Alesis QS7.1

Organized sound banks make things much easier. Alesis provided nice reference cards showing all programs, (patches). If you are not familiar with the operation of synthesizers, creation and modification of patches can be cumbersome and tedious. Using a PC-based program makes life much simpler!

The manual is quite good. Detailed enough for most people to learn basic synthesis from and for those more experienced, it covers everything necessary to operate the synth.

Since I grew up playing the organ, not the piano, the keyboard feel to me is excellent. I'm just not used to the fully weighted keyboard and the semi-weighted feel of this synth is really quite nice. Full 64 polyphony.

Effects are pretty good. The usual assortment... Chorus, Reverb, Overdrive, Leslie, etc. They are simple to use when you get the programming aspects of the synth down. Plenty of expansion including two PCMCIA-type card slots. Full MIDI implemintation.

Sound is very individual. Regardless of what I or anyone else says, it's YOUR ears and what appeals to you is the key... not what we say. I try to base choices on items that can replicate the sounds used in the music I play. Obviously, we cannot have every synth every artist uses for their work on our racks. So, you need the ones that are best "all around" in their ability to achieve the goals YOU are looking for. Given that....

Overall, the sounds are very nice. Pianos and Organs are excellent. Brass, guitar, and bass sounds also very good. Strings and Synth sounds are mixed... some very, very good, some not so good. However, with some tweaking and patience, you can achieve very nice results. Since I use it for 80's Rock, I tried a simple one, the infamous Oberheim "Jump" sound for a test. I already have an Oberheim OB-8 so I knew the sound I wanted. After layering several different basic sounds together and with some tweaking of the effects, I got it down pretty nicely... real "phat" and bright. Most of the sounds I want seem to be achievable and the synth does a very nice job. Not sure how good it would be for Techno/Dance, not what I use it for so I just don't know, but for most other types of music, it would make be a great choice. I use this and a Roland XP-30 for most everything, and the OB-8 takes care of the big phat Analog world. There's not much I can't do between these three!

Seems to be very well built. The buttons and switches are very solid. The keyboard seems to be quite durable and the casing itself is solid. The sliders are

Have not had a reaosn to call them. Web site has worked fine and was very helpful when considering this synth.

I got this as an Alesis "reconditioned" unit from ZZSounds for $799. The item looks NO different from BRAND NEW. The packaging was perfect...like new. The condition of the synth was flawless. They call this a "blem". Obviously there might have been something wrong with it, went back to Alesis, was fixed, and labeled as reconditioned. Well, for $799, BRAND NEW, this synth cannot be beat. Period.

It's a great synth with a deal of capability. The 76 keys give me the extra range I wanted over the 61. It feels good, sounds good, and is very well made. Great value!!!!

Well... someone in Alesis User Interface department ought to get sacked, 'cause the machine is filled with idiosyncrasies that probably is derived from the OS structure put in by the programmers. Thorough reading of the manual highly recommended, before trying to program anything.

Polyphony 64. The keyboard got kindofa quasi weight to it, feels pretty good for a synthesizer... could be made just a trifle heavier. You won't be doing Rachmanimov on this (contrary to what the Alesis demo CD says...) - put then again, get a real piano (or the QS 8.1). The effects sound good overall (except the overdrive of course, but it's alright for being digital). They're hard to use... and of course there's only one effect unit, although you can use one chorus/flanger/phaser, one reverb, one lezlie, one overdrive and one delay at the same time...!
Keyboard's got aftertouch... pretty alright, although a bit too much on/off for my taste. It's also got release velocity (!).

The organs are extremely good. Best I heard in the price class, certainly. Works for all kindsa music, I s'pose. Pianos aren't very good - but I hear a lot of good things about them so that might just be me. And then again, I know no synth with this price tag that sports a better one. It's certainly better than the JV1080's internal piano, but the one on the Session board is alot better than this in my opinion.
Strings pretty much alright - again as good as it gets for the price. 'sgot a lot of synth sounds, although if this is what you're after buy one of those analog/digital ones. I don't like the type, so I won't comment on the sounds.
Drums are a joke (as usual on synthesizers). Bass sounds ditto - although there are quite a collection of synth bass sounds that sound alright.
Overall extremely clean sound, surprisingly good over the entire frequency range (most synths chicken out in the bass reg, but not this one I'll tell you...).

When I got mine, out of the box one of the keys didn't respond to velocity. Not good at all, and spoils an otherwise perfect impression. I mean, it's metal, it feels like you can let Bruce Lee have a go at it and it just keeps on making sounds... But because of the key I can't give better'n a 5.

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Now, the review might make it sound like I hate this piece of crap. Not so. The only alternative that sounds just as good is the Roland XP-30, which carries a higher price tag, and doesn't have as many keys. If lost, I'd buy it again (although I wouldn't have the cash). I only wish it were a bit easier to use...
Oh, by the way, I'm Swedish, so if any of you happen to think Swedes a buncha liars and cheats, disregard all hereto said... :-)

The organization of the sound banks makes it easy to jump to a genre of sounds, i.e. Piano, Chromatic, Organ, Guitar, ass, Strings, Brass, Winds, Synth, Rhythm/FX, and Drums/Perc. Once you are in a group of sounds, you can scroll through the bank to find the right patch you're looking for. Then you can change banks to find variations on that patch.

Although scrolling through regular Programs can be done very quickly, there is a longer delay when scrolling through "Mixes". For instance if you press the increment button rapidly, then the Mix patches do not keep up with your button presses. Mixes are combinations/splits of Programs assigned to various MIDI channels, so it involves loading more settings per patch than Programs--causing a longer delay.

The custom-design LCD display clearly shows the patch name and MIDI channels and activity. The paging navigation is relatively simple.

For live performance, you shouldn't have to worry about polyphony unless you are layering several sounds. 64-voice polyphony is ample for moderately complex sequences.

There are four analog outputs on this synth, and an ADAT lightpipe digital fiber optic output. Unfortunately, the digital output only outputs the same 4-channels as the analog output. Since the ADAT lightpipe is capable of carrying 8-channels of audio data, I wish Alesis had given me 8 output capability through the digital output. At least it has digital outputs.

I believe this keyboard has release velocity capability, but I was trying it out on some patches that I thought could benefit from it. I don't think Alesis programmed release velocity control into many of the patches.

There is an onboard playback sequencer--something I would never use. I would rather not see any built-in sequencer that adds extra cost, since I use a computer-based sequencing software.

Many of the patches are great for textures and ambience sounds. They sound big and thick. I wouldn't solo any instrument exclusively, but they would sound good in a mix.

The four control sliders give you some nice real-time control over your sound. I have noticed that on sliders B and D there is some faint zipper noise. I believe these control FX delay time and FX wet/dry balance.

The keys on the QS7.1 feel good to the touch. Aftertouch is easy to control. The keys are also fairly responsive and quick.

I don't really expect this keyboard to crash on me. The mod wheel didn't work when I first powered the unit up, so I had to reinitialize it myself. (This problem according to Alesis is due to the unit being initialized with the mod wheel in the up position.)

For the price, there is no equal in its class. I bought this as a replacement for an E-mu Proteus MPS keyboard (8 years old) that started doing funky things on me like randomly changing pitch and modulation. I think I'll be keeping the QS7.1 for awhile for use in the studio.

I like its compact size--less than 46" wide and 12" deep. I like the simplistic design; it makes sense to me. Although I like the semi-weighted 76-key keyboard, I think I may get a QS8.1 in addition to the QS7.1 just to have the fully-weighted piano-action keybaord.