Alesis QS6

Many other reviews of this product describe it as "difficult to program." I find it a snap to program, and could probably train a monkey to do so. In fact, mine was the last that Guitar Center had, so I had to wait about a month to acquire a manual. I didn't even use it, for I had the synth's programming operations down within two or three days.

It has as many features as a performance synth in 1999 should. Many have complained about the lack of an on-board sequencer -- those, people, are called WORKSTATIONS, like the Korg O1. But this is not, nor does it claim to be, a workstation. My Roland A90ex does not have an onboard sequencer either -- it is a controller. If a sequencer is what you want, buy a workstation. I feel that workstations are basically a waste of money unless one travels often and requires portable means. It is much less expensive to buy software and use a computer. Even the cheapest version of Cake Walk is better than any workstation's sequencer. Finally, the LCD window is small, but I would rather have a small window than a large price-tag.

The Piano sound is not average, as some have described. It is god-awful and uninspiring. The drum sounds are average, but in a performance synth, drum sounds are not that important. If you want drum sounds, get the DM5. The organs are great, as well as the electric piano -- especially the rhodes, which sounds great with tremelo from the modulation wheel. Horn and string sounds are good, not the best, but adequate. There is a great sax on there though. The synth sounds are quite versatile, and I have been able to duplicate several "vintage synth" tones. The pads and solo patches (especially "Shine On...") I like as well.

I have used my QS6 onstage many times and have never had a problem. Usually, if a synth is defective, it will fail immediatelty. Also, if for any reason one is experiencing MIDI glitch (locks up) you can turn it off and on and be up and running again quickly, for it remembers what patch you were on and has no lag time from when it is turned on to when it is usable. Plus, if it really acts strange, holding down 0 and 3 while turning the power on will reset the global parameters to stock without changing any programs or mixes.

When I purchased my QS6, it was the absolute last one that any of the Guitar Center stores in Chicagoland had for sale. It was the demo and had no manual and lacked the soundbridge CD-Rom. Guitar Center supplied me with a manual, and I contacted Alesis via email for the CD Rom. They responded quickly and pollitely, and within three or four days, I had the CD Rom in my mail box.

If lost or stolen, I would not buy it again -- I would buy the QS7. It has twice as many wave forms and has a great piano sound on board. However, I do not anticipate losing my QS6 and have purchased a Q Card "Grand Piano" which will remedy the piano sound dilemma, as well as ad several other waveforms to my arsenal. For $499, nothing else could come close to the QS6. The other synths under $1000 are merely toys while this is a professional quality performance synth

This unit only rates a 7 for ease of use. Not because it's *difficult* per se, but because it is very cumbersome having to scroll through thousands of pages to amend the desierd parameters. The manual is quite adequate - better than manuals from other manufacturers I've seen.
Finding sounds is very simple because all sound types are organied together in banks (e.g. pianos in one bank, strings in another, drums in another etc). Preset sounds range from ordinary to excellent - none of them suck, and a few dazzle.
I've only had the synth a few weeks and I'm still shopping around for a PC sound editor. There are a few around (QE Plus, QS Editor32, maybe I'll try Emagic SoundDiver?).

Feauturewise, this synth is excellent value for money. 64 voice polyphony/16 part multi-tabral is great for sequences. They 61 key, semi-weighted keyboard is nice to use and is velocity and aftertouch sensitive. They built in effects are superb and are a derivation of Alesis' excellent Quadraverb 2 fx unit. There is a great deal of porgrammability within the effects - enough to keep the most ardent tweakers satisfied for months! The synth does not have resonance filter, but a number of samples have resonance sweeps so I find I can easily live without one.
The QS6 comes with 8MB of ROM an board, with the provision to add another 8MB via a PC Card (called a 'Q-Card'). There are several Q-Cards available. I demmoed a couple in the store and they sounded fantastic!
The QS6 also comes bundled with a CD rom with a heap of cool software (incldung a copy of Unisyn - yet to get my head 'round it though) and about 8 extra banks of sounds.

I would give this unit a 6 for sound quality compared to what's available in the marketplace, but a 10 out of 10 at it's price point.
The keyboard comes with 640 preset patches (128 user, 128 GM) and 500 mixes (or combinations). Some presets are excellent, others are ordinary. Generally speaking; the pianos are average (but usable - better than a Korg N5), strings are average (there are a couple of good patches) brass sounds are good, drums and percusiion are excellent, ethnic/chromatic instrument sounds are also excellent. The QS6 comes with a variety of drum/rhythm loops which sound quite impressive, but are probably of limited use. The Synth/pad/analog type sounds are generally very good as well.

It's made from aluminium (not plastic) and is built like a tank so I don't envisage any construction problems.

Have emailed Alesis twice on different questions and never received a reply - maybe their replies got lost in cyberspace? Perhaps my questions were too stupid!

9/10 in terms of value for money. Obviously there are better synths out there, but in my opinion this is the best one at it's price point.
I was tossing up between the QS6 and the Korg N5. I chose the QS6 for the following, subjective, reasons:
Better piano sounds (marginally!) Better drum and percussion sounds Logical location of presets Less "ridiculous" presets Expansion ability - PC cards Nicer keyboard and more rugged construction The cool CD rom that comes with it!
However, the Korg has better strings/Orch hits and is easier to use.

Basic usage is quite simple. The QS6 has a very simple interface for entry-level users. The editing is different. It is really a royal pain if you want to do it from the synths. The manual is awful. It is non-consistent, full of grammatical errors and generally chaotic.

Well. The features are excellent. It has 64 voices, four effect-busses, etc, etc..

I am most pleased with the sounds of the QS6. Excellent organs, average pianos, very good guitars, good strings, great synth sounds. The only dissapointment was the General Midi preset.

It is reliable. Yes, I would use it without backup.

I like the QS6. Yes, I would buy it again, or QS7/8.

Note: This is for version 2.00 of the software...
The QS6 is one of the easiest keyboards I've used - at least as far as selecting sounds is concerned. The button layouts are real clear - no wheels to pick your sounds. Just select your bank, pick your sound group, pick your program, and you're there! Editing is a bit of a pain, as I'll explain below, but not so bad that it takes off a lot of marks from the overall score.
The presets overall sound great, though the acoustic piano programs are a little on the weak side coming out of the box. For instance, while I like the tone of the Grand Piano, the default decay rate is way too short so that with even a sustain pedal, the notes come off a bit staccato. But that's not too much of a problem, since I tend to record piano live anyway or use synthesized acoustic piano as a subtle underscore. The rest of presets are really nice. The strings, while not quite rivaling the "realism" of Roland strings, sound real nice, especially those with pad effects attached. The percussion sounds are especially nice on this unit.
With respect to editing patches, there's so much you can do, and so much you have to learn, that it's a bit daunting for the newbie to this synth. It's not that settings are difficult to get at - they're not - it's just that there's so much. In addition, the LCD is pretty small, and you're forced to scroll a lot of pages to get where you want to go. Once you get used to it though, it's not bad. However, I should say that there are shareware programs on the internet that interface with the QS that provide a graphical interface for editing programs that makes the job incredibly easy. What I mentioned as difficult refers to editing patches from the keyboard itself.
As far as the manual is concerned, it's not great, but it is adequate, and will give you a good sense of how to use the synthesizer properly. If you can though, make sure you get your vendor to include a copy of the QS6 instructional video along with your unit. It saved me a bunch of time!

The QS6 has true 64-voice polyphony - and that's a ton! For a keyboard in the <$1000 range, you just can't beat that. I doubt that I'll ever need to reach this (now that I've said it, I'll probably come up with a song that'll require use of all 64 voices). Add to that semi-weighted keys, and you've got a nice-sounding, nice-playing instrument.
As far as effects are concerned, the QS6 has four "stereo independent multi-effect processing busses" that can produce chorus, reverb, delay, and distortion, singly and in combination. You can also create rotating speaker effects. In all, the effects are awesome on this keyboard, and just add to the all the nice features this keyoard has.
But a big plus for me (and one of the major reasons I bought the keyboard) was the expansion capability of the system. The QS6 comes with a single PCMCIA card slot for either storing sounds and sequences, or adding more presets with Q-Cards, which are ROM cards burned with specific genre-type sounds. A very nice touch. The ability to store sequences (without necessarily editing them locally on the machine) was important to me because I do a lot of work at home and bring the keyboard to the studio. Being able to store my sequences and play the back into Pro Tracks was a HUGE issue. It meant that I didn't have to redo or revoice my MIDI tracks in the studio, saving valuable studio time that could be spent on the live instruments and vocal tracks.
MIDI on this unit is superb. This little multi-timbral unit allows up to 16 simultaneous MIDI channels to be used in a mix. And I have actually yet to use all 16 channels! Along the same lines, the QS6 doesn't come with a built-in sequencer, but that's not a problem for me because I've never been comfortable with built-in sequencers in the first place. I prefer computer-based sequencers where I have more control over the sequences settings.

Let's just put this in perspective: The keyboard comes standard with 512 Preset and 128 User single programs. Furthermore, it comes with 400 Preset and 100 User polyphonic mixes. The sheer number is staggering for a keyboard in this price range. And you'll definitely find a lot of voices that fit your type of composition.
All I can say for this keyboard's expressiveness and quality of sounds is that they are all top-notch with the exception of the acoustic piano sounds. But I tend to be pretty critical of those anyway, and prefer to do those live, so for others, it may not be an issue. The QS6 out of the box is really well-suited for more contemporary types of music as far as its default sounds are concerned. However, with the Q-cards adding genre-specific sounds to the keyboard, the types of music that can be played out of that box cover a pretty broad area.
As I said above, the onboard effects are awesome, and nice change for a sub-$1000 keyboard. In fact, one of the things I didn't mention is that the keyboard is so flexible that you can assign various effects to the three phases of a keytouch to produce some interesting effects. For instance, you can have the keyboard play one sound when a key is first pressed. After you hold the key down for awhile, you can have the sound morph into another sound; taking it a bit further, you can then program in another sound when the key is released. Way cool!
The keyboard is touch sensitive, so it will react to the way you play. I found that with some of the programs, the touch threshold to trigger secondary effects is a bit erratic. Sometimes they kick in to easily, other times, you really have to wail on the keyboard to make them trigger. Oh well, you can't have everything...
By the way, the keyboard is both velocity and aftertouch sensitive - kind of implied by the above.

Haven't had to call tech support yet - okay, just once, but that was only to clarify something (read, user stupidity). In any case, I transport this puppy back and forth between my home and the studio and it still looks new - it helps that I take care of it though, as should anyone who owns a delicate piece of equipment.
Would I use it on a gig without a backup? You bet, only because I don't have tons of money to have a backup, and if I did have enough, I would have one in any case just because I'm paranoid. But in my current financial situation, no problem, I could rely on this keyboard with ease.

Only called once, waited for only two or three minutes and got my question answered immediately, and without hassle. Upgrades haven't been an issue since the keyboard is brand new.

I absolutely love this keyboard! Yes, editing can be a bit daunting at first. But when you have the ability to customize or create sounds at a real fine level, having a lot of features to edit isn't such a bad thing at all.
Admittedly, I haven't been playing keyboard for a long time - I'm a guitarist and vocalist by trade, with a few years of piano under my belt, so electronic synthesis is a bit new to me. But I did my homework on this purchase, spending a couple of months (ouch, that was tough) comparing the QS6 to keyboards from Yamaha, Korg, Roland, Ensoniq (up to $1000). After weighing all the pros and cons the QS6 was the only keyboard that met almost all of my requirements. For the price, you just can't beat this keyboard!
I've been writing music for about 20 years, and since I've been using the QS6 to write music, it has propelled my music writing into another dimension. Combined with my PC, there's not much I can't do composition-wise. Once I mastered creating mixes and applying effects, I knew that this was one piece of equipment that I'd be hard-pressed to part with.
Okay, I've had nothing but praise for this keyboard, but there are some things that I'd like to see...
First, the LCD, while serviceable, could be bigger and more informative. All the Yamahas that I looked at had great readouts. Furthermore, it would be nice if Alesis wrote software for editing patches and mixes from Windows or the Mac to compensate for the tiny LCD. They could have even included one of the shareware programs that's out on the internet. It just would have been a nice touch.

It has a good look: the pitch and modulation are in the right places and so does the rest. It's well drawn, I would say. The presets sounds OK, the strings are good to my ears, and the drums are the best. Not the drums, but the effects too! Editing is a little boring, it's all there, but you don't have empty Programs to start. Things can be a little confusing then. The manual is very bright, with lots of pictures.

The polyphony is great: 64 voices. That's more than the keys (61), so live musicians don't have to care about that. Not even the studio ones, I think... But you can play from one to 16 programs at the same time, with the Mixes power, turning it to a 4-voice. making The effects are the best (it has FOUR busses!), including EQ, Leslie, Pitch (chorus, flanger, resonator...), delay, reverb and - god - an Overdrive. There is a problem: it's not easy to editing them without the manual... It can be very expanded, and there are the QCards, PCMCIA-like that have lots of new samples and programs. Well, MIDI is always present: velocity, aftertouch... there are two pedals: a sustain that comes with it and an assignable one. There is the Controller "A", a slider that you can assign what you want, from Filter Freq to Reverb Decay.

Well, the sounds. This is the first thing you need to consider at the time you buy a keyboard. But the QS6 don't make a mistake: it has good sounds. The pianos aren't very good, but you can "delude" some ears by making good use of the eletric ones. I like the strings, they sound great. There are drums and percussion for everyone, but the ones not interested in the real thing would be happier. The preset synths aren't The Ultimate, but I could make very good use of the samples and effects, making great leads and pads. I didn't like the guitars... well, I don't like to play guitar on the keyboard, so it doesn't matter. But, I admit, I've used some samples to make synths... The keyboard is very good, it's better than Roland's and Yamaha's. I use it as a MIDI controller too because of that.

Well, I've already carried it everywhere and it's still like a new one. It's very good to use on gigs, because of its iron-made. Well, that means the QS6 is a dumb-roadie proof. And the software, until now, hadn't had any problems so on.

Man, I'll be serious: I haven't called it yet.

Well, it's really a good keyboard. It's not the best, not even Alesis' best, but it worth. I'm beginning my little home studio, and it's resumed by that: an old mac (Quadra) to sequence, a Midi Time Piece, my little QS6 that I use for the 'base' of the songs, a Korg O3R/W, that I use for the General MIDI instruments (they sound great), and I'm planning to buy Nord Lead 2, to use some some of its great pads, leads and basses. Well, I have the Alesis Wedge (It's god damn good), a little mixer and two Alesis Monitor One (man, I like Alesis!). Well, It's a good keyboard for gigging and for the studio. Some of the keyboardists who have the money, buy it just for its great keyboard, using for a MIDI controller.

I borrowed this from a freind for a couple of weeks so I'll try to make this short. Patch set-up is simple enough. Everything else is a mystery. Editing anything required going through a maze of pages on the LCD.

Huge polyphony. Probably good effects. Why no physical MIDI through?

All kinds of sounds and lots of each. Everyone says the synth sounds are great, but for analogue sounds (compared to my JUNO-106 (hardly a definitve analogue synth)) it's not like the real thing at all. I liked the organ souds and the other real instrument sounds were alright. Enough drums to keep you techno-types happy. But I don't like the effects that are on some sounds! Keep those off please!

One day something fell off from under one of the keys, I think it was a weight. Then I looked under the keyboard and saw that it wasn't the first....

For the price you can't complain. I did an entire track just using it and it sounded alright.

When all the patches and the use of controllers are checked out with the patches...wow! Alesis did a wonderful job. Self editing is a royal pain with or without the Unisyn patch editor. I'll take FM programming anyday over the QS6. The manual is okay, online help would be better.

Polyphony, action, effects, and MIDI are much better than can be expected for this price range. Sequencer? Fpr this price...Not! Effects are tough to program.

I am not looking ofr realistic instruments, except for piano. The piano is rather weak. Synth sounds are wonderful on this thing. Pop, techno, and New Wave are the strong styles for this box. Releas velocity is a *very* nice addition.

Ain't broke yet. I keep it in my home studio and don't make a regualr practice of pouring Coke on it.

BAD. Next to impossible to reach them. Their website leaves much to be desired. When will the new Q cards be relaesed? I am interested in the Classic Synths. No one could answer.

I got the deal of the decade! The board was used like twice. The board is the class of its class. Programming is its problem. I wish it had a 12dB and/or 24 dB resonance filter. I wish it could be expanded like the Roland boards can. The board inspires creativity.

The QS6 is about as user-friendly as it gets until you start editing patches, when you'll need a degree in sound engineering. This is mainly due to the sophistication of its editing capabilities. The presets sound great (including the piano). It's a good synth if you want to start jamming out the box. The manual is adequate, a little weak in MIDI/PC hook-up sections, as a lot of users have had problems with this. Alesis really needs to RECOMPILE IT'S SERIAL DRIVER for Windows95! I couldn't sequence properly until I installed a Roland Driver.

The features are well documented in product literature.

There are a lot of really good sounding patches. I find the strongest to be the pianos, strings, organs, pads and synths sounds. I have yet to hear a good sounding guitar on any synth, but a couple of the acoustics are passable. I use the Bass patches a lot, but will have to tweak them to get the sound I want (back to the engineer degree).

I've had yet to put it to the test, but so far so good.

I've had good experiences and not-so good experiences with Alesis customer support. I'd count on them for basic questions, after checking the manual. They were always polite.

Overall I consider the QS6 the best bang-for-buck for an < $1000 synth, and would buy it again.

The synth sound are very good the other sounds are average. If you want piano sound you should NOT buy this one. Editing sounds are very complicated and the qs6 does not want to communicate with you in a easy way. The manual is good and takes a few ours to read.

With the 64 voices you can create your own symphonies if you want to. The semi-weight keys are brilliant to play with. The Qs6 has a modified Quadraverb 2 inside and that makes the effect very good. The effect are a bit difficult to modify. You can expand the Qs6 with pcmcia cards from 1 to 8 mb. The Qs6 has one midi in and one midi out but not midi Thru!!(the midi out can be switched to tru mode) Qs6 sends pressure, velocity, release velocity No sequencer . Gm standard.

The synth sounds are fat and sound teriffic. Poor Piano sounds. Poor flute sounds. Exellent marimbas and xylophone sounds. Good strings. Poor guitar sounds. Average wind sounds. Average bass sounds. Good brass sounds. Average GM sounds. Good drum sounds.
This is a very good instrument for Techno, dance music and rock music. The synth follow your playing very good and it is not static. The after touch is superb.

You can depend on this synthesiezer. And yes i would use it on a gig without backup. When i went to the French Alps i took my Qs6 with me in a SOFTcase. The airport crew put my softcase under 500 kilos of skiing equipment but the Qs6 didn't care.

It takes awful lot of time to get it repaired.

I would not buy this synth again, I would buy the big brother QS8!! But if the QS8 didn't exist i Would buy it again, its worth every swedish crown!!. I love it but i wished it had more outputs and more Ram memory, better piano sounds. Its helpful making music with and i love it. Buy the Alesis synthezizers they are really good.

The manual for the synth is nice but technical if this is your first synth prepare to study and learn from scratch. The editing is kind of cumbersome but UNISYN which is provided with this synth makes this machine a sound hackers dream :) I give it a 7 on ease of use

For the money you will not find anything that touches this keyboard Very expressive, if you like experimental music this is the keyboard for you aftertouch, velocity, semi-weighted. it has 64 voices polyphonic. A lot of voices for its price class. The unit accepts 8mb cards for a total of 16mb expansion and you can also download samples into optional flash ram boards. Overall a lot of money, I highly recommend this as a first time buyers synth.

let your ears be the judge, Nice grandpiano. My favorite instruments are '74 square, 2 cellos, Taurus III and Filterknob (I like rich analog style stuff) Lots of neat effects, real time flanging, leslie, overdrive distortion, delay, modulations and much more.

the case on this one is Metal, it weighs A lot and feels pretty well built The modulation wheel does feel a little light (time will tell) but other than that this puppy looks built like a tank.

no opinion yet

great musical instrument, if this is a sign of what is going to be coming out in the next few years in the under 1000$ then finally music will be affordable to the masses. If anyone here gets a QS-6 or has one lets share tricks, files etc..