Alesis QS7.1

I find this keyboard very easy to use haveing buttons for direct access to types of music.
It is a bit hard to edit sounds but not hard but I find this a very easy keyboard to use and get through

Great in everyway you can use 2 Q cards or a Q card and SRAM card with expansion banks you can easy have 3000 sounds with the SRAM and Q Cards there are 5 built in Banks
SRAM cards HOLD 8 Banks and Q cards are 1 Bank all banks hold 128 Sounds thats allot of Sounds

Some very good some so so but that is the case with all Keyboards
The Organ sounds are Great and the True Stereo Piano and Drk Piano are great
I love the way they have the Aftertouch on most sounds and the Mod wheel does much more then Modulate the sound it varies for each sound to what would be the most useful

Have had no problems at all I have heard of some burning out the Outputs
I would make sure you always use a 3 prong grounded plug
There is a warning in the book about this

I called them and was shocked to talk to a person in like 1 miniute
They were very nice to me

You can pick up QS 7.1s for 400 to 600 bucks and they are Awesome for that price.
I really like mine
you have to spend about 1000 dollars for a Korg or Roland thet will be comprable.

This is probably one of the easiest keyboards to use of you are just a preset type of player. The sounds are organized into easy to see and access groups. Deep editing can be a pain but it's really not to bad if you do it often enough to remember. Mine was a store demo without a hard copy manual but I downloaded the manual from their website in pdf form.
I think they might have a software editor now, I need to check this out.
It's easy to create mixes and layers. The editing is fairly deep if you wish to get into it and the amount of things you can tweak is pretty huge.

the key board action is fairly typical for non weighted keys. I really prefer weighted keys but for a medium priced keyboard it's fine. the after touch could be better in that it's a little hard to control subtly. the built in effects are Ok I really don't use much other than a leslie and some reverb here and there. It's actually not a bad midi controller in that it's easy to set up. It's no Kurzweil but then again it serves the purpose if you have a favorite sound module you wish to use. It has two PC MIA slots for the addition of Q cards or memory cards. I have most of these and they are a really affordable way to expand an already comprehensive sound pallet. The sequencer is not much more than a means of playing the demos on the q cards. It's pretty basic on/off function. You get a decent amount of rear panel goodies. You get a set of aux outputs to send your sounds to other amps etc. I like this for sending bass presets out to an actual bass amp. You get both Mac and Pc interconnectors as well as digital and optical outputs that I have never used. You get a few pedals and the 110 supply is just a cord (no wall warts). A small ribbon controller would be nice but you get the standard two wheels.You get a standard midi interface with a thru port.

The sounds are not bad and in some cases downright nice. The pianos sound thin to me but some people like that sort of real bright sound.
They project fairly well in a mix. I like most of the organs especially the rock organ patches. The Deep Purple patch definitely will get someones attention. You get a wide variety of pads which are actually pretty good. I don't use to many drum type sounds but you get quite a few of them. The synths are a mixed bag but there are some of them that are really nice. The acoustic guitars sound more like a harpsichord and the electric clean guitars are usable if you tweak the effects a little . The distorted guitars suck but then most synths don't do distorted guitars very realistically. The clavinets are kinda thin and non expressive. The strings and brass are useful if you layer your patches. The electric pianos are fairly good digital emulations. The aftertouch as I mentioned works better on some patches than others. For example I use the Classical Q card and it's effect on the strings is pretty impressive. The effect on most of the synth patches is not as good. I play progressive metal and use this a sort of a catch all. I find you can get some nice patches if you use the mix mode to layer your sounds as opposed to individual patches. The effects are comprehensive for a synthesizer in it's price range. The filters are a little on the weak side but if you play around with the programming long enough you usually can get a decent sound. There doesn't seem to be any latentcy problems with the sound engine.

I use this keyboard out all the time. It is really a good keyboard for those looking for a comprehensive set of sounds that are easy to access at an affordable price. My main gig rig for example, consist of a Kurzweil Pc2 88, the Alesis 7.1 with the Classical Q card and the Vintage key Q card and either a Roland Jp8000 or depending on my mood my Moog Voyager. I use the Kurzweil as a main midi controller for the other boards mostly so that my setups are immediate. This keyboard seems to be constructed very well and I have used mine for about 5 years without a hitch. The sounds are good, not great but they mix well and cut through a PA mix fine. If you play covers than you will like this board.

I have never used them although I am going to look into the software editor and the Sound Bridge program. I have about 6 memory cards that I have yet to put to use. I have most of the Q cards and they work well and are constructed well.

If this was stolen I would get another one although the newer ones are available now. I play in a few bands keyboards,guitar and bass as well.
I have been playing for 30 years +. I have a keyboard arsenal that Rick Wakeman would be proud of. I use the Korg Oasys88, two Kurzweils, Moog LP, Moog Voyager, Korg Karma, Arp Quadra, Arp Odyssey, Oberheim Matrix 6, Oberheim OB 12,Yamaha MotifR, Jp8080, Jp8000, Alesis QS4 plus, two Emu Vin Keys pro, Yamaha cs20, Korg M1 and about 6 software synth packages. Some of this stuff is too rare and old to play out live so the QS 7.1 works out nicely for playing live. You can get these on eBay for $500 or less so they are a good value for any musician as well as an easy synthesizer to use.

Not updateable through software. Presets are great. I have used them in recording on a professional level. They are rather easy to edit with the accompanied software. The manual can be confusing without the editing software.

I haven't run out of notes yet for live applications, but sequencing (depending on the depth) is a different story. For mixing alot of synths, it works well, but for standalone, you may have trouble occasionally. However, I've only have had that trouble when it was the predominant synth in the mix before recording to tracks. It does take memory cards, but they are hard to come by for user bank storage.

Pianos are awesome. I've used it for rock, ambient, dance, jazz and classical, so it must be versatile, as I am not easily persuaded to use any sound for anything. Effects are great for what it is. The keys feel great, and respond easily to aftertouch, sometimes too easily.

I've used it on well over 150 gigs, and it's slowly breaking down on me, but I play hard, and I mean HARD, so I can't complain. Add all the lugging to practice for the last five years, multiple times a week, and it's done rather well. Better than my controller keyboard, that's for sure.

Never needed it.

As I said, it is very reliable, and without those piano sounds I would die. I've had it since 2000 and it still is working, but am looking to have a backup just in case. I've used and abused this keyboard and it takes it. I'd hate to lose this wonderful piece of equipment. I have many keyboards, and software synths, but I couldn't perform without my Alesis.

This, I believe, is the simplest keyboard I have ever used -- in a good way. Many usable sounds -- pretty much a sound for anything you can think of that is either right on or damn near close enough. Even if you have to tweak, which I rarely do, it is quite painless.

64 voice, many useful sounds, intuitive bank structure, a pitch bend wheel that combines the expressiveness of other unit's joy-stick and pitch-wheel combined. Relatively light and not really any bigger than it has to be.

Playability wise, the keys feel pretty good. Not as good as my Roland A-70 (another 76 key, semi-weighted board -- just happens to be the best feeling semi-weighted board I have ever touched), but still good, noe-the-less.

The sounds: If you are looking for pianos and organs, keep going. The electric pianos are great, though. The brass is out-done by most pro Roland, Korg, and Yamaha synths, as are the strings. Some nice pads and some amazing synth lead tones though -- I haven't heard lead tones like this out of a digital synth since the Korg DW8000. Actually, better than the Korg. Many very cool sound-effects type synth tones that I had never bothered with until recently -- in sessions for a techno-industrial-what-ever peice of music.

If used for it's strengths, it can be a very cool synth!

I had a qs6 a few years back and it did blow out its sound-board (see customer support). It was probably my own fault -- I used it as a gigging board and often left it in my trunk through Chicago winters and summers. However, I guess I expected it to be able to handle this -- a friend of mine had dropped his Roland D-70 down a flight of stairs, spilled a beer in it, left it on his passenger seat over night, in the rain, with the window open -- just dried it off and fired it up... no problem. I guess they just don't make 'em like that anymore, huh? Conveniently, though, the synth failed at a rehearsal the DAY AFTER I had used it live without a back-up... Dodged a bullet there!

When my qs-6 failed, Alesis took care of me -- no questions asked. Also, when I bought the qs-6, it was the "floor model" and was missing the soundbridge software that Alesis includes with its synths. I sent an email to alesis and was responded to promptly. A few days later in my mail box -- you guessed it... Soundbridge Software CD-Rom.

For the $499 I paid for it (Brand spanking new from Sam Ash) it is a great synth. By the way, am I the ONLY one who got this deal? At any rate, for the $1000 to $1300 that others seem to have paid, I would have likely leaned towards a Roland or a Korg -- perhaps an XP-80 or a Trinity.

I am quite glad that I have this synth though -- it does some things that no other synth I have ever owned does quite as well. I use it live often, but I like recording with it so much that I'll probably get something else for gigs -- maybe the Roland RS-9 -- have you checked that thing out yet? 88 keys and weighs almost nothing. I could carry six up a dozen flights of stairs and barely break a sweat!

At any rate, I will rate the QS-7.1 for the price-point that I paid. If I paid $1300, I would probably give it a six or seven at best. For $499, nothing can touch it -- 10!

I've got the Alesis QS7.1. I find it very difficult to manipulate the patches (i.e. use the keys to operate the leslie function on an organ, layer sounds, split the board, etc). The manual is an excellent manual for techies and programmers, but is very user unfriendly for the common, or the lay person. On the plus side, I use a grand majority of the presets on a regular basis, and have used the board in the studio.

This is the most versatile board I've ever touched. The action doesn't weigh against a fully weighted keyboard like a clavinova would be, so I shut off the velocity controls and use a volume pedal so there's no "harsh" or "non-existent" notes. It has 4 slide bars, mod wheel, and pitch bend, making it very real-time effective for instant manipulation. The expansion, using pcmcia cards, is good, although I've never gotten a card. It has digital output, making it easy to connect to mac's and other computer peripherrals. I've had no problems with MIDI commands, it seems to handle pretty good. It is no workstation, though. No on-board sequencer.

I like the horns, strings, synth sounds, rhodes & clavs, and rate those pretty high. Organs are down a notch, but usable. Pianos; Alesis claims to have the best pianos with "true stereo" patches and the like. They should check with Yamaha, Korg, and Roland. These pianos sound more like a PSR keyboard; fun, but unrecordable and unusable in the professional realm. The patches are all easy to use, but sometimes you have to fumble through pages, which can get bog you down on a live show.
I use this board for all types of stuff. It is very versatile there.
The onboard effects are excellent, and easily controlled via the slide bars.
The keys are semiweighted, which makes it hard to have it react. I've set one of my organ patches to give me leslie when I get "hard" on the keys. But because of the semi-weight, I've bypassed the touch sensitivity with a volume pedal. That works best for me.
It can sometimes be slow to respond to aftertouch.

This is a mixed bag. I use it every gig and every studio session I've had. The board has broke down once (MIDI connections would become unstable); I had it repaired, turned out the sotters were horrible inside the board; I was surprised it lasted me as long as it did. They had to re-sotter all the connections. Their sustain pedal is junk. I had to buy a heavier sustain pedal to handle my jobs.
But since the one repair, I've had no problems.

They were easy to help me. After 3 months, the sustain pedal was shot. They replaced it no questions asked, and freight paid for. I had problems trying to configure a patch here and there; their tech support walked me through. But they couldn't help me out when I asked for another manual that was more for the layperson.

Overall, this is what I do to make the most out of this board;
I use a clavinova PF-100 (Yamaha no longer makes it; it's sister board is the PF-200, which is an excellent road piano) as the MIDI controller and as my main piano. I'm convinced that there is no other instrument on the market that can do the Piano as effectively as the PF-100. Rich in sound. But that's for another review.

The Alesis is used as a second keyboard, and has done me very well for the money I paid. I got this thing when it first came out. Being light, it's easy to transport. The downside: not easy to configure patches at all. It has taken me hours to change things around. If I could figure how to layer and split the board, I'd probably be able to write a book -- Alesis for dummies, or something like that. I've felt no need to get expansion cards for sound, becuase of the PF-100. It's a great secondary board. But I would never use it alone.

Turn it on and play it. For basic performing use, it couldn't get any easier. Also, the mix mode allows you to experiment with layers of sounds without having to program anything. However, I found editing the presets a little bit cumbersome.

Bread and butter, non-workstation features. Works great as a performing synth. The four control sliders allow for real-time manipulation of sounds. The keyboard is acceptable. I played it pretty hard and it held up fine. It's hard to play softly, though. Better for electric pianos, organs, and pads, than for acoustic pianos.

The sounds are good. Not outstanding, not bad, just plain good. If you are mainly into pianos. electric pianos, and organs (like I am), then get the Vintage Keys and Jazz Piano Q cards and you will have a fine palette of sounds. There are some good Rhodes type patches in there (which may require a bit of tweaking), and the jazz piano Q card "warm and clear" patch is bright and alive. The organs and clavs are fine. I didn't spend much time with the orchestral sounds. They are mainly good in a mix, or combined with other instruments in mix mode, but don't sound that great when played on their own. SO much about sound evaluation is subjective. For example, the "True Stereo" piano patch sounds very different depending on whether you use headphones, an amp, or studio monitors. In my view, it sound better when played arpeggiated than when you play four or five note chordal voicings. Depending on your taste, there are different ways to play the various sounds, and their usefulness is a function of all of these factors. Now that I've played the Yamaha S90 for awhile (see below), I see the limitations of the Alesis pianos. However, I did enjoy them for their upfront, alive, and crisp sound. The same is true for most of the Alesis sounds. They will not dazzle you, but you can get them to sound very good, and use them in lots of musical ways.

I had mine for two years before I finally sold it (see below) and it always worked perfectly.

I bought this instrument two years ago as a way to introduce myself to synthesizers. I'm an experienced piano player and guitarist, having played both instruments for almost forty years (I'm in my early fifties). The Alesis served me very well. I derived great pleasure from playing it. Everything about it was satisfying, if not brilliant, including the keyboard, the effects, the sounds, and the expansion possibilities. I particularly enjoyed the mix feature. Learning how to combine sounds was a great deal of fun. Indeed, I derived so much pleasure from the Alesis that I began to lust after other equipment. I sold the Alesis in order to buy a used Karma and a Yamaha S90. I'm glad I upgraded as these are both remarkable instruments. How are you gonna keep em down on the farm? The Yamaha has absolutely incredible acoustic sounds and the Karma is a phenomenally deep instrument. Now that I've moved on I don't miss the Alesis per se, but I appreciate what it did for me. If you want an introduction to synthesizers, or a second board for performing or midi work, then I highly recommend the Alesis, especially at the dirt cheap prices you can now find it. However, for the equivalent that I paid two years ago, you can now get deeper and ultimately more satisfying boards. Still, I very much enjoyed the 7.1 and it served me well. It has a simple elegance about it.

I think this is one of the strengths of the QS line. I use this mainly for live work, where I go about 50/50 keyboard and guitar-- what I really wanted was a large pallette of useable sounds for live work that could be accessed quickly on stage. To me, the layout of the QS is ideal for this-- the combination of a dedicated key for each bank and a transpose key (hey I'm a guitarist) makes it easy to use.

Presets are presets. Too much reverb on most of them, but what else is new? I find the pianos and organs useable for live work with some tweaking. Brass and string pads OK, don't use basses or drums, synths too much of the weedy swirly stuff: I bought the Vintage Keys card which helps in that area. Patch editing is fiddly from the from panel, although the multitude of buttons helps. I use SoundDiver, but mainly to rearrange mixes and set up splits/layers for live work. I don't think the synth engine and filters in this box are worth a lot of deep patch editing-- comparing this to my E5000 Ultra in which you can really mangle sounds.

I think the polyphony is 64 note, which is plenty for live work. The action is semi-weighted synth, which is what I wanted. I find it a bit "hard" relative to my old D-50, and the aftertouch is hard to control with any precision. But all in all it's not bad for a synth in this price range (particularly these days!).

Effects are what you would expect from Alesis. Reverbs and delays just fine and tweakable, leslie sim entry-level but again ok for the price, digital distortion awful but unsurprising. I just bought a H&K Tube Rotosphere to get a more realistic leslie and tube distortion. But considering is cost about 60% of what the QS7.1 is currently selling for, YGWYPF.

I have added two expansion cards to the unit, which at $99 each was pretty good value. Also bought a blank sound card with the idea of porting some samples and putting together some new patches-- without access to the Digidesign sample editing software (SampleCell) this is pretty rudimentary and was not worth it to me.

The MIDI controller capabilities are pretty decent for a keyboard in the price range, if you don't mind the hard action. Mod & pitch wheels, four CC sliders, channel aftertouch, all the basics.

Without getting into a detailed rundown, I think this keyboard is pretty good value for mainstream rock cover work (which is what we do). I would be reluctant to use it as a sound engine for studio work-- the sounds are a bit digital and "thin" relative to some of my other gear-- again, the E5000 filters come to mind.

A problem here. A few months after I got it, the levels from the main outs dropped by about 25 dB. As I am playing in a band in Cairo Egypt, dropping it by the factory authorized repair shop was not an option, so I called Alesis tech support. They were friendly and suggested popping it open and looking for dry solder joints or loose components in the output circuitry. I did that and eventually took it to an electronics shop and had them do the same, but it is still underpowered. I use the preamp on the board to get level back but it is not ideal.

See above.

This keyboard is a good value at closeout-- I have seen it for under $500 recently. Perfectly adequate for live "classic rock" and in a mix the sounds would probably be ok for recording. Alesis really tried to build in some expandibility and with the cards going for under $99, you get get a decent keyboard with a big, customized pallette of sounds for well under $1000. I wish it had held up a bit better.

This is an update on a previous post!

Software Version - I don't think this thing will allow software updates, but it is a 7.1 model.


Overall, I think the sounds are good. Given that, with some tweaking, the sounds can be made to sound great. I compared this with the piano sounds on Kurzweil PC2 line, and liked them better. Certainly had more drive (I guess ballzy would be the term, although it's probably not one I would use in church....)

If you want or expect to play this thing straight out of the box with no tweaking, then you'll be somewhat dissappointed. Most of the sounds are needlessly buried in reverb, but remove that, and tweaking with the filters, this thing rules!

Editing the patches isn't very difficult, and the book is pretty good. If you have a few bucks to spare, then buy the Alexander Publishing book on editing the QS series, which is helpful.

I haven't used a patch editor, since one wasn't supplied, but will probably look into getting one soon.

The polyphony is 64. Keyboard action is great for me, but I may save up and get the qs8.2, which has a weighted keyboard. I tried one out in Mars Music, and it had a great feel to it.

Effects are built in, and I suspect they are cloned to the Alesis microverb. Usable.

You can add ram and flash ram cards. I bought the Sanctuary card, and give it high marks.

The keyboard is touch and aftertouch sensitive. Makes a good midi controller. No sequencer is built in, but you can play sequences that you dump through sysex

The piano is very good, even without the extra qcards. The pads and atmospheres also standout.

I haven't found a string sound that I can get in to. They are very harsh, but I'm still tweaking. The organ sounds are blasting enough to be harsh. No mellow organ here!

Orchestral sounds are on the whole, not worth writing home about. Good in mixes, but rotten stand alone.

I think this unit could take a licking. Very sturdy looking. No wall wart (thank God, I hate that on the Kurzweil junk). Clean lines, very appealing looking machine.

I drag it to different functions, and so far, nothing funny has happened.

Well, here's where my story gets long. My first unit was doa (see previous post). I did get a hold of someone in technical support, and while he was not unfriendly, he didn't bend over backwards to make suggestions.

I ended up sending to unit to their eastern coast repair place - a place called Techni-Serve in New Jersey. I mailed the unit on March 13, and received it back on April 16, so if that is your sole keyboard, you be out of luck! Calling Techni-Serve doesn't seem to do anything but irratate them, so don't bother.

Sam Ash sent me a unit that was wired for European voltage, so it was no fault of Alesis. Thankfully, they converted it for me, and did so under warranty. So overall, Alesis did repair. I was just shocked at how long it took, and am thankful that I could borrow a keyboard for the duration.

If you have a short fuse, then you might want to look at Yamaha keyboards, etc, as IF (and I say if, because I think the unit is well built) the unit goes down, you'll be out of keyboard luck for a while!

So far, I love it. Wish I had bought the QS8.2. Mars has the QS8.1 for $899, so you might consider that.

I banged on all types of keyboards. Run away from the Kurzweil SP series, as they fill like they are built with duct tape and chicken wire, and are not expandable. I like the PC series, but just too darn high!

Send me a note if you want more info. Check on mp3.com to see if I'm making music....

The QS is pretty easy to use, except for the ability to program sounds. That's kind of confusing. You need Sound Diver by E-magic to help edit the sounds. Thank goodness it's included. The manual is good, written in plain English.

The polyphony is 64 notes, which I feel is really good. The keyboard action is not all plasticky and cheap feeling. The keyboard feels substantial and is easy to play on. I also like the fact that there are Q-cards which expand the sounds. However, I've heard mixed things about the Q-cards so I haven't bought any yet.

OK, here we go. First off, the electric pianos are just terrible. I mean, the rhodes and wurlys are sad. C'mon now, these electric pianos can't fool anybody, even if they're in a mix! Why do the bass sounds sound so digital and unauthentic? Why do the drums sound like cardboard? Why is everything drenched in ridiculous amounts of reverb? Thank goodness it's easy to disable the effects so that the sounds will work for sequencing and recording. You can add other effects later. Overall, I need some better sounds. If you're into programming, then you can work with these. I like to plug in, select a sound, and record. I'm not a tweakhead.

The thing seems built like a tank. I trust it's reliability.

N/A

If it were lost or stolen, I'd buy something else with a quickness. The sounds just don't cut it for me. Yeah, the strings are cool, and some of the synth sounds are cool, but every other board does that well. I want some realistic pianos, rhodes, basses, and drums. Is that too much to ask?

I bought this synth from Sam Ash for $599 on their clearance. Wish I could give an accurate review, but the machine was DOA.

Overall, this synth looks great! That was one of the main reasons I was attracted to it!

Would not know, it was dead

Ok, so here is where I want to warn everyone. This unit was dead out of the box, supposedly new. Sam Ash didn't have any more. Read below on my call to Alesis

Ok, here's the screwy part.

Since I wanted to keep this board pretty bad, I called Alesis tech support. When I got through, a lady answered the phone, and just said hello, not hello this is alesis, just hello, this could be your mama.

She put me through to tech support, and after about five minutes, a stoned sounding voice (hey, I've been in bands for almost 20 years), answered vaguely, "yeah". I described the problem, and he says to try a re-init, which I had done previously after cruising the manual. It didn't work, and he said, "too bad". Not too bad, could I help you with warrantly repair, or I really really care about you as a customer. Man, the guy could use some lessons from the girls running the 1-900-hot-love line, as he was practically comatose.

So, I would really like to have this synth, but working, but guess, I am out of look. It gets high marks on looks, low marks on reliability, and zero on tech support...

If I could find a new working one for $599, I would go for it....

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.

N/A

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.