Product: Generalmusic SK880 PowerStation
Price Paid: US $900
Submitted
01/05/2004
at
09:54am
by
Anonymous
Ease of Use
:
7
The OS is fairly easy to use and straight-forward. The general layout of the machine is like an old Yamaha PSR type keyboard. Editing is done quite easily, as the huge LCD on the machine allows you to access information pretty quickly and change settings with relative ease. My favorite aspect of editing is the Sound button which allows you to change freq. cutoff, resonance, attack, sustain, release, and modulation parameters of the currently selected sound all in one page on the display. Effects editing is relatively easy as well.
Features
:
7
The keyboard action on this thing is perfect (IMO). Not too spongy and not too bouncy. The unit boasts a pretty good set of effects. However, for any patch, only 2 presets (a reverb and then another effect) can be used. This can be a pain. Luckily, they added a few multi-talented effects such as Chorus-delay and flanger-delay which are two effects in one. However, editing those are a major pain, and they don't really change as expected. I.E. "Depth" may be chorus depth _or_ delay depth, you don't know till you try...
expansion: you can add non-battery backed ram to the thing (old simms work just fine)... There's a slew of other add-ins if you can find/afford them, such as an A/V card, SCSI card, etc.
I don't use the onboard sequencer... A 17" monitor is a lot nicer to use than the lcd. The keys are pressure/velocity sensitive... Included in the package (for the powerStation series) is a 2 gig Hdd with new styles, sounds, songs, etc. You can turn write protection off on the Hdd and store your own stuff locally on the machine.
Expressiveness/Sounds
:
7
The drumkits are very nice. All the sounds are at least B+ quality, with a few exceptionally nice ones. The strings, organs, EP's, in my opinion are the best. I'm very dissapointed that portamento doesn't work, as some sounds would be better with it. The synth sounds are nice and warm. This board is a fair 80's - pop/dance/funk board. I'd stay away from trying to do rock or classical. The onboard songs include a lot of 80's pop stuff which sound very realistic.
Reliability
:
9
I've had the software crash twice. A power-cycle is all it took to get back in shape. It's built like a tank... all wood/metal. It weighs a small ton.
Customer Support
:
6
NA. Dunno. Emailed once and got a reply. So I guess it's good.
Overall Rating
:
6
If the thing was stolen, I'd hunt the bastard down who took it and beat them with a boot. I'm addicted to the keyboard's action. If nothing else, the board is a worthwhile controller. But, it has some really cool features as well...
Overall, I give this thing a 6.5, simply because I know there are better sounds out there... Yes, you can load new sounds, but with the 2 megs of battery-backed ram available after the OS, it's pretty ridiculous to think that you could actually load enough to be satisfied. Ram is cheap... For something with as much power as this thing, they should have put a gig of ram in it.
