even though there are TWO lfos. Would it have cost so much more to put a second LED for visual speed reference on LFO 2? And also that same flashing LED doesn't speed-up or slow down the flashing rate when the LFO speed is changed by a modulation source. Only if you tweak the LFO speed knob on the front panel. Maybe in a future OS revision? (I'm dreaming I know)

8 voices polyphony. For a synth well under $1000 is okay. I'd rather have a great sound with a somewhat limited polyphony, than a lot of awful sounding voices. Although this limit can greatly reduce the benefit of the synth being 4 parts multi-timbral.

Keyboard action. Well this has been a subject of a lot of criticism, but frankly it is exactly the same as my trusty old Roland MKII MIDI controller. AND is still better than my Moog Rogue which has no velocity and needs frequent maintenance for bad electrical contacts. The feel is the same as almost all the vintage synths it emulates. I would have liked another octave on it though.

No expansion capability, and only MIDI SysEx way of loading and saving patches or set-ups. Knobs will send either NRPN or CC values (menu option in OS 1.06).

Arpeggiator on-board with only presets patterns, not programmable (a shame). It's okay, but the Micron (smaller brother of the Ion) has a much improved one and a step sequencer much more useful.

This thing was designed as a cheaper alternative to the very expensive Andromeda A6. And a great job it does too! I've owned and played with a few real analog synths in my years, and I owned (and still own) some other VA synths too (Moog Rogue, Moog Opus 3, Korg MS20, Korg EX8000, Roland JX8P, Novation Nova, Korg MS2000, Roland JP8080, Roland SH32 etc etc... you get the idea) so I kind of know what I'm comparing it with.

I'll say this; it displays one of the best (if not THE best) analog emulated sound of all the VA synths I've heard so far. The fact that there are many filter types emulated (from Moog to ARP and Oberheim and more) contributes greatly to the diversity of the timbres you can create. The Moog filter isn't EXACTLY IDENTICAL to the Moog ladder filter it emulates, but unless you can directly compare it to a real Moog standing next to it, you'd be hard-pressed to tell the difference! Great work by the Ion team of engineers, who had such vintage instruments available as a reference.

Onboard effects? Pretty useless, except for some chorus and flanger, but not much else. Oh yeah, there's a distortion effect too, with a few emulated styles like Tube Amp and Fuzz, but nothing to write home about. Being digital in nature they're very quiet (no noise). They're okay I guess.

No aftertouch, only velocity and release velocity (controllable modulation source on key release) with adjustable curve and sensitivity.

The early units (remember this synth came out in early 2003) had some build quality issues, like bad pots, and poor quality output transistors, and some defective memory chips (the content of which could become corrupted). But according to Alesis, all those things are supposed to have been corrected. This model has been discontinued, although at the time of writing this review, there are still some brand new units left in stores around the world.
I had mine about a month now, so I can't really tell if it will last. Although the casing is all metal and feels very sturdy, as do all the knobs on it (they also have a very nice smooth quality feel to them, no wobbly pots here!)
Because of early units being of poor quality, I'll give it only a 7. If you want to buy one used, ask how old is the unit and test it thoroughly.

None needed so far...

For that price and all the features and the great sound, it is certainly worth every penny. If it were stolen, I'd buy another (new) one.

What I love:
the sound quality, the precision of the knobs, the mod matrix, the display (not the angle though), the casing (rock solid, all metal), the versatility of the filters, the extra mod wheel, the looks (reminds me a bit of the Waldorf color scheme) and the low price.

What I don't like:
the arpeggiator (non-programmable pretty much useless to me), the effects (too limited), the viewing angle of the display, the multi-timbral feature being limited by only 8 voices polyphony (this is no workstation).

When I decided for a virtual analog, there were 2 things to be considered: sound and sound access. There are a lot of knobs, but a lot of hidden things under sub-menus too.

Audio input is very interesting and usable. Eight voice polyphony is acceptable for an analog clone. FX section is poor - and this is not was you can expect from such FX specialists as the guys at Alesis! Good arpeggiator. No card or slot nor any sort of external memory location.

For a rock keyboardist like me, it's simply disappointing. Good low ends and monophonic sounds, but what about the warm pads? Forget about them! Those from my SR-JV ???Vintage??? board are much, much better. There are a lot of unuseful presets too. Looking for JP brasses or nice Oberheim polisynths? No way! This thing supposes to emulate 3 oscillators, and in fact it has a lot of sound modulation in its sound architecture, but whatever you may try, chords sounds always slim. The keyboard is unacceptable: ship plastic, bad quality synth action. Outrageous. My old QS6 had a decent synth action keyboard and I simply don???t understand why Alesis made such a bad choice for this thing. Even if you find a good lead sound (this the ION can do), the keyboard action keeps you shy and fright ??? no enthusiasm allowed. But even if you insist to play fast, some notes can be??? MISSED! Especially in fast repetitions of the same note. Shame.

It can NOT be my main source of analog sounds, even accepting a virtual clone to do the job. I prefer the Roland SH-201. The ION has a great look and feels solid because of the metal construction, until you touch the keyboard??? Bizarre blend???

Alesis has a reasonable service in Brazil, but the maintenance cost of parts and services is the same of higher priced brands like Roland and Korg.

This could be my 4th or 5th analog emulator. It can be fine for dance or electro stuff, but not for rock and roll.

There are some presets I like but I'm sure everyone who buys this will find sounds for their music production.

Everytime I use this synth I feel like Vince Clarke from Depeche Mode. It's a huge synth board and most of the time I am twisting knobs. It's easy to program to create new sounds however the Mod Matrix is another step up hard core programming that takes your sound production to the next level. I"m still learning that feature. I don't use a patch editor because I don't think the ION has one.. YOu don't need it because all the knobs are there.

PLus this keyboard is a good soft synth controller too as I use it as my controller.

The manual is straight forward.

I"m a mono type guy.. I don't use chords so the ION is perfect for my personality.

I don't use the effects because I use the WAVES plug ins. You would want to use the internal effects either because it doesn't sound cool to my ears.

Arpreggio doesn't sound cool either.

Ok, this is my main source for BASS sounds and Kraftwerk type leads and that's it. It's sounds really good on the low end.

The bass has a lot of attitude and grit.. I also have the VIrus synth but the bass on the ION is much cooler to my ears.

Perfect bass sounds aka Nitzer EBB and Depeche Modes A broken Frame.

IF you only use this synth as your main gear, it's possible to create all the sounds on the ION, Snares, Kicks, bass, hh, leads,etc.

Yes. I use a different keyboard to gig.

not yet.

I'd give it an 8. I will never ever trade this as I think I'm set with my set up.

The Alesis Ion, wow what a synth, ive owned a few synths in my time ( around 20) from the likes of Rolands Jp8000 & Xp80, Korgs Trinity, Triton and Prophecy, Waldorf Pulse, Novations Supernova, to name a few, and ive got to say, although many other synths may excell in the effects department the Ion wins hands down on pure quality of sound.
Many of the other mentioned synths "bury" the pure sound in effects which is cool to listen to on its own but dont mix to well when putting a track together, and this is where you really can tell a good synth from a lesser synth in my opinion.
Editing the presets is really a breeze and i love not having to dive through loads of menus just to change a waveform for instance.

The polyphony on this synth is 8 notes which i think for a VA is all you really need to keep things as near to analogue as possible and even the effects reflect the analogue thing, ie basic and mostly chorus/flange and delay types.

The keyboard on this beast is ok for a synth, its responsive and expressive what more do you want? i mean if you want a real piano feel keyboard then buy a real piano.

Would i feel confident using this keyboard on stage doing a gig? well ive never gigged but yes i would, ive had no problem with reliability in my stuio with it.

I have never contacted Alesis so i dont know.

To sum up this synth in a few words: its probably the most authentic VA synth ive ever owned and seen, its build quality is good, the sounds are excellent, the effects could be better.

Very easy. There are functions that can only be accessed by menus, but they're minimal and easy to get to. There will always be people for whom no VA will be good enough, and this synth may not be good enough for them. Its presets sound COMPLETELY analog to me, though, and I'd bet a lot of money that just about nobody would be able to pick it out in a blind listening test. (Those tests exist online, and true analog die-hard fans never seem to score very well in them.) The manual is OK. I've seen better, but it's not nearly as bad as a Roland manual.

8-voice polyphony is fine for what it does, although more would always be better for layering and long-release pads. The internal power supply is great, the synthesis features are amoung the most advanced ever for a non-modular synth, the knobs feel great and generate no zipper noise, etc. The big drawbacks are the pathetic arpeggiator and the terrible keyboard. The arp has only preset patterns, so it helps you make your music sound like it was made with a department store Casio. Don't be fooled by the "Random" pattern--it's not random as in playing random notes (e.g. Duran Duran's Rio), it's random as in selecting one of the other preset patterns at random. This synth basically doesn't have an arpeggiator. The keys are cheap and small, and they're not pressure sensitive.

Analog heaven. Fat fat fat, with punch and drive to spare. Plus, the comb and vocal filters, FM, etc. let you make all kinds of fantastic sounds that no real analog could ever make. The only synths more flexible than this one would be a Kurzweil VAST synth or some other high-end sampling synth, but they would give you a much different, and much less analog, sound. Expressiveness is great, except for the lack of pressure. The extra mod wheel is great, but does not at all make up for the lack of pressure sensitivity since it ties up one of your hands.

Too soon to say, but the build quality is top-notch.

I've never used them.

The terrible arpeggiator, lack of reverb/delay, cheap keyboard, and lack of pressure sensitivity are difficult to tolerate, but the sound engine is one of the best out there. And yes, that includes the Virus TI which costs four or five times as much. The Virus has wavetables and reverb, which really are great, but it aliases LIKE MAD. The Ion does not. This essentially IS an analog synth, but reliable and with much more power, for a fraction of the price of anything else.

Using the latest v1.06. This thing is a breeze to use. Just about every parameter has a real live knob associated with it at all times. Hunting through menus is sometimes needed for more obscure settings, but not a problem by any means. Indeed, just about every feature is at most 2 or 3 button presses away.
I don't believe there is a patch editor for this machine, but Unix geeks will be pleased to know that Alesis has a Perl script available for download at their website that will convert between SysEx dumps of patches and plain text files ripe for editing with your favourite editor.
The manual is excellent, even if I don't have a hard copy of it. I plan on calling and asking for one.
My only gripes in this area are very minor, like I wish each envelope generator had its own set of knobs, and that the envelope velocity sensitivity had its own knob as well. Barring this, I wish there was another high-resolution knob like the others in addition to the data knob that could perform the same function, since it can be fairly slow to adjust some parameters without their own knob. These are very minor points.

8 voices. A big step up from my old microKORG (which had 4), but still not as much as a workstation. I don't see this to be a problem at all; I got by with 4 on the MK and now being able to play organ on this thing with melody and more than just triads is very nice. Admittedly I don't do too too much in the way of layering voices or using unison every chance I get, but on the off chance that I have the 8 hasn't stood in the way significantly. The keyboard action is cheap and synth-like: exactly how I like it. I don't play piano or clav or anything so it's not an issue. A lot of my patches don't even use the velocity sensitivity, and I find I like an expression pedal better than aftertouch anyway (I started out on organ...sue me).
As far as MIDI goes, this thing is awesome. I use it with bars&pipes on my amiga. The built-in arpeggiator blows goats but I just use my microKORG's arp (or the amiga) and all is well. A lot of people liked to bitch about the fact that the knobs only send NPRNs and not CCs but the latest OS rev allows it to send and receive either. As for expansion capabilities, there are none sans MIDI, sustain and expression pedal inputs.

Velocity seems clunky at times but it's not too bad. There is no aftertouch (though the second mod wheel can be told to send channel pressure) and I'm currently looking for a cheap, durable expression pedal (the roland EV-5 is overpriced crap...I'm currently looking at a nice Alesis F2). I've actually found quite a few good (and some downright cool ones that made me laugh...like Baba O'Riley and Jump) usable presets on this machine. I have taken a particular liking to the "E.P? OK!" electric piano and "Stops on MW2" Hammond patches. The former sounds very nice, and the latter, while not really close to a real drawbar organ, is fairly usable. Some are tripe, but this comes with the territory. Any can be overwritten (not just the user bank, contrary to what some may tell you) and after all, this is a VA synth...it's meant to be screwed around with.
As for sounds though, this thing sounds very nice. It doesn't have that digital feel to it like my microKORG (not that that's bad...indeed I still use my MK on some stuff), and the filter emulations are awesome.
The onboard effects are fairly limited; the ones that it does have sound quite nice, though. The vocoder is fairly nice. I wish there was delay like most but you can't have it all...I'll just get a stomp box or something for this. I also wish the effects weren't shared between all parts but this is fairly minor since I don't do too much multitimbral stuff.
I find I can be very expressive on this thing...it reacts very nicely.

Well it weighs a bloody ton, at least compared to other stuff I've used of this calibre. Chassis is basically solid metal. Obviously if you treat anything like crap it won't last. I haven't gigged with it yet but I plan on it as soon as I get myself a nice flight case. I would use it without a backup, but more for the reason that I can't afford to keep multiple units around. I haven't experienced any software bugs, even before I went to v1.06 (was using v1.05). Seems like a very dependable piece of equipment.

Well, I did send alesis an email before about aforementioned hardcopy of the manual about two weeks ago and got no reply. I plan on giving them a call (plus we're both in RI so this isn't a big deal =]). We'll see how it pans out.

This machine is absolutely amazing. It would still be awesome if I had to pay twice as much. The sounds are amazing. I used to bash the micron (primarily because it had piss-poor realtime control) but since discovering this beast I'm glad that I have one. I've been playing synths for about a year and a half now, so I'm by no means an expert, but I do know what I like. My microKORG complements this unit very nicely. My main niggles with the ion are very minor in nature and by no means detract from the overall playing experience, though I do wish alesis had tilted the display just a bit since tweaking this thing while sitting down can be a pain in the arse. But this is, again, fairly minor. Not to mention that those light-up performance wheels look sexy as hell in the dark. I guess my last complaint is I wish alesis had used more blue LEDs on the front panel than just the blue bank select.
Lastly, I will admit that this was somewhat of an impulse purchase; I saw mine for fairly cheap on ebay and figured "I have to have that." Needless to say, I have zero buyer's regret. It certainly helps me to be very creative.