Alesis QS6.1

I have to start out by stating that I am not a keyboard player by trade but rather a song writer who has a small home studio. My main instruments are bass and guitar. That having been said I must say that I was blown away by this instrument! At first glance I thought that maybe I would have some problems getting to "know" this keyboard but after just a few minutes I was recording some stuff and having a blast. Editing the presets couldn't be easier and the manual, although lacking in some areas, really helps reduce the learning curve. Alesis puts the complete manual on-line so if you ever lose it or leave in the studio you always have access to a copy.

The reason why I bought this particular board is because it has many features that other boards in it's price range didn't have, such as after-touch. The polyphone is fine at 64, the semi-weighted keys are much nice than boards from Korg and Roland, and the effects are great. This board is also expandable which makes a huge difference over boards in the same price range that are not. No sequencer, but I wasn't looking for that feature. It does, however, come with software for sequencing and more. There are a lot more features that I have yet to use but I just love knowing they're there if I need them.

This is where the Alesis really shines! I tried a Roland XP-10, a Korg X-5D, and a few other similarly priced boards before I got my hands on the QS6.1 and I can happily report that the Alesis is worth every penny that you'll pay over the price of those others. The pianos, organs, and synth sounds are terrific, and the drum sounds kick! Even the horns are decent, which is a feat, let me tell you. I am a big fan of producers such as Mitchell Froom, Becker/Fagan, and Goerge Martin, and can easily imagine producing tones that would please those cats with this instrument. One slight annoyance: some of the stereo samples sit in funny places in the stereo field but this is easily tweaked in edit mode.

This thing is make from the shells of old army tanks! I tried some other boards that looked and felt like something Milton Bradly would churn out but that's not the case with this board. Everything here is solid and built to last.

I had to get in touch with Alesis once (see the annoyance listed in the expressiveness catagory) and they responded THE SAME DAY! With some other board makers that I 'auditioned' I am still waiting for them to return my email! I don't usually give 10's for anything but, if I did, I would give one here!

This is a great board and if I had it stolen I would replace it right away! I would love to compliment this with a really nice module and, with this board, I feel the quality and features would make it a perfect fit for even the most expensive module.

Considering it's my first synth, I'd say it's very easy to use. I'm familliar with MIDI instruments and sequencing so that's not new. I'm speaking strictly of getting the QS6.1 to play the sound you want, send and receive on the channel you want, and making simple tweeks to the sounds: It's easy.

Completely programing a sound with effects doesn't seem like it would be especially difficult either. It might not sound good, but that wouldn't be the synth's fault :)

Features specs and a downloadable manual are available from the Alesis website, so I won't go into it. The features that are provided make it extremely easy to integrate the QS6.1 into a MIDI/digital audio studio, catalog programs and mixes, etc.

The hard-features (keys, wheels, buttons) are all well placed, well sized, and clearly labled. What more do you wan't?

I'm playing the QS6.1 through a nearfield monitoring system, so I'm getting a neutral auditioning of each program. So far, from the 50 ro 60 I've spent more than a few minutes with, the presets are pretty good. In general, some of the acoustic instruments sound a bit bright when soloed. However, this extra brightness makes them sit nicely in a mix, and keeps the highs nice and lively. In otherwords, the sounds are well suited for a home/project studio.

The keyboard plays very well. Some of the velocity curves can cause a program to switch between its sample sounds a little quickly, but it can probably be adjusted. I've just gotten used to it. The keys feel like plastic, because they are, and they have a nice "keyboard feel", i.e. a touch lighter than a piano's keys. Feels good.

Made of metal. Low profile controls. Heavy sides and corners. Don't throw it, and it should be fine.

NOTE: much better construction than other synths in its price range.

Don't know.

If it were lost or stolen, I'd buy the QS7.1 for the extra keys, not the sequencer. It's a shame they don't make a 7.1 without a sequencer to bring the cost down.

I play and record jazz, rock, metal, pop, and classical. I play some of it, and engineer some of it. I have a fairly extensive home studio setup. It's based a CubaseVST system, and includes external mixing and effects. The QS6.1 is right a home in this type of environment.

So far I've used the QS6.1 for programing drum beats, jazz piano parts, bass lines, and string ensembles. Its MIX mode makes all this stuff really easy, and it integrates well with CubaseVST.

Bottom line: Excellent sounds and programability. Great for home/project digital audio/MIDI studios. Not big enough to keep a pianist happy for long (but you already knew that).

If only Alesis made a computer editor for this keyboard....
No problem. You can get other 3rd party editors if you look on the Internet. Though it is featured that this new generation of QS6's has a larger LCD display (and this one looks pretty nice, dont get me wrong), 2 lines or so just does NOT cut it, especially if you have 20000 parameters you may want to alter... Moreover, a 16-channel velocity "graph" would be nice esp since theres enough room for one, but nooooooo :( On editing patches: if you screw up, and youre a beginner like me, you might as well reset your keyboard cause there is probably NO POSSIBLE WAY you can Undo what you did. The manual is very nice though. It reads like a book.

This synth has enough features to swamp you. Knowing that its only about $700, youre paying a matter of pennies per feature ;) It's got 64 Poly, 4 fully customizable sliders, 2 pedal jacks, velocity, aftertouch, editing, add-on cards, MIDI Playback with add-on cards, sampling with add-on cards, semi-weighted keys (BIG plus for a 61 key), etc. No Sequencer, but that's ok by me. Some people might find Cakewalk and a laptop computer more useful :P No silly "DEMO" button, which is another big plus for those looking for real studio gear.

I've heard various entry level Rolands, Yamahas, and Korgs, and their stock sounds are almost alike in quality. so I initially bought this keyboard for 2 things alone: 1) the pianos, 2) the pads. Over the months, I've grown to like many of the other sounds too. The alesis, however, is really different... so different that it takes time to get used to the delightfully crisp and clean (sometimes, too crisp and clean) sounds it has to offer. Pianos, guitars, organs, and techno/New Age synth sounds are out of this world awesome. Strings and horns suck. Drums need some variety, but they are good they way they are.

Rock Solid. The case is not plastic, not wood, but metal. I'm sure that if I threw this out the window it will not break :) j/k but why would I? I like this thing so much!

This is a field that Alesis needs to work on. I sent them 3 distinct emails and got no reply. What does that mean? E-mail Server shut down? No, it means go read the manual and fix it yourself. Luckily the manual is good or else I would have given this category a negative score.

If I had more room, I would get the QS8.1 which is a fully weighted 88 key synth that contains all the features of this one. If I didnt have more room, I would get another qs6.1. However, I would first think nice and hard at Korg N5EX, N364, Roland XP-30, and Yamaha PSR740 which are about the same level with this synth.

I replaced my Korg M1(yes, M1) with this keyboard. I had to unlearn KORG and learn the Alesis architecture. Within a couple of days I was navigating nicely. Presets are excellent for the most part. Some are too clean. True stereo piano is very realistic!. Editing the patches is a piece of cake.
The manual could use an index but it is infomative.

Going from 16 to 64-voice polyphony is great! The action is a little lighter that I'd like it to be but definitely bearable. The Organ patches are plentiful and awesome. The quality of the organ patches hinged on whether I bought the piece. The Leslie effects using the modulation wheel were ingenious and much better that I expected. No sequencer but I can do all that on my computer anyway.

The response is great, particularly for the piano. This board actually allows themood the be felt and heard. The strings are a bit heavy but OK. The drums sounds are fair.

This board seems very reliable. I had my Korg M1 for 11 years and had to do some minor repairs but that's to be expected. i wonder if the instrument family selection buttons will wear out (They're rubber) I've had the board for 2 months and take it on the road often.

I have not dealt with Tech support but the web site looks good and has a lot of information.

I would replace this board immediately if lost or stolen. I really like it. The sounds, feel, and expression really make this board shine! I do with it had a sequencer but that would have driven the price up.

I find trying to navigate through the display for editing and so on a bit of a pain but can get used to. The presets, like most sounds are incredible. The manual was a little vague but I've seen lots worse! :)

I needed an awesome sounding synth engine. This one boasted 64 key poly of 48k samples. Sold! It worked out just as well. It has some of the nicest pianos I've heard and a good selection. It's not too expandable but the other feature I bought it for was the ability to load and play samples in either Wave or Akai format. It takes a PC cable but it works. (having to order it was a pain, should be included)

Incredible sounds, although I haven't found a drum set that's done much for me but that's me. Effects are ok but a bit of a pain to manipulate. It's not a weighted keyboard but it has a "weight" to its keys that comes close. It has 4 sliders that can be programmed to apply different qualities to the selected sound(s); effect levels, filter levels, expressiveness control, etc.

It works, and is easy to use with Cakewalk etc. The only problem I've ever had with it, is trying to play it with the serial cable unplugged from the PC. It freaks, playing every note you don't. Wierd. Otherwise an excellent instrument!

No contact with Alesis directly.

It's great! It's an awesome synth engine, quite flexible for exiting and great for MIDI control. I was suprised it was so reasonably priced.

I bought this keyboard primarily as a replacement for a Korg DW-8000 that decided to go belly up a couple weeks before a big Y2K New Years show. I found the organization of the sounds to be fantastic, as well as global parameters such as detune and joystick controller functions. I have not attempted to create my own patches as of yet, but I am very pleased with the factory patches. My only complaint is that the sounds play rather thin and trebly at times, but I am sure that I can work with that in the mix. The manual is extensive at first glance, and I hope that, upon reading, it is as informative as it is thick.

The keyboard's action fits my playing style well (I am more of a keyboardist than a pianist), however I do have a concern about the quality of the keyboard. I have had it for 2 1/2 weeks, played one show, and already have a broken key. I beleive that the spring mechanism has come undone...when this happened, the key "fell" into the down position and stayed down while sounding the note. The keyboard could not be used during the show without placing something under the broken key to hold it up and keep it from sounding.
All of the polyphony/effects/MIDI capabilities are excellent for an instrument in this price range. It is not a Workstation, but does make an excellent accompanying device to one. I found that it is very complimentary to my Korg 01W/fd.

I found the pianos to be very realistic, if a bit thin and trebly at times (on a few patches). I love the True Stereo piano when it is used in conjunction with the 01W piano. The organs have very good patches, although a few of them require some tweeking to get them how I like them. Horns, guitars, bells, etc. all sound real good. The strings are fine, but I am surprised to see that for a new keyboard with as many "vintage synth" sounds, that it has no decent ARP String Ensemble sounds. In fact all the sounds are pretty good with two possible exceptions. 1. The drum sounds are terrible. 2. The general MIDI sounds are worse. Again, I use the O1W for drums and i Don't normally use general MIDI. If I do, I have a Roland XP-10 which suffices much better for this use.

I expect that my problem with the broken key is just a fluke. I have been playing long enough to realize that, but I can't rate this keyboard any higher than a five at this time in the reliability department. It is a very sturdy machine that doesn't move around on my stand like my Roland XP-10 does. I typically use 4 to 5 keyboards on stage at a time, so I wouldn't have to rely upon it solely. I do beleive that it will not fail electronically unless dropped from a U-Haul or something

In getting my Alesis fixed, I am dealing with the company I bought it from for a replacement rather than a repair through Alesis. I know that the company has been helpful with other Alesis equipment that I have had questions about, and they have a very good website.

If it were lost or stolen I would replace it with the next model up. It is a very good sounding keyboard that has added to my equipment immensely. I still wish I had my DW-8000 though, and I will probably have it restored. I have been playing for 29 years, 20 in bands. I have the Korg o1w/fd, the Roland XP-10, Roland SH-101, Arp String Ensemble, Yamaha PSR-400 and PSR-47 (cheesy, but sound good MIDIed together)and Korg Polysix. I love the sounds and ease of use, but hate the fact that a key broke on it's first trip out of the studio. I can't really compain about anything considering it's price. A ribbon controller would have been a nice touch.

I have been using synths since the Arp Odyssey. This synth was purchased to be a back-up to a powerful, albeit quirky Ensoniq VFXsd. The sound banks are methodically arranged and can be accessed relatively easily. The sounds are plentiful and of good quality. Very little looping or digital harshness is evident. Programming is easy once you become familiar with the synth's layout although I do wish the Envelope Generators had an additional point and the ability to go negative with respect to the initial point. Because of it's ability to outperform the VFXsd as a master keyboard, the Ensoniq has become the backup.

With 64 note polyphony, velocity sensitivity, (channel)aftertouch, and high quality on-board signal processing this piece has some power. As a master keyboard, poly aftertouch would be nice but otherwise the keyboard response can be scaled to the users touch. Of course the 7.1 and 8 make better master keyboards because of the additional keys, but I have an 88 key Technics PX7 for that. As a tool for sequencing; the unit has no on-board sequencer, but in the "MIX" mode will work well as an input keyboard to an external sequencer and shine as a slave device. Channel, program, transpose, and volume assignments are easy to accomplish and make the use of the QS6.1 versatile as both a master keyboard or a slave. It only has two foot controller jacks; one for sustain and an assignable one(default set for volume). An additional jack(available on the 7 and 8 series) could be used to toggle lezlie, portamento, etc. The four assignable controller slides on the panel though are a plus and I have been able to work around the lack of the additional foot controller input. Expansion cards are available for program bank and sequence storage and the serial output for hook-up to a Mac or PC without the need for a MIDI connection is a nice feature.

I am very particular about piano sounds and use an EMU pro-formance for them, however the Alesis has sounds that most would say sound as good or better than comparable products. Having once played(and carried)a Hammond/Leslie set-up, I love the organ sounds and the the ability to change speeds via footswitch. I play rock, classical, blues, alternative, and a bit of others and the sounds are great. There are some interesting effect patches and complex dynamic programs that sound incredible if I can just figure out how to incorperate them within a song. The sax and flute patches on my Ensoniq are preferred by me and will be used until it crashes for good. The onboard effects benefit from Alesis' long running experience and success in the development and sales of signal processing units. The programmers did a marvelous job with the programs and effects. Aftertouch seems to be a little touchy, not very linear(almost like on/off) but perhaps I will aquire the feel for it in time.

Let's be honest. Once you have given your trust to an older Ensoniq piece, you'll trust nearly anything. I purchased this instrument in response to a reliability problem and it was one of my main focuses in determining my choice. I figure that having "A++" quality sounds in an unreliable synth was less desirable than having "B" quality sounds when you need them. I feel that the QS6.1 delivers "A" quality sounds and with the past performance and reliabilty I have received from numerous other Alesis products, I am confident that this was an excellent choice.

I was calling technical support before the unit even arrived. The website provides much info as well as downloadable owner's manuals. I read the manual online and called Alesis with technical programming questions. They were friendly and we didn't go through the product ID red tape. After I began working with the synth, I encountered questions regarding the architecture of the piece. Although they answered completely my questions on the unit's capabilities, they had no suggestions on how to accomplish the tasks I was attempting. After some more exploring and experimentation I was able to resolve the situation and accomplish my goal.

I would buy this piece again(or a used 7, 7.1, or 8 for the same amount). I have used many synths and keyboards. I used to own a music store and sold Yamaha, Kawia, Ensoniq, and Technics keyboards and synths and Alesis effects and drum machines. This is my first Alesis synth and feel that it will perform well in live and studio applications. This is my newest piece and will be used in conjunction with soon-to-be dinosaurs and a sotware synth(Seer Sytems Reality)running on a 400MHz Pentium II PC. I looked at Yamaha and Roland products but for the money, The QS6.1 was the deal for me.

I've only used the presets(adjusted the effects some) and have had no problem. I'm a guitar player and have found this board easy to use for recording. I've used the stereo piano and some organ sounds on a few tunes. Works OK for me.

I like the sliders, expession and sustain pedal outputs(might get a new sustain pedal though). Still can't get the com port thing to work with my computer but the MIDI in/out works OK. Sends a clean signal to the board.

I like the sounds. Some are kinda crispy but I can work with that. So far I've found the sounds I needed when I needed them. I think I'll get a Korg or Roland module for variety rather than the Q card things. All in all sounds swell to me.

It's made of metal so it seems sturdy. I haven't had any problems but I haven't taken it to a gig.

I have an ADAT, SR 16, and a couple reverb units and they've all been support free. I've only had the keyboard for 5 months but no problem.

It's a fine 61 key board. Better action than the other stuff in it's price range. It has worked great on several demos and I plan to keep using it. If I lost it right now I'd get another one. I compared it to Korg and Roland and it seemed best of the three.

Not too bad for the features it has. It starts to become more involved when you get into editing your own mixes and patches. If you read the manual carefully, it will become clearer. The larger LCD screen is nice, and there are a few more extra buttons to give you faster access to its features (sequence and transpose for example). The only complaint I have with the manual is it doesn't explain the concept of flash RAM cards very well - I really had to hunt down the info I needed.
One complaint though: I didn't like the tabular concept of editing mixes/ patches etc. Depending on what "mode" you were in, the same button would do different things. I constantly had to read the writing on the synth to figure out what button to press. Plus, the cursor keys were away from the rest of the keys. It reminded me of typing before I learned to touch type - hunt and peck, hunt and peck. I would strongly recommend a patch editor.

Great controller. I love the rubber controller wheels. The keys and aftertouch feel right to me. Alesis synths have the most features for the price. It would be nice if it had optical outs, a sequencer, and multiple outs but this omission makes the unit cheaper than it's brothers - the QS 7, 8 and soon to be 7.1 and 8.1. It also has two PCMCIA slots compared to 1.
The addition of the 6.1 over the 6 is that it has the same amount of sounds as the QS7, 8, and R.

Here's the thing. I've always found QS's to be too "sampled" and unrealistic sounding. The samples are delightfully crisp and clean, but not very inspiring. I found this synth to be better for techno sounds than natural sounds. I wasn't overly impressed with the Q cards either. I guess it tried to be everything to everyone and thus doesn't do one thing very well.

Seemed to be pretty sturdy. Never locked up on me but I don't think I used it long enough to find out.

Alesis customer support is great. They're kind, helpful, and reasonably prompt.

It's a great synth for the money but I just wasn't happy with the patches - not very expressive and inspiring. I could have added my own samples of my liking but that's too much farting around for me. I'd rather be composing than adding and editing patches and samples.
It is for this reason I went to a Roland XP30. It was exactly what I was looking for.

I guess I'll have to read the manual on editing sounds, like for example I would like to make the pianos less bright. The nice thing it has is a transpose button which you hold down while pressing a key that corresponds with how you like to transpose

i am finding that not only can I use this board to play out conviently, which was my main purpose in getting it- to avoid carrying around sound modules, taking up setup time, but also it will hook up nicely into my PC and digital recorder (not through a digital interface though) for some sequencing.

the sounds are very good- the strings are pretyt nice. the main thing I am picky about is the piano and I think it is decent but not nearly as good as the korg sg rack I have. i looked also at the new korg n5ex, but the pianos on that were somewhat brittle and the keys weren't as tough- it was a tough choice to make though as I feel both keyboards are great, the alesis comes through for me with the 4 sliders which make the organs very versitile. the response on this board is very nice also.

i have had it for a day and have had no problems, so I really can't comment here

when I e-mail them I always get a good response

i think it is a great all in one package. many different types of sounds, and they are very clear. the only thing I wish it had were the Korg Sg Pro X samples- but with some tweaking I'll get them a little less bright. The only other board I considered was the N5EX, but the sounds are impossible to find on it, and i felt this board has a nice amount of resistance. something else that looks similar at NAMM is the Xp30 by Roland, but usually the keys are a little lighter