Alesis QS6

Easy to find the many sounds which are BETTER THAN ROLAND

I dig Keith Emerson and this has many of his sounds which are
BETTER THAN ROLAND

I'm selling my roland rd 500 the roland piano sounds like a midrange
nightmare I love the Alesis the sounds are much BETTER THAN ROLAND

who knows

what?

Everything sounds natural. Roland sounds like they sample in a hall
way with a mike around the corner compared to this.
Hey if you love distorted Hammonds, ELP synths and clear pianos
this is all you need.

I have no idea what software version. . . The presets are a very mixed bag; the acoustic pianos are thin, reedy, and too bright. The electric pianos are very good overall, the organs are very good and make good use of the leslie effect. The guitars are usable, particularly "Rock Lead," although the overdrive effect on the QS is much too weak. The string presets are absolutely ATROCIOUS and are completely useless without heavy editing--the attacks are never realistic, and split points are blatant. The brass sounds are poor overall, although the flugelhorn might be passable in a mix. The bass sounds appear decent, but fit poorly in a mix and rely VERY heavily on a low EQ boost for any punch. The synth leads and pads are great OTOH, but are a little heavy on the effects for my taste. The lead sounds that use the J Pad voice (presumably a Jupiter-8 sample) are particularly good. . .The drums are terrible and are virtually useless. In order to give the kick drum sounds any semblance of low-end, the EQ effect is required!

The user interface is an exercise in frustration; I've own many other synths/samplers (Virus keyboard, Wavestation A/D, Juno-106, XP-30, Yamaha A3000, Yamaha FS1R, etc.) and used many others extensively, and the QS6 has without a doubt the clumsiest OS I've ever seen, particularly considering it is not at all a powerful synth.

The manual is about average, which means it's lousy.

-64 note polyphony, 61-key velocity + pressure sensitive keyboard
-8 MB of uncompressed samples
-1 expansion card slot

The polyphony is fine, but when the QS6 was my only synth long ago I used to max it frequently (most programs use 4 voices, which reduces the polyphony to 16 note). The effects are of the global send/return variety, but can be very confusing and clumsy to use in multi/mix mode. The quality of the effects is below average to poor; the reverbs are particularly bad (they're grainy, metallic, and color the sound drastically), and the 2 band parametric EQ can boost, but cannot cut!!

Similarly, only a non-lowpass lowpass filter is provided, which produces surprisingly obvious stepping artifacts. Although the QS series claim to feature 3 independent LFOs / voice, each LFO is restricted to a specific function (e.g. LFO1 modulates pitch exclusively, LFO2 modulates filter, LFO3 modulates amplitude), which results in reduced flexibility for designing sounds.

No synthesis functions are provided (e.g. oscillator sync, ring mod, FM).

Keyboard action is a subjective quality of course; I liked the action on the QS6, but it exhibited far too much mechanical noise. . .

The power supply is an external lump-in-the-line adapter.

Some "acoustic" sounds, as I indicated above are great, like the electric pianos and organs are great, and the woodwinds as a group are decent, but most of the acoustic programs are marred by unnatural attacks, nasality, sloppy loop points, and poor response to velocity changes. The sounds usually are dull and not very expressive. The electronic sounds are very good, particularly the synth pads, but the lack of resonant filter and more realtime controls limits their usefulness.

This is the paradox of the QS series--great sounding electronic waveforms, but not enough synthesis tools to do anything with them. Besides, at least a megabyte most likely was squandered sampling resonant filter sweeps, so why didn't Alesis provide a resonant filter, so better acoustic samples could be included? Anyone who wants to do dance music is better off with something else, even though the synth's best sounds are geared for this purpose. The only people who could seriously use the QS6 are rock musicians who need good electric piano and organ sounds.

I personally think the QS series effects are terrible. The only usable effects IMHO are the delays, leslie, chorus/flanger, and resonator. The EQ cannot cut, period, the reverbs muddy the sound excessively, and the 4-bus structure was poorly implemented, inflexible, and confusing.

I've had a number of problems with my QS6. A few months after I bought mine in 1997, the power supply failed. Fortuantely it was under warranty, and the problem was resolved quickly. A year later, the pitch bender broke and some of the keys started to stick. I managed to fix these problems without any real trouble, but the QS6 became increasingly erratic. Sometimes it would stall while playing back a sequence for no apparent reason, and sometimes it would not power up. Finally I sold it last year.

I gigged twice with the QS6 without a backup, without any problems, but this was before it started to go beserk.

The more experience I get with synths and audio equipment, the more I realize that Alesis products are truly inferior devices that are designed from the ground up to cut corners. Hopefully the Andromeda proves me wrong.

I emailed tech support about my problems, and they responded fairly quickly each time, which is a lot better than Roland or Yamaha. Of course Roland and Yamaha gear doesn't break down like Alesis "equipment" does. This was the last Alesis product I owned, until I happily sold it last year.

At the time I bought it (Jan. 1997), there really wasn't anything else on the market that could touch the QS6's price. Things have changed quite a bit since then, and if you're in the market for a new synth for less than $1000, buy a Roland XP-30. You will not regret it for an instant. That said, I got a lot of mileage out of my QS6 and wrote some great music with it, and some of the pad sounds you can get out of it are world-class.

I'm not a Keyboard player, I play Bass guitar. I bought the QS6 as a creative sound tool to work some music ideas out on. I never really read the manual, the buttons for all the preset sounds are right on top, just push a button and go. I find it fairly easy to use but I don't use any patches or editing features. Wish it was easyer to program I could do more with it.

It's got a lot of sounds most are very good quality. I like the pitch bend wheel, and the way they group like sounds near each other.
My only other Keyboard is a Yamaha CP20 Electric Piano (vint. 1975) so this is a big step up. I bought it because it had a lot of sounds, it was very small and lightweight, and it was cheap.(under $500 new)

When I bought this keyboard I needed something more portable and my other options in this price range were Electric painos with five or six sounds. The QS6 has hunderds of sounds and a better feel than most
other instruments. It just seemed like a better quality set of keys for the money.

Seems very well built, full metal jacket. But i have not giged with it heavy, only a few times. Never had any problems.

No idea, never needed any.

I bought this right before the 6.1 came out because the dealer was blowing out the old models. I knew this and didn't need what ever the new one had so I think I got a great deal. Checking the prices paid on H-C I think I got it for less than anyone new. Compared to Roland & Korg stuff before I bought it seemed like a better value for what I needed.

The manual is not complete, I miss explanations for some functions (e.g. the resonancy effect).
The presets start with too much delay (in my opinion as a rock keyboarder). So, I have to store the patches as user patches and remove the delay.
Before I bought a Hammond-piece, I was enjoyed playing them (and even now).
Most synth-sounds, I have to edit. After I shortened the startup delay, they are very usefull. I combine patches in the mix mode - sounds very well.
Editing is hard - but after some time of practising, possible. Alternativly, I use the Unicorn-Editor from the cdrom.
The piece is very programmable, but to get really good sounds, you have to work a lot of time with it - experience is all...

64 voices, never broken the frontier. Playing live, I use only my two hands, so I've never reached the limit.
I like the keyboard action, I come from the piano and it feels like a piano.
The effects section is ok concerning the quality. But the quantity lacks. For a live keyboarder, it's important to use more than one patch at a time. But with the Alesis, you have to decide, which patch selects the effect-mode. Either you play strings and organ with lezlie or you play them with flanger. I think, a second or even third effect unit could make my life easier.
The QS6 should have a second card adapter. I use a flash ram for backup of my user presets and for additional wave's (very good, if you need thunder, you load a thunder.wav with the PC on the card and create a drumset patch: voila). So, I cannot use a ALESIS Q-Card or a S-RAM card (flash ram has only one user preset bank while S-RAM cards can have multiple).
I use sequencing only at home. You can load midi-files to the flash card and play it either external (on the midi-out) or internal (Alesis plays).

Organs are very good. Synths very "esoteric", but simple to reprogam, so I could use the pads in rock (hard'n'heavy).
Strings are a bit strange but useable for me.
I miss a list with the modulation functions. When you search for a particular sound, use the modwheel and the "controler A": some sounds change from "crap" to "surprise".
The Rhodes, Wurlis and other e-pianos are very realistic, especially with the mod wheel on half: they react to your velocity but in a randomly way, very good.
Lead synth sounds have to be reprogrammed to get the old "Europe" or "VanHalen" Sound.
I like the piano sounds, but thats based on my humble opinion. But a hint: try to route a piano over a slow lezlie instead of the icecream-like reverb - absolutely ear-pervasive.

Never got a problem - don't talk about inserting the flashram into the running synth (oops: nothing damaged ;-).
The box seems to be very stable - metal case.

Don't know and don't want to know.
Some time before, I wrote an e-mail to Alesis but never got a response. I tried to ask them, if they could deliver the sounds of the Q-Cards on a CD, so one could burn them on a flash-card (very hard to get multi-samples in SoundDesigner format).

I would buy the QS-7, it has more keys, two slots for flash-cards and, as I've heard, better piano sounds (stereo).
I love the flexible programming, the extendability (with .wav) and I hate to play mixes (multi-patches) with only one effect unit.
I hate to have effects and parameters with an unusable description in the manual.
I hate that its not possible to edit a flash-ram-patch directly.

Presets sound adequate. More on the sounds below. GM bank nearly unusable, really thin compared to rest of presets. Many good patches available for free on the Internet, however. Editing patches on the synth itself is an exercise in navigating submenus. Buttons are clearly labeled with submenu section names, but each submenu has more submenus. They make up for it with the free Unisyn computer editor - very clear layout in the Unisyn template makes tweaking the parameters much easier. (On a side note - QS editor in Emagic's SoundDiver is equally useful.) Manual is competent, has a good section on the basics of synthesis for those new to electronic music. Could have been better indexed, but still far superior to Roland manuals. Screen could have been bigger (2 x 40 characters) but this was addressed in the QS6.1 model.

64 voices - actually oscillators - with up to 4 per voice. Keyboard action and build quality are great, really solid synth action and metal construction. Built in effects are quality Quadraverb effects but the bussing is somewhat convoluted. Again, the computer editor helps. Can accept new samples through PCCard slot - 8mb per card at 48KHz. Nifty feature to add samples you create to empty PC card through MIDI - takes forever to do, though. True strenghth of the QS series is the incredible amount of MIDI control over just about everything - uses Matrix-like synth structure with loads of modulators and loads of modulation destinations. More in the sounds section on that. One of the first under $1,000 synths with both velicity and pressure sensitivity - good response as well. No built in sequencer, but can play back Type 1 standard MIDI sequences that have been saved to PC Card.

Pianos are weak - there's an 8mb Piano QCard expansion card that has the Bosendorfer samples that people rave about - people wanting good piano sounds should spring for that (or get one of the .1 series - they have the Piano expansion built in). Strings are quite nice, I think, as are the synth sounds. Modulation possibilities not really exploited by the presets, which are very generic. Capable of complete shifts of sound with properly programmed patches. Patch programming is very deep - Matrix-like patching system between modulation sources and destinations, allows creation of sounds not possible on other ROMplers. Effects sound good but are not very flexible. Filter is non-resonant lowpass only. Sounds better than Korg synths for pads, but similarly limited by non-resonant filter. Not for acid filter sweeps. Modulation structure allows crafty workarounds to get some convincing analog-ish sounds of out it, but the QS series is designed more toward the general comp and new-age pad folks.

Solid metal construction without weighing a ton. Doesn't crash. Doesn't freak out in summer heat. Very dependable. I use it as a master keyboard on stage.

Never had to deal with Alesis.

I would probably get the newer version (QS 6.1) or the larger keyboard (QS 7.1) which have a bigger display, the 8mb Piano expansion, two PCCard slots instead of 1, and 4 control sliders instead of 1. I would definitely get another QS synth, though - I have too many wicked custom sounds for it that I cannot get on other synths. Alesis would do well to make a new line of QS synths that have resonant filters but are otherwise compatible with the older QS synths. The QS line represents a toning down of the original QuadraSynth line, which in my opinion were better synths - huge displays, massive alpha dial controllers - but they are a good value for the money. Less common in dance music circles, I suppose, but that is probably a strength given how everyone sounds like everyone else these days.

BIOS v2.00, September 6, 1996. As far as I know, that was the last
software update written for the QS6, which allowed for independent
MIDI sequence playback, and sample burn/playback to/from flashcards.
Preset sounds, expansion ability and overall capablity were the
reasons, at the time (Spring '97), that I bought this keyboard. They
were, in my opinion, far superior to the equivalent competing keyboards
(Korg X5D, Roland XP-10). This, and the price was virtually identical.
Patch editing is complete, though somewhat obscure. Keep in mind,
however, that this was my first "professional" keyboard, and I had to
learn all about ADSR envelopes, samples, etc. while I was trying to
decipher the menu-based patch editing. When bought, the pack-in
CD-ROM included a "lite" version of MOTU's Unisyn, which allows PC-based
editing of patches, significantly easing patch editing.
Editing mixes (multi-timbral mode) is extremely easy, and the
64-note polyphony allows impossibly lush symphonies with nary a dropped
note.
The manual is good to get you started, but near worthless when it
comes to the nuts and bolts.

64-note polyphony, with a semi-weighted keyboard. I believe that
the mechanism is made by Fatar for Alesis. Keys send aftertouch data
(a bonus!). MIDI in and out/thru, as well as a serial interface are
all provided for interfacing. A single, assignable control slider is
provided.
Built-in effects are more than adequate (or were, by the standards
of the day), with delay, overdrive, reverb, lezlie and more fairly easily
implemented and adjusted.
Expansion is through a single PCMCIA slot in the back, which accepts
standard Flash RAM cards (up to 8MB, for sample burning and subsequent
playback (viola, it's a sampler!), MIDI sequence storage or patch and mix
data storage) and Alesis Q-Card expansion cards. I've personally
bought the Vintage Synths Q-Card, which has proven to be well worth
the (very fair) zZounds purchase price.

With only 8MB (as opposed to the 16MB QS7, 8 and all the x.1 series),
the piano sound is really lacking. However, Alesis does a wonderful
job of leveraging what available samples there are, to make for an
extremely usable array of presets. I can't say the orchestral (string,
brass, etc.) sounds are all that convincing, but the pad and synth
sounds are pure gold. That having been said, the keyboard is well-suited
to virtually all types of music. I personally use it for trance/ambient,
for which, with the previously mentioned Q-Card expansion, it has
served me admirably. One complaint: drum sounds are utterly useless
for electronic style music -- plan to buy an appropriate expansion card
if this type of music is your interest.
Onboard effects are good (see above for more), and definitely add
to the creative potential of the keyboard.
Keyboard dynamics are adequate.
The slider tends to "crackle" occasionally when used, and the MIDI
timing tends to be a little sloppy under heavy load, so it loses the
perfect 10 rating.

The keyboard is built like a tank. I've never had a problem (touch
wood) with it, and would readily gig without a backup.

Customer support, by telephone, is adequate. By e-mail, support
is abysmal.

If it were lost or stolen, I would replace it with a QS6.1 as soon as
possible. I find it is more than worth what I paid for it. The old
QS6's can be had for minimal cost used now, so if you're interested,
give one a listen for yourself and see what you think.
One caveat -- I *wish* it had an arpeggiator, but I guess that's
nothing that can't be cured by a decent sequencer.

Most of the presets are very good. Organs and electric pianos are excellent. Alot of good analog synth sounds, especially 3oh3 SqrMW. Drums are pretty good. If you use alot of symbals, you might want to make your own set and set the symbal levels higher, otherwise not bad.
Onboard patch editing is tedious, as on most synths. But it comes with a bundled copy of Unisyn (if you're using a Mac) which is nice. Mine seems to be flawed though. If I don't move the window to the middle of the screen, none of the sliders work, but I can live with it. Actually I've started doing more onboard editing. It's actually kind of fun. Sort of like solving a puzzle.
The manual sucks. It's basically a crash course in synthesizer terminology. It tells you what the parameters mean (in hard-to-fathom techie-speak) but don't really say much about how to use them. I think Alesis considers the QS6 an entry level synth but I sure most beginners would have to spend at least six months, alone in a small room, with one to figure it out. Setting up multi-timbral mixes can be somewhat confusing. Especially when you start fiddling around with the effects. The software version is 2.0.

The 64 voice polyphony is excellent. I can't imagine ever running into problems with dropping notes because of it. The keyboard action is also excellent and once you try aftertouch, you'll never go back.
The effects are nothing short of perfect. Somewhat confusing at first, especially if you haven't worked with effects processors before. But they're extremely good. You can have up to four individual effect settings running at the same time in a multi-timbral mix.
The reason I chose the QS6 over the Korg N5 (for instance) is because it accepts pcmcia expansion cards which enable you to import your own samples from your computer. So, if you have a computer and some empty flash ram pcmcia cards, your QS6 is suddenly a sampler.
Midi capabilities are very good. It has a built in serial port so you don't need a midi translator between the QS6 and your computer. The serial port can be set to PC or Mac. It also has MIDI in and the MIDI out is also the MIDI through. Multi-timbral mixes can have up to 16 channels. Everything can be sent to MIDI, wheels, controller, velocity, aftertouch. You name it. Program changes can also control changes in effects settings.
No onboard sequencer. Who cares? They always suck anyway.

The expresiveness of the QS6 is excellent. Even though alot of the sounds aren't all that realistic. If you want something that sounds like a real piano, go out and buy a real piano. The wheels and controllers can be set to control almost any parameters you want. Even the effects. Velocity and aftertouch are excellent. If you're playing keyboards in a band, this synth will suit pretty much any musical style. If you're playing on your own with a sequencer, then it depends on how picky you are. But you're going to have a tough time finding any other synth in the QS's price range that does better.

I've had it for three months and haven't had any problems yet. Another reason I decided to buy the QS is because it looks like it would take a steam roller to dent it. It's the only synth I saw in it's price range with a metal casing.

Well, the first one they gave me had a problem with the display. It lit up but nothing was displayed. I called up the dealer and they told me to bring it in and gave me another one right away.
I tried e-mailing Alesis about the problem with Unisyn. They never responded.

If lost, I would buy it again. If stolen, I would have my insurance company buy me a new one. It's worth more than what I paid. The dealer was clearing out the QS6's so he could ship in some QS6.1's, so I got it with a 30% discount.
The only thing that bothers me about it is that it's somewhat difficult to fiddle your way through a multi-timbral, solo jam session. You pretty much have to decide beforehand how you want your mix setup. Once you incorporate a sound program into a mix you lose that programs effects settings and the mixes settings take over. In some cases it can make the program sound very different.
I've been playing for 15 years and have owned a number of low-end keyboards. But I've had steady access to some pretty good equipment, like the Roland W-30 and the Kurzweil K-2000. When I was shopping for a new synth, I was looking for something I could afford, but something that reminded me somewhat of the K-2000.
I looked at the Yamaha CSX-1 and the Korg N5. When I saw the QS6, there was no comparison. The CSX-1 and the N5 are toys, the QS6 is a tool.

This is an update to a previous review of this instrument. It failed once and had to go into the shop for repair -- the main soundboard failed and needed to be replaced.

Fortunately, the unit was still covered under warrantee at the time of failure and was repaired in a reasonable amount of time with no cost to me. Alesis has authorized repair centers, which allowed me to bring my synth to a shop about 15 minutes away, as opposed to shipping the item out. The synth failing turned out to be a blessing in disguise, for when I returned home with the repaired synth, it sounded musch better than it ever had -- the piano is now like the 6.1 as well as the output level. Apparently, they simply supplied me with a 6.1 soundboard -- they probably have no qs6 sound boards available. So the synth is better than new.

Overall, I have been quite happy with this board. Itis always irritating when something fails, but it is bound to happen sooner or later -- that's what warrantees are for. For more info, see my previous review.

I listed quite a favorable review here a while back and feel that it is my responsibility to update, as the synth has failed on me. As I stated earlier, if a synth is going to fail, it usually will do so within the warrantee period. Mine is, fortunately, still unser warrantee. The problem is in the output stage. The synth powers up and executes fine, but the output is about one-sixth of its norm and is distorted. It seems that most find this to be a reliable synth and I'm hoping my problem is a mere fluke. Also, mine was the on-the-rack model -- the last that Guitar Center had, so perhaps it took some abuse there that caused its demise. Nevertheless, I still expect a quality piece of equipment to be able to take a reasonable beating and still function.

We'll soon see how Alesis customer support is and I will update only if I have a negative experience. If there is no update by the end of June, then all has gone well.

This was my first keyboard, bought for a project studio in January, 1998. The preset sounds are pretty good, and with a Q card and the bundled soundbridge CD you can build a software based library of around 3000 different patches, which in my case I manage through Unisys. Editing patches through the keyboard is pretty ponderous, and much easier through Unisys. The Pianos are so-so, with a couple of good Rhodes and metallic piano patches, but the acoustics aren't that hot. Of course this is a problem that is easy to solve, as all current Alesis keyboards contain the teriffic Bosendorfer phase-accurate stereo grand, which is outstanding (I access this patch through a Q card. I also use a Korg Trinity TR-Rack and a Roland MBD-1, and although most sounds from the Trinity are world class, I still normally layer them with QS6 patches, and Korg cant touch the Alesis stereo grand. The manual is pretty hard to divine any usaeable info from, It tells you what's going on as far as the unit's architecture, but gives no tips on haw to produce a certain sound, etc.

With 64 note polyphony on board this is a very versatile keyboard. My Trinity is only 32 voices, and occasionally steals voices, so I feel 64 should be a minimum. Built-in effects are good and very useful, but hard to program. I've usually used software plugins or outboard units instead just because they're easier. The Keyboard action is pretty good, with aftertouch and velocity sensitivity (a must). This is not a workstation (no sequencer) and doesn't have true resonant sweep capability, but is a great all-around keyboard, especially if you are techno oriented

The patches are pretty good, all are not stellar, but the sheer number of them gives a lot of choices. Lots of nice pads, and even some of the complex/morphed sounds give the Korg a run for its money. This is my main keyboard, and I've never had any remorse about buying it.

Ive never gigged with it, but in general it seems dependable. Lately, though, it's begun a nasty habit of jumping into mix mode everytime you try to change patches.

Like most customer support, they're not Rhodes Scholars (no pun). If they were, they wouldn't be in tech support, would they? My dealings with them have been pretty good. I bought a floor model that had been around for a while, and needed the bundled CD. Comparing patch info to the manual allowed the support guy to deduce that I needed a current E-prom as well, and both were overnighted to me the next day at no charge.

I would buy this unit again, not so much because its outstanding as for the amount of learning time invested. The nerwer units (6.1) supposedly have a larger lcd screen. Ironically the versatility of the onboard effects is what put me over the top, but I hardly use them except as they come programmed with the patches.