Alesis ION

I think this synthesizer sounds like the 80s. Sounds interesting for me but i think it sounds a bit to cold for a minimoog-fan. The presets are avarage. The leads doesn't cut through without tweaking.
You can play very expressive with the 3 Wheels and it looks amazing in the dark!!!
I don't like the effects very much. They're not very extreme and for me there's missing a delay. This synth can sound awsome if you know what you're doing or you're like to play around. I don't think that you can get a synth like this for this price.

no problems

Just to give you a little background, I am a guitarist in a rock band (post-rock, epic rock, lo-fi influences), so was a TOTAL synth novice when I started looking for a synth. I posted messages on the vintagesynth.com site asking for advice and read as many reviews of as many different products as I could, finally settling on the ION due to its versatility and good price.

When I got it out of the box, I was a little disappointed in the presets - most seem geared towards dance music or cheesy soundtrack work. I was looking to emulate someting a little more organic - electric pianos, organs and the like.

As I am a novice when it comes to subtractive synthesis, it seemed a little daunting at first, but I started tweaking the few usable sounds I did like and soon enough I was coming up with the kind of sounds I was looking for. I have now programmed lots of electric piaon type sounds, fender rhodes type sounds, glockspiel type sounds and ambient sounds. Also a couple of electro Kraftwerk-esque sounds. I am very happy with them all. They really sound very organic and not very "digital". Nice.

Editing sounds is really easy to do - the only difficult thing is getting your head round the sheer number of optoins you have at your fingertips - the possibilities are ENORMOUS, which is great if you like to have as much control over the sound as possible (as I do). The good thing about the ION is that is has lots of dedicated knobs that make editing much easier for a novice. The graphic display of waveforms and envelopes are also great for learning the techniques of sound generation.

The manual is comprehensive, but the best way to learn this thing is get involved and start seeing what the different features actually sound like.

I'm not sure what software version I'm using for this - but I purchased it about 2 months ago. Sorry.

Polyphony is 8.

Keyboard action is good for a synth - but it doesnt feel anyting like a piano. Easily good enough for my needs.

Built in effects are pretty poor to be honest, the delay isn;t long enough and the other effects are fairtly cheesy. Distortions don't sound great - I wouldn't focus on this aspect when thinking of purchasing this. They are easy to use though.

MIDI capabilities/extensions etc are all greek to me at the moment, I'm not really up on this kind of thing and didn't assess this when I purchased the ION - I was interetsed in how it sounded.

No sequencer.

The best thing in terms of features is the sheer number of options you have to create sounds - 3 Oscillators, Pre-filter mix, 2 filters, post filter mix, then effects, arpeggiator, envelope generator, 2 LFO's - so much to play with and so much to shape your sound into anything you want!!!

The ION isn;t really great if you want to make realistic sounds of instruments like Piaon, Horns, strings. It's not what it's designed for. I'm also not really ananalogue synth enthusiast, so I can't tell you if it can realistically emulate the analogue synths we all wish we could afford! However, the sounds it makes are very very organic sounding and natural. Try not to base your initial thoughts on the presets though as they just sound weak.

I play rock music, influenced by bands like Sigur Ros, Radiohead, Explosions in the Sky, Mogwai, Interpol... that kind of thing and it's great for getting Sigur Ros type organ, electric piano sounds and Kid A era radiohead sounds. Really nice. It fits in well with the style of music I play. I would imagine it'd be great for dance music too as the 'synth' type sounds can be very agressive and expressive.

Onboard effects - not great - don't consider this if that's what you're after.

feels pretty decent to play, but the keys are probaly not as weighted as higher-end models.

In the amp envelope generator, you have the option of setting keyboard velocity from 0 to 100%. This is absolutely delightful and the keyboard really responds to playing very well - no aftertouch for all you piano plyers though.

To me, once you start programming in your own sounds, this thing realy comes into its own - so many possibilities of creating great sounds - very impressive. It's a shame it can't do realistic pianos, horns, strings, but that's not what it's built for.

Had it for 2 months, haven't gigged it yet but I would do so without a backup. No problems so far (touch wood!)

N/A

I would buy it again if it was stolen/lost. Been playing for about 2 months - I'm really a guitarist who owns far to many guitars and effects.

I love the natural sounds it can make, I don't hate anything about it, but can get frustrated with my lack of programming expertise. Only ting I wish it had was a sloped top - can be difficult to see the display at certain angles, and the design is a little cheesy - looks too futuristic, I'd rather they;d gone for avintage look like Korg's MS2000B. I really had it down to either the ION or the MS2000 and went for the ION because it simply had a greater number of options, better polyphony and the Sound On Sound review was so great.

I wish it had better onboard effects I guess, but that's not such a big deal for me.

It definitely helps me make music. As a long-time guitarist, it is so refreshing to pick up a different instrument to seek inspiration - the different way of playing it and the huge variations of sounds you can produce really inspire writing. I love it!

I can really recommend this piece of kit - the sounds are great and it's a joy to play! P.S. Mine was an ex-display model so I got it less than RRP.

Very easy to use. Plenty of knobs.

The manual was useful for me. It explains every step of editing. Sometimes I'd like to have deeper explanations though. So you have to experiment a bit with the synth.

Polyphony: 8. Not huge but I record every track directly on an audio track so it's enough for what I do.

Keyboard action: bad. But I'm a synth player, not a pianist, so it's good enough for what I do with the ION. It's not meant to be played like a piano, so don't worry too much about the keyboard. No aftertouch but I never use it anyway. You can use an expression pedal if you miss the aftertouch that much.

Midi is easy to use. My ION receives data from my XP80 workstation and it has midi thru sending data to a sound module. I can set the midi channels easily (I push 2 buttons and it's done). It has 4 parts, you can assign any midi channel to each part. So with the sequencer of my XP80 I can trigger simultaneously the internal XP80 sounds, the ION sounds, and the sounds from the sound module.

The arpeggiator is bad. Never use it, though I may use it someday for very basic rhythm parts to add in a song.

The vocoder is a great bonus. I just need to find a sound that will allow me to do some intelligible speaking through the vocoder. You can process external signals with it too (not only the internal sounds), so I used a "vocoder patch" I did on my XP80 and I process it with my voice through the ION. My microphone goes through a preamp though, because the inputs are line-level.

It sounds very good but most of the presets are very bad.

THOUGH BE AWARE OF THIS: you must realise -and it's true for every synth on earth- that some sounds are terrible when you play them alone (when you try a new synth you usually check all the presets alone), but some very very bad presets can give very interesting effects in a mix.

THE QUALITY OF THE SOUNDS MOSTLY DEPENDS ON HOW YOU COMBINE THE SOUNDS IN YOUR ARRANGEMENTS. So you can take 5 bad presets and make a very listenable piece of music with them. But it's so subjective, and it requires some kind of talent I guess.

Does the ION sounds like the synths it tries to emulate? I couldn't tell, cause I haven't heard those classic synths in the same conditions. If you want to sound like a Moog... well, go buy a Moog. Personally I've bought a Virtual Analog to have a different approach to the sound than with my Roland XP80 workstation. I don't care about re-creating the sounds of older synth, I just want to make useful sounds for my music.

Now you can do a lot a great sounds with the ION... Just experiment and remember that the beauty of the sound lies in the way you combine the sounds in your arrangements!

I give it "only" a 9 because of the presets. With better presets it would have been 10.

By the way, expressiveness is great - with 1 pitch wheel + 2 mod wheels + expression pedal connection, be sure to play very expressive synth solos!

I give 7 because of the small buttons. One of them needs to be pushed a second time before it reacts and I bought that synth only 9 months ago. But the Ion seems reliable, it's not too lightweight and it's a mainly metallic instrument (except the solid plastic parts at both ends - and the keys of course). I would gig without a backup, though not as my main synth (which means I could carry on with my XP80 if the Ion let me down, though I don't think it would stop working just during a gig).

Only thing I had to do is download the most recent OS from their website. Very easy to do. I liked to have a lot of audio demos on the site as well, it helped me when I decided to buy it - I knew what I was buying. I've never dealt personally with the company.

I'd like to give a 10 because you have to consider the price. 1135 euros was interesting compared to other models, but I regret that the price is much lower now :( I could have saved 300 euros.

If it was lost or stolen, I would consider buying it again but I would consider many other virtual analogs. A V.A. is a nice addition to my music. Maybe I would buy something cheaper still (a rack unit), because I don't have the money to buy another synth right now.

I record rock/pop music with electronic sounds. I did some great sounding things mixing acoustic & electric guitars and the ION.

Other gear I have:
- Roland XP-80 (use it for acoustic and electric pianos, bass sounds, percussion and vintage synths such as mellotrons and roland d50, thanks to the expansion boards)
- Korg Wavestation SR (great for evolving pads)
- Soon to arrive from an eBay transaction: the Korg 01/W FD.

My XP80 serves to re-create "acoustic sounds", so all my other synths are there for their electronic sounds. I don't regret to have bought the Alesis ION.

I use OS v1.06

the presets just suck, just as they usually do on VA synths. my worst synth for this was the Waldorf Q and I must say the Ion falls quite near the Waldorf as far as presets are concerned. I mean these guys have not been out in a club or a concert since the early nineties.

but forget the presets, it's that kind of machine that begs to be edited. I usually start with the default patch (a plain sine , one osc, filter bypassed) to leave all possibilities opened, and I must say when I came back from the shop and started playing, I immediately wanted to hit that store button everytime I changed a parameter. always a good sign.
in the first hours I made a dozen of sounds just like that, from scratch. forget the presets. do your sounds and hit that "store" button.
editing is a joy and very intuitive. it's full of tiny little features that make you go "ahah" when editing. well done. for example, one neat feature I liked is that detuning an oscillator by more than +99.9% (% of a semitone) will automatically make the "semitone" parameter increment by one... and your detune back to zero.

clearly not your average virus synth as far as ease of use is concerned. the LCD is clear and does a good job of giving you instant visual feedback of what you're doing as well as extra editing features, not accessible via onboard knobs and buttons.

the manual is clearly written but if you 've ever used an analogue synth you won't need it.

polyphony is OK. you won't write whole songs on it like a workstation but it's clearly not the idea.

I don't care having gazillions of voices when I have 8 good voices like the ones on the Ion. plus if you think about it, how many hit records were written on a Jupiter 8 ?

effects are good, I like the solina string phaser, and the distortions/compressions are OK. They won't replace a good hardware unit but they do a good job at dirtying things up

the keyboard is ok for anyone who's not a good keyboard player (like me). friends of mine that are good keyboard players said the keyboard sucks but it does the job for me... I don't care not having aftertouch...

no onboard sequencer, but a neat little arpeggiator to throw ideas around. would not replace a good midi programming though.

overall the features are more geared towards analogue synth addicts rather than workstation lovers... having this synth is like capturing a bit of synth myths like the jupiter, moog, etc.

fat and ballsy

as said above, it's good for analogue sounding patches.

I have various analogue synths ( Juno 60 , Oberheim Matrix 6 , MacBeth M3X , Prophet , etc.) and this one has nothing to be ashamed of in comparison. the oscillators are just incredible. so are the filters. I agree though the best filters are the emulations of the vintage ones, the "Ion only" are slightly less useful.

it's NOT sounding exactly like a jupiter or a prophet but it's as good and a joy to work on.

will beat any DCO based polysynth from the eighties... and won't stand ashamed in front of a prophet or a jupiter.

What I like is when programming a sound, it's just sitting well in a mix, no need for harsh EQing like a VSTi , no need for compression and valve processing. it's just good as it stands. dreamy creamy pads ? just add a bit of reverbe and you're done.
rough basslines ? make it a unison patch.

oh and I also like the fact that sounds will play very well up and down several octaves with no apparent digital artefacts like aliasing.

mine has nothing to complain about. no ghost paramater bug, no self editing, no dodgy modwheel.

it was a bargain, I got it for #300 almost new from a second-hand shop in London...

n/a

I would definitely buy another one if it were stolen . In fact I'm considering its baby bother the Micron to add another 8 voices to the set up !

I compared this synth with a Nord Lead 2x and a 3 , a korg ms2000 , and various VSTi and to me it really beats all of them for pristine vintage synth emulation. I also compared it to an Andromeda and boy I loved the Andy but at this price, the Ion cannot be beaten.

I sold my Juno 60 and Matrix 6 as a result of a session where I successfuly managed to recreate a few of their patches on the Ion.

I'm using OS 1.06 and have had my Ion about a year and a half.

The Ion is a well laid out synth which makes sound design easier. I am an ambient musician and for the most part I find the presets not all that usable for what I do. There are a few which really are fine. But overall the presets seem to be dance-orientated.

Editing the patches is very simple. Many of the presets have some good ideas behind them, and you can find out how they were designed and tweek them for your own use.

The manual is pretty good and explains the workings of the Ion plainly.

The Ion has a polyphony of 8 which for most cases is adequate. But there are times on a multi where I wish I had more.

The effects on the whole are weak. The Chorus and phaser are Ok but the delay is weak and there is no reverb. I assume most players have an outside reverb that they prefer, but I wish the delay was better.

There is no expansion capabilities.

The keyboard is adequate. There is no aftertouch, but it is velocity sensitive. It has two modwheels which I find a great bonus.

There is no sequencer yet, although its little brother, the Micron, has one. I'm hoping a OS update will add one. The arp is not great and is limited in editing.

The Ion offers FM and a Ring Modulator which can add some color to your sounds.

I like the filters and the envelope generators. There are quite a few filters, but the Moogish LP filter is my favorite. The envelope generators have loops which I find very useful in making interesting sounds.

The Mod Matrix is fairly extensive and easy to use.

For an ambient musician this synth can really be a great tool. It is so flexilbe and can come up with some very unique and usable sounds. The Ion cuts through a mix very easily.

This is not an instrument for realistic sounds. It is very easy to create some unearthy sounds. The pads and drones are incredible as are the basses. But you really have to go into the Ion and create them yourself. If your are into dance or pop music you might find the presets useful. The experimental and ambient musicians are going to have to trash a lot of the presets and start from scratch. The sounds are there and the Ion can really excell in there genres.

It has always come through for me. I have gigged quite a bit with it.

I have only had to call customer service once with a question, and they were very helpful and responsive.

For the money I don't think anything can match it for its sound and capabilities. I would replace it with another Ion if this one was ever lost.

I love the sound and dependability. The Ion is well laid out and easy to figure out.

I think the delay is weak in the effects as is the arp.

As an ambient artist, the Ion has helped to inspire me musically.

It is certainly worth the money.

I also own a Waldorf Q rack, Microwave XT, Yamaha RM1X, and various soft synths such as Reaktor and Absynth.

I FOUND THE EASE OF USE FOR THIS KEY OK UNLIKE A REAL ANALOG SYNTH A DRAMATIC SOUND CHANGE OCCURS WHEN YOU CHANGE ANYTHING LFO RATE, CUTOFF FREQ. SOUND PRETTY MUCH REMAINED UNCHANGED NOT VERY FLEXIBLE.
BUT 2 MOD WAS A NICE TOUCH.

THE VELOCITY SENSITIVE KEYS ARE NICE, COMFORTABLE PLAYING ACTION BUT THERE'S NO USE FOR 3 DIFFERENT PHASERS IN A SYNTH IF YOU CAN'T MAKE THEM SHINE THROUGH, AND THE DISTORTION EFX SUCK!!

THE SOUNDS ARE NICE,BUT I DO AMBIENT MUSIC SO MY SELECTION IS A LITTLE LIMITED. THERE'S ABOUT 25 PADS ON THIS THING. THE JUPITER PAD IS DREAMY WITH THE RIGHT REVERB BUT ALOT OF THE STRINGS ARE POOR AND THERE'S A COUPLE CHOIR WHICH AREN'T THAT GREAT. THE FM SOUNDS ARE NICE BUT IN NO COMPARISION TO A YAMAHA DX-7 SYNTH.I ADMIT ALESIS IS RIGHT IT'S THE CLOSEST TO ANALOG SOUND, BUT THE FILTER MODELS ARE A JOKE. IF YOU CYCLE THROUGH THE GOOD PATCHES LIKE THE BASSES, AND PADS YOU'LL NOTICE THEY RELY ON THEIR DIGITAL VERSION OF THE MOOG FILTER WHICH MAKES YOU WONDER HMMM..WHY INCLUDE 17 FILTERS WHEN ALESIS RELIES ON A FEW FILTERS FOR THEIR SOUNDS(BECAUSE THEY'RE THIN AND LIFELESS)

IT'S BUILT TOUGH I ADMIT, ADAPTER FREE USE IS A PLUS.

N/A

I WOULDN'T BUY THIS PRODUCT AGAIN. I OWN A FEW KORG AND OBERHEIM PRODUCTS SO I WILL SIDE WITH MYSELF THAT I HAVE A DIGITAL SYNTH OR TWO,HOWEVER A SYNTHESIZER IS MEANT TO IMITATE A INSTRUMENT (PIANO,STRINGS,BRASS, AND MAKE SOME SPECIAL FX) HOWEVER WHY PURCHASE AN INSTRUMENT THAT IMITATES ANOTHER VERSION OF ANOTHER INSTRUMENTS SOUNDS? FOR INSTANCE, SOME OF THE PATCHES: ODYSSEY LEAD,OBERHEIM STRINGS,STIX MINIMOOG,JUMP,TOM SAWYER,MOOG TAURUS PEDALS,ETC. I'M GLAD THEY DIDN'T TRY TO IMITATE A MELLOTRON WITH THIS SYNTH, WHO KNOWS HOW MANY PEOPLE MIGHT CHUCKLE!!I THINK IT'S TIME TO STOP THE ANALOG-MODELING FAD AND START DESIGNING REAL SYNTHESIZERS AGAIN!!!

at first, this synth looks ominous, brooding. so many knobs and buttons and blinking lights, if youre a beginner, you'll probably wet yourself.

i did.

but once you get in there and start going crazy with the twisting of the knobs and whatnot, its really not a difficult machine to work. like learning piano, its fairly easy to play, hard to master.

its got 8 polyphony. only 8 voices.. a little limiting. but with some tweaking of your sounds, you can make anything sound like anything.

thats all i can say. you have almost complete, utter freedom to change everything. EVERYTHING.

the only thing this thing can't do is make you dinner.

and im sure they've got a patch for that.

okay, so the pressure sensitivity is iffy... but you can tweak that.
no Q-cards. but you have 127 slots to save your own stuff.
limited built in effects, but you can simulate them if you have the patience.

this is where this machine shines. you can't give this machine anything below a 10, because if you don't like the sounds, you can make your own. you can make what you want. so if you don't buy this because you don't like the presets, you don't deserve it in the first place.

so far, i've had no problems with it, and i've been super brutal with it. i've left it out in my car over night in the snow, and i've thrown it around at shows. it just keeps trucking.

about the only problem is the software, which is getting fixed bit by bit with the patches. so eventually, this will be a ten.

i gig without a backup, but if you can afford it, have one. make sure to customize both in the same way, otherwise, you have two completely different keyboards that just look the same.

never dealt with them.

ive had it for two months, and im nothing but happy with it.

i've made everything from grinding, horrible static-filled sounds to awesome rock and roll organs.

tweaking this bad boy is a breeze. doing so with any amount of intelligent agenda is another story. it just takes practice and time.

i looked at this and the Alesis 6.2 (two completely different keyboards), and decided upon this based solely on how it looked.

my vanity chose well.

i wish it was a 64 key keyboard, but aside from that, i love it.

im using the original version of the software and, this aside, the ion performs wonderfully. it has a few issues with "holding" sounds when its not supposed to, but this is more human error than mechanical. the presets are what you would expect from alesis - anything from mind blowing to quirky to absolutely abysmal. all in all, really good, though. the manual? eh. its an alesis manual. you can use it for any number of useful things, like lining birdcages, or blowing your nose.

editing patches on this is a breeze, but doing so with any skill or confidence is another story entirely. tweek a few knobs here, scroll around randomly and start playing. you have yourself a deep, booming bass sound. could you recreate it? of course not.

in a weeks time, things get easier. editing is intuitive and fun, but can be daunting and confusing for a first timer (myself included)

the polyphony is low. only 8 voices to work with, which can get in the way sometimes, but can be worked around by editing patches tirelessly until one voice mimics multiple voices.

the built in effects are scant and dry. but thats not why you bought this bad boy.

no cards to install, but you can download new software and patches from the site, or various yahoo and msn groups.

the keys are pressure sensitive, but only just barely. the curve is insanely steep, but this works well for its character.

theres no onboard sequencer, but really, its not needed.

this is where the machine shines. the presets are alright, but what youre really interested in is the insane amound of tweeking you can do. the world is your oyster. make your own sounds.

the instruments have the potential to be realistic, if you have ten years of your life to waste on making a piano sound on a keyboard that was never intended to play piano.

trance, techno, dance, hardcore. anything needing electronic sounds or scathing leads. the 80's live on in this instrument.

the ION completely molds to fit your style. it grows as you do.

the velocity is, sadly, only so-so and aftertouch is nonexistant. but these are easy to overlook, giving the nature of the beast.

using version 1.00, i can't say this machine is entirely dependable as is. updated, however, and properly cared for, i think this keyboard will live longer than its owner.

im not sure i would gig without a back up. of course, im also paranoid.

never dealt with them.


the downloads are simple to get. plug it in, download, enjoy.

i would cry my eyes out if this thing were lost or stolen. so far, its been worth every penny. the crowd truely eats it up live, and it works well in recording.

i've been playing for about a year and a half now, and i own an Alesis qs8.1 and a roland Juno-D. the ION fills the niche i never thought i needed to fill.

i absolutely adore the quirky nature of the keyboard. the sounds seem so lively, so full of personality. this is limited, however, by the low polyphony.

i compared the ION to the andromeda and the Micron, and although both offer more in every department, i still went with the ION and so far, have yet to be let down.

I bought the Ion off ebay. It is exactly the synth I've always been looking for. I studied the manual online before I got the synth in the mail.

The manual is very good at explaining the definitions of technical analog synth terms. If a person who has never been exposed to analog synthesis reads this manual, they will receive all the information they need. But in my opinion, the manual does not explain well enough how to implement the ideas of analog synthesis to the ion. For example, when I turned the synth on for the first time, it jumped right into a preset sound. I could not find a place in the manual that describes how to start over from scratch with just the base analog sound. I have always played a minimoog, and it's obvious how to start over on that synth. However, since the Ion is setup pretty much just like the mini, the only difference being the digital layout, once I mastered the menus I was able to reset the sound.

Other than the manual, the synth is very easy to use and the layout is very logical, and after playing with the menu system for a while, anyone will be able to jump in and start making rad noises.

As for the presets - the Part/Program/Setup thing took a little getting used to. It still blows my mind, having been a minimoog user, that patches can be stored. But once you understand that part=patch, things begin making sense. The presets themselves are awesome and inventive, but (personal preference) I like making my own sounds. That's why I like the analog scene! I know with my own creation that I'm not using the same sound in my songs that a million other people have in theirs :O)

I never thought I would say this, but this has everything I ever wanted in a keyboard. I would never have purchased this if it not for the fact that it has EVERYTHING on it I could possibly ever dream of.

3 Oscillators - two oscillator sythns are great, there have been many good ones. But have three oscillators is like difference between have a fridge with a freezer & a vegitable crisper or NO vegitable crisper.

Waveshape - it was important to me to have a versatile amount of waveshapes. This Ion has all of the waveshapes as the Mini WITH the ability to variate the waveshapes into whatever shape you want. For example, you can fine tune the width of your square wave to be a Big Square or a Little Square! How cool is that? I didn't know it did that until I got it home and started playing with it.


8 note polyphony - I'm happy with 1 note polyphony. It is understandable that 8 notes might leave some unhappy in certain respects, and depending on the technical depth of your creations, you may find 8 voices unsatisfactory. I feel as though I make quite sophisticated sounds with my Ion, and (sorry for bringing it up so much) having been a minimoog user forever, having just a little polyphony is worth it. I have never run into a problem with the 8 voice limitation. Never.

Mono/Poly - you can switch easily between a mono and poly synth by use of a dedicated button right on the main keyboard.

Filters - The filter section is unbelievable. My minimoog is in the #5000 serial numbers, so it has the old/new oscillator board - the one with the phat sound. The Ion not only replicates this sound, it also replicates the filters of the Oberheim, the Jupter the Arp and some Alesis original filters. The envelope section is also quite detailed and powerful.

Effects - It must be noted that this keybaord does not have a Reverb effect. That having been stated, it does have Chorus, distortion and a really excellent flanger. Personally, I wouldn't use reverb anyway, since, like most of you, I have different external fx processors. But the flanger is a pretty good one and the distortion is pretty cool to have on a synth, too.

LFO - The low frequency oscillator is powerful and features s/h (sample and hold). I dig it.

Arpeggiator - You can select from a whole lot of different types of arpeggiation. The Ion also allows the arpeggio to extend beyond the chord you're playing into different octaves and all that other stuff. Pretty neat, pretty neat.

In terms of realism, you shan't find a piano patch on the Ion worth writing your grandma about. Of course, an analog synth isn't what a person buys to take to their first piano recital.

In terms of emulating the classic synth filters which it hopes to copy, the ion does a great job. There is nothing like it that I've heard. It does the minimoog perfectly. And as far as I can tell, it does the oberheim, rolands and Arp 2600 with precise accuracy as well.

You can make any sound you want on this keybaord. Snare drum? You've got it. Hi hat? Wussup. Bass drum? Better dig it. Bass guitar? Shutup. That sound in the Goonies when they meet One Eye Willie? Better believe it right now.

There is no aftertouch, which I don't mind too much. But it does have touch sensitive keys. And release sensitive keys!! Which is neat for playing those cool mono solos.

You can edit all of the sounds while you're playing. The ion is completely configurable. There is nothing on it which cannot be f'd with.

I'm going to give this a 10. I have the latest software version on my ion and the operating system seems solid. I've never had a problem with it. The unit itself is built of metal. Real metal, not plastic-looking metal. Real metal! The red side panels are a little cheap and cheesy, but I never look at the sides anyway. Although I'd never do it, it's pretty safe to say this keyboard can easily survive being beat up and dropped around.

I've never dealt with a company representative directly, but I have been to the alesis web site. I suggest you go there as well, if you haven't already done so. You can find it on google.

I'm giving them a straight up 10 for their web site. It is easy to navigate, without a ot of bars on the top and sides that I can get lost and have a hard time finding my way back again.

But most of all, the web site has downloads of the new OS versions and sound bands. AND downloads of the manuals and sound bank lists.
It is safe to say I would not have purchased the Ion had I not first read the manual, which I would not have been able to do if the company didn't offer it for free on the internet.

The Ion rules. It is cheap considering all of the features it has. Even if you buy it brand new and pay dealer mark-up, you're still getting a deal.

I believe the world may soon catch on to how flipping cool this keyboard is and prices will skyrocket.

The sound emulation is great. There are no digital side-effects. There are three oscilators, 2 filters, great effects, arpeggiation.

You can layer up to four sounds! Imagine the freaky symphonies you can make with four moogs topped on each other! Each with two filters!

I also have a couple 80's casios, a microkorg a Moog MG-1, a Jupter 8, a crappy goodwill organ and a Minimoog to which I have compared the Ion. I'm not going to be ebaying my other synths or anything, but I'm also not going to be taking them on the road with me anymore, either (except in situations where I feel I must up my Moog credibility).

This synth is the best buy I've made in a long time. There is nothing I wish it had. I am not disappointed. I've never said to myself "gee, it'd be cool if did this..."

In closing the Ion rules over the mule.

I give it a nine. You have a menu of presets and user programmable banks but it is a little hard to go from one settting to another if you're onstage. For the studio, this would be great (so maybe I should give it a 10). The manual is great and you'll need to refer to it once you think you've screwed everything up (there is a return to default settings button). This thing is programmable and I love that because I like to make my own sounds. You can tweak the presets too and save them in assignable locations. The presets are unbelieveable and I'll mention them more in a minute.

The Ion is polyphonic (8 voice, sort of like the old Korg DW-6000, but I still like it). The keys are fine (not weighted but not cheesy like those old Crumar keyboards in the 70's). There are some programmable effects and a really cool arpeggiator that can send midi out to arpeggiate your other keys as well. It is expandable and you can download operating system updates friom the Alesis website. The manual is great and that really helped me figure this little bugger out (I tend to experiment and then read the manual after I've messed everything up). The keys are pressure sensitive and it is a digital synth that operates like an analog synth (knobs and sliders included).

This is the ion's strength and weakness. The synth sounds are awesome. This thing has presets that replicate various fat synths from classic rock songs. You've got your Rush "Tom Sawyer", your Who "Baba O'Riley", and your ELP "Lucky Man". Loads of these things with cute titles to remind you of what classic rock synth sound you're playing. On the other hand, the pianos (there aren't many of them) are weak. The brass sounds like a synth doing brass but that is a plus for you 80's music afficianados. After playing and recording with this thing for one day, I became comfortable with it.

I want to get more comfortable with it before I take it on a gig but I foresee this being one of my main synths (I still love playing my old Korg DW-8000 and an Alesis QS-6). The synth leads are fantastic and I love the bottom end delivery on many of the patches. If we ever cover some of the Who songs I'll just have to bring it with me.

Alesis is pretty good about supporting their products as far as I can tell. I've had no problems. Their website has so much on it that you can pretty much help yourself.

I think I would buy another one should this one get ripped off. I've been playing for nearly thirty years and I like my old analog stuff the best. This one fits right in. I have my Korg DW-8000, my Alesis QS-6, and old Roland Juno 106, and an Ensoniq Mirage (it still works and has some cool samples on it for a non-stereo rig). The Ion is closest to the DW-8000 and the Juno 106 as far as programming and playing. I think as I grow more accustomed to this keyboard, I'm gonna love it even more.