Alesis QS7

Pretty straight forward except for the freakin effects!!!!Nothing straight forward about that!

64 note polyphony is nice...Synth action is good...Built in effects sound good, but as stated above, good luck programming them! Two expansion slots that come in handy for adding more samples...quite a few Q-cards available...

The piano sounds are the best on this board...The strings? No, The organs? OK but they don't have balls if you know what i mean, synth sounds? ok but thin, the guitar sounds are really good, the drums? ok.

The led display is only partialy working...of course it's not under warrenty now....oh well. It is built rugged, but very very light. You have to wonder whats in the freakin thing!

So far whenever i've had a problem...the customer support has been...well...not very helpful!....Just uninformed...I use a mac for sequencing and any problems i've had were dealing with the QS7 communicating with my computer...Maybe the support team are all pc guys...i don't know...but i finally got my questions answered from someone in an Alesis discussion group.

If I lost it.....Yahoo!!!!!....I would not buy it again..I would go with a Yamaha, Korg, or Roland...something that has a solid reputation. It is a really uninspiring piece of metal and plastic, that seems to have been put together buy a bunch of un-musicians....

The Alesis QS7 has convenient front-panel patch selections, but it's editing "interface" through it's tiny display and confusing button assignments is frustrating. Much easier to configure through a software editor, though I don't tweak sounds much. The manual is not very comprehensive and often glosses over too many details. I've emailed Alesis support a number of times and received decent help.

As a pianist, I didn't purchase the QS7 because of it's key-feel. It feels very synth/organ like, which is acceptable for what it is. I like that it's 76 keys, making it great for sequencing and note entry for notation. It's two expansion slots help keep the unit up to date as new cards are introduced. There's a lot of bang-for-the-buck here, notably it's digital outputs, large bank of sounds, and fast response. It's 64voice-polyphony shines even in dense MIDI orchestrations. I've found it hard to "max-out".

The QS7 contains quality sounds offering a generous palette to work within most styles. Obviously it can't be all things to all people. As most reviewers stated, and they're right, the Strings are really bad - sharp attacks and somewhat gritty. It's almost impossible to have a String part "sneak-in" naturally or get a satisfactory legato out of it. As also stated, the piano patches are incredibly over-rated. What do people like about them? They're awful, unless you're looking for tinny, toyish, and unconvincing sounds. I use other gear for pianos, so it's not an issue. The electric pianos are great, as well as guitars and basses. Drums are usable and they work well, but not spectacular.

For orchestrations, I found the Brasses very usable, especially the Pump-Brass and Classical settings. Some solo Brasses and Saxes are sampled well. The Classical-card woodwinds are better than the onboard ones. Harps, FrenchHorns, and Brass and Wind ensembles are good and quite usable. This is so subjective depending on your style and craft. What I like most is that it doesn't try to copy other brands, it just has it's own sound.

Sometimes through an amp it's more noisy than other gear. Get "ground-loop" type buzzes pretty easily even when lifting all grounds. Background noise through it's analog outputs seems a little high. Not enough to be a problem, however.

Otherwise, it's has really nice lead and synth sounds/effects. Output is strong and clear.

It's been reliable. Occassionaly I notice extraneous MIDI data coming out of it, which requires I turn it off and on again to clear. Not sure if that's a bug, but it doesn't seems to harm anything. Never failed yet. Wouldn't need a backup on a gig as far as I can see. Sturdy construction.

I've only emailed them and they've responded fairly quick. They seem willing to help depending on who reponds and the answers are knowledgable.

I'd buy one again because of the price/feature ratio. It's well-made and I like the 76 keys. It's quality on-board sounds combined with the expansion cards provide a good value and supplys a nice palette that covers a lot of ground.

I'd give it a 9 except for; display is too small, analog output kinda noisy/buzzy, Strings are bad, editing is confusing. I didn't include the poor Piano patches in this because I don't depend on this board for them. However, I have no use for the "acoustic" pianos it provides, and would never recommend buying one as a piano replacement/substitute.

I've been playing for 30 years, I compose and arrange for media projects and find the QS7 useful for sequencing and project-studio work. At this price range it's a nice addition to any rig.

Most of presets sound nice, but I'm wondering who needs those auto rythms? I've used this snynth for 6 months and I never hadn't use them.

Patch editing is quite easy. At first you are confused with all those menus, but when you use it for a while it's not so hard after all.

Manual is very clear.

It has 64 notes polyphony. Keyboard feels little bit plastic and cheap. There's nice amount of effects like flanger, chorus, overdrive, reverb, delay and lezlie. Editing effects is very easy. You can add up to 2 ROM / Flash RAM optional cards (8Mb max/each).

QS7 has great MIDI capabtilities. Theres 4 assingable control sliders, aftertouch and velocity. Even modultaion wheel can be assinged. There's serial cable connect for MIDI and three MIDI sockets (In/Out/Thru).

There's no on-board sequencer in QS7, but it can read MIDI files from Flash RAM cards.

There's lots of great sounds in QS7. Most pianos sound very nice (particularly Dark Classical). Organs also are great. Only those auto rythms (as I said above) are useless and some brasses sound bad, but sounds are overall good.

QS7 works well for almost any kind of music. I have composed some ambient pieces with this.

On-board effects are great.

Velocity and aftertouch react well.

This is quite reliable. It has crashed only once and I don't know why. I would use this on a gig without backup.

Never needed.

This is worth that I have paid. I have been playing with this about 6 months now. I don't own any other gear yet. I wish it would has on-board sequencer. This really helps me make music.

This keyboard was difficult for me to figure out at first. However after I read the manual it was very easy to operate. The preset sounds were rather impressive. Editing the sounds took some fooling around on my part but this is true with any professional keyboard anyway. The manual is helpful. I couldn't have figured out all the features so quickly without it.

The 64 voice polyphony is great! I'm able to make complexed patches and sequences without running out of voices. I like the feel of the semi-weighted keys. The effects are great and easy to use once I got the hang of it. No on-board sequencer. I can't complain though because I got it for about 800 U.S. dollars brand new. There is one thing that takes away from it's features as far as midi and sequencing goes. In the mix mode you can only use one effects patch for all of the sounds. That really sucks because I like to use pianos and organ together since I do a lot of gospel music. If I add leslie to the organ sound then the piano has the same leslie sound too! Overall it's got great features for the price and I can't really ask for much more.

The sounds in this keyboard are definately impressive. I like the pianos and organs very much. The brasses need a little work in my opinion but it comes down to your own taste really. Also the all the sounds can be tweeked a little to make them suit your own taste. It works great for gospel. Although the presets are good once they are put in a mix they sound ten times better. Basses/Guitars are very good. The are strings are awful. It took me quite bit of editing to get the strings the way I wanted them. However I can't complain because that's why manufacturers make sounds changeable. The drums are pretty good but once in the mix they sound top notch. Overall most of the sounds are very good and the ones that aren't can be easily changed.

I've never had a problem with it yet and I've had it for a year now. I'd use it without a backup. I took it to church every Sunday and I've alway's been able to depend on it.

Never had the need to deal with them yet. (thank goodness)

If it were lost or stolen I'd probably buy another one. Because overall the sounds and features are great. Not just great for a keyboard of it's price but great for any keyboard. I do wish I had a Roland XP-80 but my Alesis will suffice for now. I use it with my Yamaha RM1x sequence remixer to make songs for concerts our church puts on and to do solos. Works well and I'm glad I bought it.

This keyboard is great for just plugging in, hooking it up to a PA or amp, and playing. However, the programming is less than intuitive. It makes me long for the days when I had my Korg 01/W.

As I alluded to before, great for bread-and-butter playing. It comes with some sequencing software, and has a serial hook-up to your computer, but it's not quite as convenient as having it all on board.

I think the piano sounds are great, the organ sounds are good. Some of the synth sounds are OK, but the brass sounds stink. The Rhythm/FX bank is largely bogus. I think I could get most of the sound I really like with the NanoPiano module.

It developed a problem with the pitch bend, where after moving the pitch bend lever it would continue to go wildly out of tune until you turned the keyboard off and on several times. I thought I would have to take it into the shop, but I wiggled the pitch bend back and forth about 10 times, and that fixed it somehow.

The software, instead of being able to use it right away, said "Call Alesis". I called, was put on hold for quite awhile, gave up and never used the software. What's that crap all about, anyway?

I'm planning to trade this in for a Korg Triton. This is a good keyboard, just not really inspirational, and like I said before, I think most of the sounds I use frequently would be in the NanoPiano module.

I have no problem figuring this manual out. It becomes quite clear once you read it a couple of times.
But like anything nowadays, it will take some exploration on your part. Get into the instrument! After al, you dd
spend your money on it.

I think the onboard piano sounds were a bit weak, although I do like
DarkClassic very much. I think the brass are actually very good.
I do not think you can compare them to the Roland style brasses at all.
I think Alesis was not trying to do a copy of manufacturer's patented
styles and came up with sounds that make the Alesis unique. I know
that some people have complained about various instrument sections like the strings
and the brasses. But if you dig deep into this instrument, you will
find that it actually does have very good string and brass samples.
The factory sounds do not do this unit any justice. I also like the onboard
organs and also the electric pianos. They are pretty good.
The Leads are not half bad either. I actually think the effects on this board
are pretty decent. I do not think this board really blows me away but it gives me great
sounds that I feel I can use in just about any mix.

Also, the Q-Cards sound very good. I especially like the Sanctuary card and the Jazz Piano
card. I think I wasted my money on the Vintage Keyboard card though.
I would not buy it again. The electric piano and the Wurlies do not sound as
good as I would like. I actually like the onboard ones better. Sorry.

But overall I am very pleased. I am looking forward to the day when I can afford to buy
more samples like from "www.ilio.com". I realize that this machine is limitless
since you can use your own samples.

no problem

no problem

Getting through the patches was simple enough, but sound editing took a little longer. The manual is definitely required, and isn't the worst I've seen. I figure if you sleep with it, it will tell you its secrets as you sleep. The display is small, but definitely workable. Very easy to hook up to a Mac as it has the serial port all set to go into your printer or modem jack.

I haven't maxed out the polyphony yet so it's definitely adequate for me. The effects are good and very flexible. I haven't tried using cards on it. I'm using it with Cubase and OMS and I couldn't imagine navigating through the MIDI setup any easier.

The pianos and organs are fu*king great!!! The grit on the organs and the lezlie effects are very strong. The drums have left a bit to be desired, at least for my taste they don't always sound full enough. And you might as well get rid of the rhythm loops, although I don't like them on any keyboard. The Basses are good, especially if you go in and tweak them a bit. The strings are also pretty good but again have required a bit of tweaking on my part. I'd say the strongest aspects from this synth are the pianos and organs and the sound editing flexibility. Especially the latter. The presets are good, but they can become absolutely brilliant with some adjustments. It seems to be made as a jack of all trades keyboard and not especially suited to one genre.

No problems yet, and I've had it about a year.

N/A. Haven't had to deal with anyone yet.

I definitely give it great marks. Especially as a starting synth. Great sounds and effects, with lots of flexibility. When I go to the local music shop and play with the other keyboards around this price I haven't found anything that compares with the sound quality. I'm starting to look at a couple of the synths in the Korg Trinity series for drums and more sounds.

The board is easy to use right out of the box but editing will take some time to understand and learn, just as it is with any digital synth. I vowed not to use PC based patch editors anymore while they are useful I believe you loose the feel of really ripping through edits and understanding the board. Also, PC editing just doesn't seem to give you the nice and easy responsivness to tweaking a sound. The user manual is sort of helpful, it's a decent supplement. The only way to figure a board out is to start moving parameters. My 9 rating is based largely on the presets and the number of them that are usefull, great rhoads, wurlitzers, organs, synth patches.

Polyphony is great (except I ran short on a realtime patch for a tower of power song by stacking numerous patches that all had four sounds each). The effects are numerous but still haven't really begun to understand all of my options. The manual could do a better job at explaining the effects, reverb with delay in etc. How about a multimedia CD rom with an effects workshop or something. For $1,000 board and the popularity of Alesis effects this could be thrown in with the board purchase. Midi seems solid, I'm using the Unisyn patch editor for the additional library sounds and its works great. I bought the sample card and vintage synth card and must say the vintage card really gave me more of that 80s thing. Sweeps, pulses, synth basses, strings, etc. Great card and great addition for $125.

Here's my quick review of the sound catagories. Pianos excellent, Bass okay, strings pretty good (need more analogue style strings), drums (haven't dug in yet enough to rate), synth excellent some really good portamento stuff and Emerson patches, organs excellent for a digital board great lezlie, grit, bite best I found when demoing Rolands, Korgs etc., guitars seem okay but haven't really used them alot 1 acoustic patch called 12 stings I use a lot in Doobie Brothers tunes, Brass decent/good I programmed some decent brass for Tower of Power, Lighthouse, Eydes of March etc. Could use a little bit more punch on the samples though, seems no synth does brass really good. The aftertouch and modulations are excellent. You can apply tons of modulation to any patch. I believe in one patch you can have like 20 modulation sources. A great touch are the 4 sliders for modulation sources from amp decay, filter level to effects like reverb or overdrive.

Seems very reliable and I (knock on wood) trust this board very much.

Undecided, they didn't get back on an e-mail regarding a question on my output levels.

This board is a great center piece for any recreational gigging keyboardist. It brings big pianos, organs, synths, midi to any rig.
Today I had the opportunity to play the Kurzweil ($3,500 dollar model, the Korg N5 and Roland something or other) they all were plugged into the same Mackie board and speakers. I bumped the volume up on each and found each of the best piano presets, in my opinion. Compared them all and the $3,500 Kurzweill was slighty sweeter than the Alesis, the Korg sounded like tin can acoustics and the Roland just didn't have the brightness. Roland folks and Korg folks will get very angry about my opinion but the truth is Alesis makes a board that is worthy of the phrase "bang for the buck".
Top this board off with a Roland JP800, Nord Lead etc. and you've got a killer outfit!!

The presets are beautiful- everything's great. Editing patches isn't something I've gotten into just yet- waiting to figure out exactly what I'm doing. Although the manual isn't great as a teaching tool in that dept., I don't think that's what the manual is intended for. The manual is good for what it's intended for, pretty much, but I haven't explored some of the higher end stuff, so I'm not completely sure... my only bone about this keyboard is that it's hard to get the sliders to exactly where you want them to be- it'd be easier to be able to move them either by ticks or by a computerized system. But hey, that's ok.

ahh, good polyphony. I've never run out. The action is decent, too. Effects: good. And I haven't gotten into the whole QCard thing, but that looks like it'll be useful. I love it. Works very well with MIDI, it seems.

It sounds great- it really does. Works great for all kinds of different music.

I haven't managed to break it yet- and I think I won't be able to manage it either. It feels like it's sturdy enough.

I didn't get the warranty card in within 2 weeks... that sucks.

It was definitely a good buy, I think. I've been playing for quite some time, but this was my first pro/semi-pro keyboard (the only other keyboards I've bought are the Yamaha PSR-6 and the PSR-85; not nearly in the same range). I think it's great as a first serious keyboard, and it's got stuff that looks like it'll be useful for some time.

(this is for the qs7.1) It was very easy from the start to take this board out of the box, plug it into the computer and start sequencing right away. The mix mode is very good, however, I don't like being able to use one effect for your whole mix. The sounds in the program mode are much better then in mix mode due to the effects. As far as the presets in general, they are beautiful. I think the piano is very true, as well as the strings. Guitars and Basses lacking, but the ones given are enough to fool with. I couldnt say much for the horns and winds on this board, I think they compare well to other keyboards out there. The DM5 drums don't sound quite as the same as the drum module, but its still a very realistic kit. Editing patches seems a bit complicated, I've owned this keyboard for over a month now, and have been through the manual over and over, but I still have trouble editing patches. Moreover, the manual doesn't help much. Its very dry and just explains features, rather then providing step-by-step techniques. In general, I don't feel this keyboard is as easy to use as everyone would think, there is much to learn. Yet, there is so many possibilites, if you just look into it a bit and work at it.

Not once have I ran out of voices, even with multi-layerd patches. 64 voices seems to be plenty! The preset effects on each patch are wonderful, as well as the four sliders to control effects real time. There is only 5 effect configurations, but there are plenty of combinations you can do to get the right sound you want. It takes a bit of getting used to, but eventually I was able to get the hang of working with them. The bigger screen really helps, compared to the older QS7 version, which makes it very easy on the eyes. During live performances, the transpose button that was added could really be useful. I haven't had a chance to check out the q-cards for this board yet, but I listened to the sample songs on the CD that came with the keyboard, and the q-cards sound very convincing (especially the classical and hip-hop cards). I didnt expect much from the feel of the keys as it is a snyth, and you cant expect to have a grand piano feel from a synth. The keys are very quick, and I love working with the aftertouch! No sequencer on this baby, maybe thats why the cost is so low, but who needs it, you can do all the work on the computer, and just burn the sequences to a card. Just as good!

As said before, Im really satisfied with the pianos here. There needs to be more bass sounds, an guitar too, but the ones they give you are excellent. The strings are beautiful, and well designed. I really would have a time telling the different between the real thing and the synth. There is some very cool synth sounds, and the four effect sliders and aftertouch allow you to really control them well. The keyboard has features that can adjust to your playing such as how you would like the keys weighted in order to fit your playing style. I think this board would work best with dance and electronic type music, but I can see it working to fit any style

This keyboard seems very reliable, its built nice, and hasnt given me any trouble yet.

Havent dealt with them yet, but I have with other alesis products and they were very helpful!

This is the perfect keyboard for anyone who is on a tight budget. If you are really having trouble deciding on which synth to buy, and just cant make a decision, go for this one. Its a joy to play, and provides lots of creative power. It works well with anything, and is a breeze to set up on the computer. Id recommend this synth to anyone!