Quasimidi QM-309

All things you need are clearly there, it's just a matter of getting them out. It took me some time to get used to the way the editing screens work, and where to find what. The great thing is the separate knobs on each section for the basic sound selection, volumes, tone, pitch etc. This makes it easy and fun to turn a preset pattern sound into your own thing and tweaking your own sequenced patterns.

Saving your work is done on 3 separate levels - sound, pattern and song, and it's not always clear which thing belongs to what, as sounds are also saved into a pattern and patterns into a song, of which the settings may vary from song to song. It is explained in the short manual, but still even as a longtime user I've never got used to this confusing structure. So when I liked something, I just saved it in all three levels to be sure, and retitled the song inside the Q309 menu to be able find it back. I made some MIDI dumps too. There's no naming of sounds / patterns etc, just numbering so it's easy to accidently overwrite something. Only songs can be titled.

I bought this unit back in 1999 from the still existing Quasimidi GMBH including the Drum and Audio expansions. I've never been excited about the synth, would never have used a second synth of it with the Synth Expansion. There are a few waves that can be made to sound very nice using separate outs and fx.

Most of the preset patterns are simply horrible - they were horrid even back in 99 when I unpacked the box. The kind of "techno" that makes you just frown. But there's a wide choice of sounds available, and from these patterns alone you can get a very long way, already going into some fantastic rhythms. I had a preference for the softer / mellower side of it. You can fit the 309 into any kind of dance / house, funk or experimental stuff. There are no "acoustic" sounding drumsounds however.

Audio in processing is excellent - if desired separately for L / R with LFO's, gate / triggering on kick, snare, hihat, percussion motifs etc etc... The resonant filter is VERY fat and squelchy, perhaps still the best I've had. But it takes two hands changing the filter setting on an input, as you have to keep pressing the select button.

Nevertheless I felt that the box was starting to sound dated, it started taking too much work for me to get sth really new out of it for me... Inspiration drifted away, I started using more and more outboard fx gear on it thanks to the extra outputs - but all that's after many years of use and various releases

So I sold it recently

See above

Never any problem. Firm metal case.

When ordering, it was a delight speaking to them in 1999... When you still could

Sold the unit after intensive use. Will not buy it again, time to move on for me. Although I do miss some of the percussive samples, I kept those, may be someday I'll be importing them into an Electribe S or sth, to play with them with a different interface, for old time's sake.

I love this machine. I've bought it three weeks ago and I can't detach myself from it. It's easy to learn the quite complex structure of this machine and the manual is quite clear.

You can eventually find one of these classics at 300 euro now but listen. YOU HAVE TO BUY IT FULLY EXPANDED.
With audio and synth expansions the 309 becomes quite a beast. There's also a Drum expansion that gives some new nice drum sounds.
Audio exp. gives you 2 audio ins and 2 outs along with enhanced recording features (309 has got already drumgrid and realtime (!!!) and you add realtime-loop recording).
But the Synth exp. does the big thing! Apart from having two more bass sections at disposal (no extra seq tracks but you can drive the via MIDI IN).
You have 28 black knobs on a regular 309, right ?
With Synth exp. they become 85 !
I mean, you can now tweak Drum set parameters from synth section too.
Total realtime control!

309 sounds nice and quite aggressive even if sounds themself are not top quality. The ensamble seem very good though.

I've opened it, changed EEPROMs by myself. Detached and re-attached internal cables. I did wrong two or three times. The 309 didn't mind my treatments at all.

Even if Quasimidi is dead, there are (nice!!!) people who give support at http://www.quasimidi309.de.vu. They sent me the last version of the OS EEPROM for a very low price.

I'm not in dance/techno. I use it for classical music. I find it extremely flexible and reliable. Roland didn't produce at the time (1996) anything even similar. I only wish it had three more knobs (FX1,FX2,Release) but you can use an external MIDI controller (I use it with Doepfer REGELWERK).
I definitely would buy another one if i found it. Or better I'd buy 6 of them more as Klaus Shulze did (http://www.klaus-schulze.com/photos/9707.htm)

Very ease to use. I didn't have manual(never actually needed except when I owned Kurzweil K2000R and Kawai K5000) so I had to find out. Synthesis is really easy to use, quite basic. I used only expanded (audio&drums) Rave so there was more drums and some specs too. Editing sounds is really easy, just turn the knob. I have sold mine, but missing it now.

There is quite a lot waveforms, not just pulse, saw but some distorted stuff and many more. I had drum-expansion so I had some drum waves and kits more but basic sounds were cool too and I mostly used them only. Boost know is cool and it give some bottom end if needed, useful for me. There is eq too. I had audio expansion so I was able to route bass drum to eq etc etc etc. Really cool feature is, when you have audio-expansion, turn pan to 127, it routes that sound to output 3 and when turning pan to 0 it routes sound to output 4(don't remember which output but that's not the point), so you don't have to select output for each sounds from menus, really useful feature. WHY I SOLD IT?? It produces UNWANTED NOISE! I really liked it, but it was too noisy (maybe some noisegates etc but dunno then). Something of effects. They are quite useless, just a bit reverb for the drums.

Some synth sounds are kind of warm but most are cold sounding. Most drums sounds like 8-bit(like Jomox,TR-series etc uses)and not so clean but thats not the promblem. Truely electronic drummachine. I used it for trance/ambient/electronic -sytled stuff. Synth sounds can be really nasty and aggressive, but FAT is not word to describe it.

One button flew out of the machine once but knobs are quite reliable. It never locked. I used it only in studio.

Dunno and I think there is no Quasimidi out there anymore.

Good machine for the price but too noisy for me. Im so sad. If you are going to use it in your studio, get audio-expansion if there is some out there. Mail me so I'll give you URL to my songs, so you can listen, how good it sounds in the mix!

I Find that the Unit is fairly get go on the whole front. On the other
hand I suspect that the easyness effects the concentration of my labour
to create quality music. The Knobs are great and give good range, the
effects are unique and the only true problem is the temp dumps and such
which are extremely complicated and unexplained.

The Raveolution has an awesome kik drum as well as percusion (truly
awesome) and the lead synth polysynth emulater is good, although a
little dark, very D & B. The snare sucks except for wind effects or a
tiny tap here and there. Fortunately it seems that the Rave-o-lution
has a mind of its own and sometimes small miracles sound produce which
I tamper to my liking.

As far as extra stuff, of course the knobs really set it apart. when I
tried to hook it up to my Atari Falcon with Cubase Audio and run midi
it was very uncooperative and didn't produce the effects that run on
its own sequencer. The Extra Audio inputs do offer a good
bonus for creating different audio samples live.

I would never go alone with this baby, yeah it is sweet sounding but
without some back-up at least a synth or Novation or live instruments,
I wouldn't sell myself short. It is very sturdy, it travels well.

They usually tell me to call US or something.

I would probably buy another one if it was a good deal. Then again a
Korg prophecy is pretty good with an R-8, nahhhh. The unit has outperfomed
my greatest expectations.

It's simple to use! The 75% of the parameters can be controlled by knobs (read REALTIME!). The rest can be controlled (setted) using the internal controls.
I'm using the complete expanded machine (2 ins, 4 outs, sound expansions) and I'm satisfied on the capabilities.
The Drums presets are... quite good, but Quasimidi is famous for its terrible presets!!! But where's the problem? You can "customize" you sounds starting form a preset (or a wave!) and create your snare.

Effects: 2 sets (chorus, flangers, reverbs,..), you can activate/deactivate for single drum section.
But, these are global: if you set on FX1 a delay and on FX2 a chorus, these are the "global" effects that you can use at that time for all the machine... and if I need a different chorus fo the bass? Nothing!
MIDI: MMMMmmmmH! It's quite difficult to send MIDI events... (think if you're in a recording sudio!).
Bau, anyway it's a good machine

After customized the sounds it's simply great!
QM 309 is famous for dance, techno; but, try the percussion sets for samba! The sound is that!
I can use it for a lot of things. It's interesting create patterns to play with a real drummer!

For my work, the Rave-O-Lution is one of the engine.
I use it during the actual tour and we don't have problems with it.

Quasimidi in Europe helps me with mail and phones. No problems.

No problem to have another. It's one of my engine!!!!
It's a ready-to-play machine. It's not only a drum machine. Remember that it has a very interesting monophonic bass synth.!!!

The drumgrid programming is extremely simple and most of the tweaking are done with dedicated knobs. The whole "motif" thing was a bit confusing at first (could be that I'm just kinda slow). With the 309 a "motif" is a pattern, a pattern is a sequence, and a song is, well, a song. (I realize the previous sentence probably makes no sense if you haven't used a 309 or read its manual before.) I'm not complaining here, I just don't understand why there's no standard terminology amoung manufacturers. Okay, I'll get off my soapbox now.

Other reviewers have already delved into the tech stuff as far as polyphony and expansion goes.
The FX are okay, I guess. I find it kind of frustrating that there aren't dedicated knobs for FX mixing in each section. The onboard sequencer is pretty easy to use and fairly flexible.

The presets are okay. The big selling point for me with this thing is that there are knobs everywhere! Don't like the tone of the snare? Twist a knob! More decay on the kick? Twist a knob! You can even use the extra knobs in the synth section to change any drum section's parameters. This, however, brings me to the only major complaint I have with this box: WHY NOT INFINITELY TURNABLE KNOBS??? The fact that the knobs have a limited range can really get on your nerves when you change the drum kit. Each kick, snare, tom, hat, and synth sample has its own parameter settings on alot of the knobs so when you change samples and turn a knob, the sound is instantly changed from the parameter setting to the position the knob is when you start moving it! This is especially frustrating when you use the synth knobs to change a drum sound. If the knobs where more Waldorf Microwave XT-ish (ie infinitely turnable) this problem wouldn't exist.

It's built pretty solidly. I'd use it at a show, definitely.

Haven't needed support, yet.

If it were lost or stolen, I'd buy another because for the price, it doesn't get much better than this. Programming patterns, motifs, whatever, is pretty straightforward and the number of dedicated knobs (despited their finite range) is unmatched as far as drum machines go.
If you're in the market for an all-in-one box, this isn't it, however (try the SIRIUS, also by Quasimidi). I find the monosynth to be fairly blah and use the 309 as a drum machine.

Quite easy to use. No confusing menu's and features. Very plain and simple, but I don't like sequencing on it as much as using it as a sound module to an external computer sequencer.
Sequencing is divided into 5 sections - Kick, Snare, Hihat, Percussion and BassSynth.

It has 36 knobs plus an alpha dial in total. 34 of them send MIDI CC's.
It has 2 built in DSP's and an 2 Band Equalizer. They feature the most common effects such as Reverb, Delay, Chorus and Flanger. Effect amount can be set for each section. - Can't get any easier.
Whatever you have read in previous 'user submissions' the real polyphony is 17 voices. 1 for the Monophonic BassSynth, 1 Kick, 1 Snare, 2 Hihat and 12 voices for the percussion section.
- EXPANSIONS
It's has 3 upgrade options.
1. I/O Expansion - Which offers x2 indiviual and assignable extra outputs and x2 audio inputs that makes it possible to process external audio signals through the filter and envelope section of the 309.
2. Drum Expansion - It gives you additional 38xROM patterns, 128 more memory locations, indiviual LFO for each drum section and in total about 160 extra samples/sounds.
3. Synth Expansion - Gives you 37 new waveforms and two extra filter algorithms 12dB Highpass/Lowpass. Together with the I/O Expansion this expansion can give you two extra Monophonic BassSynths, controlled by MIDI channels 6&7.
- THE SEQUENCER
The sequencer as I said is very easy to use. Typical step sequencer with 16 steps (can be set to 32). Four accent levels can be set. And a superb 'Groove' feature which in my opinion is the only reason to use the onboard sequencer at all. Note/Glide/Pitch etc can be set up quickly for each tone.

If you're looking for TB303 emulation, look elsewhere because it doesn't sound anything near the real 303 bassline box. Yet, it's right on the spot for mid-pitched trance sequences, and some of the Waveforms used with the 12dB HP filter and Chorus sounds great.
The Percussion Section is the best part. It contains nice congas, claps and kicks... all the usual techno instruments are there.
Kick&Snares contains the usual 606, 808, 909's and amongst other things it contains superb 606, 909 hihats...

It's reliable...
My opinion... "it can't be used it without backup"

Quasimidi Support seems friendly. Email's get answered quickly.
I have all three upgrades. I haven't needed any real support yet.

A great allround groovebox...

I'm using the fully expanded 309. The factory presets aren't verry good, but verry easy to modify to more suitable patterns.

if you want the best out of this thing, you should use the basslead synth with an external delay.

verry good drum section !

somethimes an unexpected reset while creating patterns (samething on the MC-303)

Very friendly and helpfull but i drove to germany to get one cause the distribution isn't what it should be.

I bought the raveolution because i want to turn it on and just go for it. I also use a roland XP-10 and sometimes the yamaha cs1 (don't own one) and i play electric gitar to make the music complete.

I'm running version 1.02 of the software on my unit. From what I understand, all units are supposed to come with 2.0 software now, so make sure they give you the right stuff. The presets are damn good. Making your own patterns takes about 15 seconds to get a kick line (seriously!) and the rest is that simple. The only confusing editor is the bassline editor, which took me a while to figure out. The manual is decent... they are some sarcastic people from some of the comments in there. Since they are german, some stuff is confusing

Not quite sure about the polyphony, 32 I believe. Has a few built-in effects that sound decent. Supposedly it's really easy to upgrade... Pop it open and install the card. I've heard of the new 2.0 OS, a Kick expansion and a Bassline expansion. There is also an option for an additonal two outputs and two inputs. Why the inputs you ask? This is cool: You can run a signal through the 309s effects! The onboard sequencer is great stuff. More than ideally suited to dance music, for which it was intended. You will tear you hair out trying to strange timesignatures... external sequencer for that. (it is possible, but complicated)

The kicks and hats are great. Snares are a bit weak as are the basslines...too similar. The effects are decent... Maxed out can get a bit strange sounding, though. It's neat as while you are playing, half of the sixteen pattern buttons double as pattern overlay buttons, so you could program one with a breakdown and hit it right before silencing parts... which is another cool part, each part (kick/snare/hihat/percussion/bass) has its own independent mute button right on the panel. The pecussion set is basically a bunch of leftover stuff that doesnt fit into any other category... an improvement would be the ability to assign specific sounds to the perc. set.

This thing is rock-solid. I dropped it, spilled beer all over it, too. I think you could just about kick it with some steel toe boots and it would still work. I would definately gig with it *rackmounted* I wouldnt want it sitting out in the way.

This is the only thing that BLOWS about this unit. There is no support. I wrote once directly to Quasimidi, and they told me to talk to the American distributor. Guess what? Never heard from them. And remember that 2.0 OS that I needed? Why do you think I never got it? I hope to god it never breaks, as it would probably be just as well to throw it away before dealing with their repair service.

I wouldnt say this unit is worth $1000, but it sure is a useful box. I'd get another in a minute. I've been using this box for about six months, and I just keep coming up with new stuff all the time. The wealth of the built-in sounds is so supurb. It kicks ass compared to its most direct competitors ,MC 303 and 505, both of which I find horrifically arcahic and difficult to use. I use this box for techno and industrial, and it just tears things up for techno... there is soooo much you can do. The only quirk it has is that occasionally it likes to lock up, for no reason... plus there is NO SONGPOINTER, which is really a downer sometimes.

The preset sounds are fine, even though the ROM patterns are more than a little cheesy. There's a billion possible sounds you can crank out of it, through the tuning, tone, and all the other parameters that are there just aching to be screwed with.

It has a 32 note polyphony, I believe, and about twenty different effects in three generators (standard delay, pan-delay, chorus, EQ, reverb) that are easy to program in through the onboard mixer. Upgrade-wise, there are supposedly expansions for the synth, extra drum kits, and two pairs of In-Outs that ostensibly allow you to pipe in an external instrument (A bass guitar, for instance) and manipulate the sound through the synth control knobs. The last part, I'm not absolutely sure about but It's been supported by other users.
In the case of MIDI, it has In, Out, and Thru. Since I bought it used without a manual, I'm still trying to work out exactly one can dump the sounds or record from it to a sequencer. I'm fairly new to MIDI stuff, so I'm very much learning at the moment.
The sequencer drums-wise kicks absolute ass. You can see every note right before your eyes in sixteenth-notes on the 16 buttons on the front panel. Bass-lead, the buttons also function as a small one-octave keyboard.

Obviously the Rave does what its name says very well. You can make a thundering dance groove in five minutes, but that's not what I use it for. My style of music is very atmospheric while maintaining its dance-ability, a mixture of ambient-dark-techno-spoken word-industrial-rock... kind of a cross between Golden Palominos "Dead Inside" (If you don't have it, BUY IT!) and the "Event Horizon" soundtrack. With the number possible sounds, the Rave fits well into a lot of situations.
Live, it's a beauty. You can program the sixteen panel buttons to each play a different pattern and at the same time, through the front panel mute buttons, you can mute individual layers of each pattern.
The Pan-Delay and Reverb effects are nice, but the chorus and flanger tend to sound too metallic, so I usually use an external floor unit for those. Overall,the sounds are widely varied, the effects are decent, and the playability is exceptional.

The actual casing is tough, although I'm not stupid enough to test it by dropping $1100 off the side of a table. I would most definitely (and do) use it on gigs without any backup. I can depend on it fully, although a couple of the buttons do have a tendency to get a little sticky.

I tried to get in contact with them through e-mail about those mysterious expansions and they never e-mailed back. All I've heard on those are from other users. Their website also needs some help. I can't really give a solid rating because I've never had to use their support for anything serious like repairs.

I would buy it again, no question, but I don't know if for $1100 dollars. My current setup is the Rave with a Boss DR-5 slaved to it (beautiful, versatile machine along with an electric bass, guitar, and vocals, all run through a Kawai mixer and FX-ed by a DOD TEC-8 and misc. pedals. The Rave is great, and I just wish it had one more track so you could have both a bass-line and a lead line running at once...oh well. Creatively, I've exploded. I was once considering getting an MC-303 but not only did it seem so fragile (keys fell off it in the store), I've also heard nothing but trashing about it. I'll just stick to my baby.

I love this thing. You can turn it on, press a button, tap in a few beats and then you have a song. In addition to the ease of creating songs, for live stuff it's amazing. I mean, everything else is just so-so, but the live capabilities really make it what it is. All channels have lots of knobs and mutes, and there are loop tracks you can do for live stuff... you can change all the sounds, ALL REALLY EASY.

Hmmm, well it has like 127 nice bass synths plus 63 or so drum kits. It has a built in sequencer that's nice to use, but still kind of limited compared to like Cakewalk or something. It has built in delay, chorus, equalizer. I would say it's kind of like the MC-303, except that everything is more customizable. The Rave-O-Lution could kick the MC-303's ass any day.

The sounds are good, especially for only $1000 and it comes with so many. Has some basics, TR-808, TR-909, stuff like that. The bass contains a few TB-303s but they aren't too good. Don't react well when you modify them. I'd say the other bass sounds are really good, though. It has a bunch of knobs and you can make some really crazy sounds.

It's reliable. I've never had it break down or encountered a bug. Well, if you press all the mute buttons on the channels at once it sometimes doesn't work, but that's not really a big thing. It's never busted so I guess it's pretty reliable.

The tech support was ok, except that the company is based in Germany. They have an american distributor in Jersey but that was a long distance call. It was good other than that. They have email but they don't speak that fluent of English. Oh well.

It's a good addition to a studio. Kind of barren by itself. I use it with a keyboard, and even that sounds kind of bare.