Quasimidi Rave-O-Lution 309

I have always used this as a stand alone box, so no software needed for me.

The preset sounds are pretty cheesy, very circa 1999 techno. There are some fairly rubbish tunes preprogrammed into this.

Editing your patches is easy. I was dissapointed by the lack of memory though, but you have the option to midi dump all your info into some sort of storage though.

The manual is easy enough to understand. Took me a little while until I felt that I had nailed all the features on this box.

My 309 has the sound expansions.

If you are looking to record stuff in realtime (I'm talking specifically about the bass here) you will need a midi keyboard as the push buttons do not inspire improv bass lines. They are fine for inputing stuff into the step sequencer though.

The box is aranged like 5 seperate synths in a way. You have the bass drum, snare, hi hat, percussion and bass synth.

The only polyphony is on the percussion/drumkit section. But by creating a sound and tuning it into each note you can create your own keyboard with this, or use the two preset keyboards, one has a organ sound whilst the other has the sound of a prepared piano. There are some shockingly bad vocal samples on the percussion section too. Again you might find a keyboard useful here.

The Bass drum, hi hat and snare are fairly self explanatory and have that 909 sound you bought this for.

The bass synth section is where its at for me. 303 sounds and more, I love it. I often use the seperate synth to control it and treat it as a stand alone instrument. But when programming you can get some killer grooves from it.

The sequencer is very intuitive. My advice would be find your sound save it record and save immediately. countless times I've found the perfect beat recorded it and started fiddling around with the bass only to nudge the sound knob on the hi hat or something and all of a sudden it sounds like a monkey playing cymbals.

It can be synced with standard midi cables to pretty much anything of the same period. I'm out of the loop as far as synths are concerned nowadays but I assume all the technology is still standard.

The instruments are great, back then I think everyone though the future would sound like this, strangely all these 21st century sounds sound a bit dated now. All the more reason to get stuck in and make these sounds your own. The myriad of knobs on the bass section are only half the story, there is loads more you can tweak in the edit sound menu. I love the low end response on the bass.

This box was geared towards techno and dance music in general but it has some appeal to everyone I think, I like the bass section best as I'm sure you've gathered by now and you can jam in the coventional sense with your bandmates if you have that all important keyboard.

The effects and graphic equaliser are ok. You can run your guitar/ decks, other instruments in and apply effects but it sounds a bit rubbish. One cool thing is to run your decks/cd player through and use the cut off knob to get that daft punk sound. you can use it to isolate the bass lines to. All this you can do on a decent mixer though and it will sound better.

I like the overall control you get out of the sounds, a friend of mine had loads of yamaha sequncers and synths, he went through every preset bass noise and said theres nothing on there I like, I just fiddled with a few knobs pushed a few buttons, all of a sudden the floor was shaking and he was like woah how did you do that. In this sense I would suggest that this groovebox is not the most intuitive of instruments you really have to understand the sounds in order to create the good ones.

One annoying thing is if you have all the instruments playing you might experience some of the instruments cutting out. playing around with the EQ and the volume / noise gate button can minimise this but remove some of the punch and impact of the instrument.

Another thing that annoys me is when you record a new pattern it jumps for a second meaning creating patterns live in a gig situation is out of the question.

Its dependable and has never broken. Its not as if theres anyone who knows how to fix it though, quasimidi went bust along with techno. This is a studio piece of kit, in a gig it would never pass as a standalone groovebox and relies on other equipment rather than being an all in one box like those that were available at the time.

I bought mine direct from quasimidi and they installed all the expansions for me. They have closed down now which is a shame. A box like this which is aimed at just dance music would be a flop nowadays. They should of been a bit more innovative.

The manual is online though which is a relief.

It is worth what I paid for it, in a few years it will be a modern vintage. I play all sorts of instruments but guitar is my main creative outlet. It doesn't really compliment my 309 though. It stays in my studio all the time nowadays. I'm afraid I don't like dance music anymore. Besides its a young mans game but doesn't mean I can't record myself some avante garde electronica with my 309.

I would recommend that if you want a 303, 808 or 909 and you don't have the cash this is the sequncer for you.

I wish it had a memory expansion on it. I have lost hundreds of tunes over the years. If you like recording in realtime it will eat into the memory. Also it would be great if you could use a knob to control some of the more obscure editing functions while you are recording rather than just while you are editing the noise itself.
Anyway look out for this box, its cheapish now here in the UK but that won't last forever, it has been built by those industrious germans and will last forever probably.

A well knob laden front panel but you still have to do some menu diving for fine edits but at least there's a little more depth than first meets the eye tho editing the percussion section is the part that suffers the most from this work around.
The sequencer is similar to the old school Rolands which means no copy and past functions as well as some other annoying limitations like not being able to extend motif lengths once set. The good thing is that you can flick from part to part in grid edit mode but there is a slight hi-cup when you do so but not a major issue as you wouldn't be using the machine live like this, its also great to mix n' match different motifs within a pattern whilst playing. The sequencer is functional but if you can use another more featured hardware sequencer it will make your life much easier.

One of the best featured and best sounding ROM based drum machines made with a dirty raw edge thanks to the excellent Quasimidi filters.
The bass synth is a little bassic (ahem) compared to a fully fledged VA but does the job and has a similar sound structure to a MC202/SH101 with a sound that can often sound very analogue as well as harsh a harsh dirty digital. You basically get almost all the same parameters on the bass synth on all other drum parts which includes an LFO, accents, dynamic filter cutoff ect. with two basic but functional FX each with their own send, a handy two band shelving EQ and a useful overblast feature that works best if used sparingly.
The drum/synth and audio expansions are essential. The two extra bass synths (no sequencer track tho) can work in unison and can have the two audio-in's replacing the VCO section which means you can process stereo signals thru the phatt QM filters. You can reroute one bass synth into the other for a 48db filter but this can be a little tricky to set up and you also get a 12db LP/HP filter option and tons more waveforms. On the drum expansion you also get loads more waveforms to play with, more memories and a HP filter option on the hi hat.
The 8 RPS phrase style buttons for live use are much fun to use.

BEWARE THE NASTY 90's HARDFLOOR PRESETS! They have all the sounds shoved up to max level which makes the machine initially sound very flat and trashy you have tons of gain to play with via the main outputs and the overblast must be treated with care. Get everything mixed correctly and the sounds have far more depth and presence.
Even tho its essentially a ROMpler you get the best sounding TR909/808 this side of digital as well as hundreds of other very useful percussion sounds which are generally suited to the electronic techno market. The sound is heavy and dirty which pees all over the thin Roland Groovboxes and holds its head up against the Jomox crowd whilst still being very flexible for more abstract filtered sounds. Even tho it has some good electro sounds the slight lack of high may not make them sparkle like an Electribe or MachineDrumm but saying that the 309 makes an excellent compliment these other blippy VA style drum synths.

Not had any problems with ROM 3.01b tho there were numerous playback glitches with previous versions like a wavering clock and stuck notes although big problem of patterns messing up when skipping to a different song setup is still present and sadly always will be, if you can live with a brief pause before the next song then the sequencer is still useable and very solid when used live.
I think the later version that came with all three expansions had sturdier knobs than the earlier models although mine is a wobbly one and the knobs still work fine.

You can still get the last OS ROM burnt on an eeprom if you ask around the forums but sadly QM went under many years ago.
I wish they'd brought out more wavform banks but sadly not. :-(

A machine designed for the purpose it was intended for by the people who were actually into this kind of sound rather than a DJ toy from a big corp on the other side of the globe.
The 309 is good cheap alternative to get dirty TR909/808 sounds and a whole lot more besides but you have to get stuck in and create you own presets and patterns to make it more your own. There are some more sophisticated drum machines out there but this one is often overlooked no thanks to its cheesy 'Rave-o-lotion' name (which later also became the Groove X - Klaus Schulze edition)and very dated presets but this machine still has much sound sculpting scope and a hard edge that many newer drum machines fail to deliver just don't expect anything too natural sounding.
I've tried many different drum machines and this is still one of the best sounding I've come across especially if you prefer heavier techno type sounds. The onboard sequencer can be a little limiting but I use mine with a Monomachine which has unlocked it's potential ten fold.
Very cheap now but this will become a desirable classic as the sound still kicks ass today and they don't make hardware quite like this anymore.

I brough the machine with version 1, & while I had the occasional glitch, it was fine. I've comepletely upgradede the machine myself over the years 2 version 2.

the sequencers a bit weird to get used to as it runs on motifs (patterns) & then its patterns (8 of which to each song) make up a song (of which there are 16) but it is completely able to record sequences from an external synth into it, & then quantise it up, which (after learning to use it for 2 years) I finally cracked heh. basically you set the output midi channel to the part your recording (kick -1, snare-2, hi hat-3, percusion-4, synth-5) & then presto, it records the midi you send it (regardless of weather you have changed the global midi shift)

programing the synth is very easy, considering the front panal controllers, & a handily if you hold down the select button to a part, the synths controls can be used on the drums parts too. if not, the menu is straight forward

excellent, the synth is decently enough specified for basic old school synthin, the drum parts are all very flexable, tho there not scalebale over a midi keyboard, which is a shame. the FX are crap simple as that. the audio expansion & synth boards ARE A MUST!!! the abuilty to mess audio with it is awsome! the sequencer is really handy, & 1 of the reasons I chose it (to slave live with its own patterns)

before I start, there are no real worthy acoustic sounding drums here AT ALL!!! its all electronic based, & all the better for it (not that I prefure electro dums over acoustic, love the sound of a good stereo set). the External filters with the optional expansion are the real standouts here!!! WOW, nasty as hell, really puts that amazingly attractive rough edge on a recording! the synth is pretty cool, the kick drums are awsome, they really do kick, & when used live absolutly bang! the snares are fun when you go past using them as snares, the hats are standard but the get the job done well & quickly, the percusion is caperble of all the sounds on here, including some synth stuff aswel.

very good, had no real problums at all over the years. 1 thing that is anouying is that when you slave the sequencer to an external MTC, if you have any swing value on the beats, the original start will delay by about 10/20 milliseconds as you retrigger (I use it with an Alesis MMT8) never had any real problums tho. Version 2 is stable.

quasimidi is dead....... go figure

has some really "go to" sounds that have helped define my sound. if you want typical D'n'B sounds, or acoustic realisum, go away. if your looking for something that can give you that extra sound that isn't placable but steals the mix! then definatly come back! its a little bit of strange machine, but has lots of hidden depths, after spending 5 years with it, I would never part with it, use it live mainly as it has the kinda sounds designed to blow the balls off PA's! :) wicked little machine!

& if any1 ever nicked it???...... well they wouldn't as they'd find themselves cought, cooked, & disapered b4 that happened! grrrrrrrr love my 309! :)

I got this unit and within the first week had some of my first songs programmed. The sounds are easy to work with. It is easy to store the information where you need it.

I wish it was easier to copy drum patterns to add simple changes instead of having to write down all velocities, lengths, placement of the notes. I might just be missing something but for me I like drum tracks that add subtle changes and offbeat drums which are not always easy to remember without writing down all the details. Other than that the features were easy to learn the unit is easy to use.

The sounds are nice although some of the sounds are overly synthetic and coming from a glitch obscure producer that is a lot.

It is built like a rock and seems like it will last for quite some time.

Haven't had to worry about this yet

I would track this unit down again if it were stolen. I would almost track down the thief. I have had this unit for just over a week and will keep using it for sometime. I find its layout is wonderful for live apps.

This is a drum machine very easy to use, it's all at your hands disponsal! I dislike the presets, too dance/techno oriented, but editing patches is very easy. The manual is good, if in Englih version (this machine is German made and Quasimidi no more exists...)

The sequencer have some problem. Good Polyphony and acceptable effects.

This analog similar drum machine was the best for electronic music (Klaus Schulze have also six today, in his studio)- very good sounds, if you made yourself.

It's very useful in my hands....

Quasimidi no more exists!!!

If stolen, I don't know how refind one, so I cry.....!
I like very much Quasimidi sounds (I have also a "Sirius"), very good for electonical sounds and extravagances.

This gear has its own character and you can get unique sound, meanly thanks to the filter section, that is one of the best Virtual Analog implementation (but still far from a REAL Analog) and has an intruing overdrive section. Kicks are great, the bass section is a little weak but can be acid and aggressive if well programmed. Preset sounds and pattern aren't bad but doesn't reveal the cybernoid-animal attitude of this machine (anyway for me presets are only a thing to be erased - experimentation is the key!).
Onboard effects aren't much musical, they are difficult to manage and aren't tweakable and they miss a distorsion effect that would increase the acid factor. The best is use it with external FX, in this case the "audio expansion" is a must have (I miss it, sigh!).
The sequencer is great for live thanks to the special loop tracks that you can trig pressing the eight dedicated buttons, the other eight to switch patterns, track muting and recable knob movements -- in ther words you can kik ass!!--; but it's tricky for studio use cause there are MIDI implementation and OS problems that limit it (see below).
Programming drums is TR-style whit the possibility to write phrases (called motifs) longer than a beat. Step record in the bass section is not quite comfortable, its better to slow tempo and rec in real time mode.

The reliability is a damned factor. PAY ATTENTION TO THE OS VERSION!!!
I bought the Rave whit 1.02 OS and it was a nightmare, there were memory acces problems so whenever I wrote some patterns at a certain point the machine crashed and totally get frozen. To restart it you must re-initialize the machine losing all your datas.
The "MASTERTRACK" mode (read songmode) was a sort of instant self-destruction function.
Whit the 3.00 OS the thinghs are much better, but there still are MASTERTRACK malfunction. With this OS I never lost datas.

Quasimidi is dead....

The rave is a machine that you love or hate. I love it.
If stolen, I buy another used with expansion cards or a Quasimidi Sirius or Raven.