Quasimidi Sirius

The sirius is an absolute doddle to use. I have 2 of the babies, and everyting about them oozes immediacy, and authenticity. from Moogs,PPG's, Oberheims, to the old silver stallion, the tb-303. The sequencer is one of the most intuitive i have ever used, and the results are very gratifying thus far. The presets are all so usable, and for Bass sounds...there are more than you can poke a stick at.

i read above, and some of the previous reviews stated that the sirius was 24note poly, when in fact its 28. I feel that while the in built effects are fairly good, they are a bit limited, there are only 2 FX processors...but not to take away from it, they do a reasonably good job at phattening the sound. As far as expansion goes, there seems to be an expansion bay underneath the synth, but no news from quasimidi as yet. As i said before, the sequencer is fantastic, easy to use, and doesnt take very long to get some excellent results. It also has a built in 11 channel Vocoder, i think maybe a 20 channel would have been better, as sometimes its hard to get a clear intelligible voice out..but still, you get that classic vocoder sound, and you can cleverly route the synth/drum/percussion parts, through the vocoder, and get some truly inspiring sounds:)

This synth is primarily aimed at the house/trance/goa, etc styles, since there arn't any crappy GM sets, no bloody woodwind, etc (ie, same old, same old). basically theres not much in the way of cheese, although if you try hard enough u can extract some really cheesy stuff ;)

so far so good, i wouldnt hesitate to use it in a gig :)...but im not that good yet, so i'll let you know closer to a gig :)

i'm in australia, and having no suppliers in australia, had to purchase mine directly from Quasimidi. They were very polite and friendly, but it took about 3 months to ship it!!!!!which i was not very happy about

i wouldn't hesitate to buy another one, if mine got nicked, overall i love pretty much everything about my sirius's,....a pleasure to use...im still drooling at some of the kick drums, and bass synths :)

How could it be any easier? No shortage of knobs, everything is clearly labeled. It says what it does, it does what it says.

Loads of features - onboard vocoder, sequencer, FX, gooseneck mic and XLR jack.

Retro, baby! Moog moov over, the Sirius can remember

Quasi USA has been a pleasure to work with.

Its quite easy to start bashing away with this thing, as it has lots of real-time
controllers and buttons, plus a useable set of preset patterns. Sound editing/creation
is simpler as on most machines, especially due to the "macro" feature,
which allows to select predefined envelopes or routing setups for your sounds.
The display is a two-line lc display and for that really sucks, as it doesn't
display enough information. On the other hand, the lots of illuminated buttons somehow
make up for this. Digging deeper into the device, the concept of the pattern sequencer
is a bit confusing at first, but when you got it, it really works ok.

The polyphony is 24-voice, with 7 independendt parts (bd, sd, hh, perc, 3x synth). Unfortunately, sounds
for the "drum" sections cannot be selected independently, but this is not a real problem,
as you can assign i.e. an alternative snare to the percussion section. Two built-in effectors,
completely crap. Can be used for simple delay effects. The keyboard is a 4-octave
with the usual two wheels (with the possibility to assign complex parameter sets
to the mod wheel a la Oberheim XPander). The vocoder is upper-class (11-band, several
preset programs) and allows to use internal or external sources as carrier and analyze signal.
The sequencer is a key component of the Sirius, its based on so-called motifs (single-part sequences
of definable length). Several motifs can be combined to form a pattern, which also
saves vocoder and fx values. The patterns can form a song. Unfortunately, no controller info can
be recorded into the sequence of the song (a la Rebirth), so everything has to be realized inside
the motifs/patterns. Patterns can also be assigned to the 16 buttons above the keyboard for real-time live action. A programmable arpeggiator with a shift feature is also available.
The clock can be syncronized to external audio sources (cd's, drummers) with a
beat recognition system and thus deliever a synced MIDI clock for the entire setup.

The presets (lots) are optimized for use in the dance/breakbeat context. Which doesn't mean you can't create
sounds suitable for other styles. The synth engine is a wavetable with a well-programmable filter.
Compared to the usual analogue madness, the Sirius really kicks some ass. Of course, its possibilities do not reach
things like a prophecy, but you get cool bass and pad sounds, and also really good drums. Noise floor is minimal.
If the Sirius is complemented with a machine for cool lead stuff (say a Prophecy) and something for good acoustic instrument
simulation (a sampler), it works perfect.

I only had it for two weeks, so no info on that. The thing looks sturdy, on
the downside it uses a wallwart. The included microphone (for the vocoder) and its
xlr connector on the instrument's top don't look that reliable. I would take it to
a gig without "backup" (i.e. no other dance workstation), but not as my only synth, but
that mainly for other reasons.

No info on that.

The thing is the greatest device on the market for its purpose I have come across.
Its main strenghts are the good analogue-style sounds in some areas, the sequencer, the
arpeggiator and the vocoder. Greatest weakness would be the effect section (but you can do that
externally). I use it in conjunction with a Prophecy, an EmaxII and an ESI-32, a Sony GR-MP5 and Lexicon
Vortex Effect and a Mackie 1202vlz pro mixer mainly for live situations, and in this
context, the Sirius really fills the feature gaps of the other devices in the setup.
The Sirius has two areas for which it is perfectly suited: as a stand-alone
dance/techno workstation to sketch out new songs and experiment, or as a live sound generator with
a good sequencer.

The preset sound are more dance oriented. If you want techno sound you will have to edit them. Hopefully editing is easy and the manual is very good.

Polyphony: 24 Part: 7, 4 for the drums and 3 for the synth sound. Trnasmit all in midi and receive all !!!! Very good because you can control another synth with it ! And it has an on-board sequencer and arpegiator wich can be sync to midi or audio msg (via an included BPM counter!) Very usefull for live performance for a mix !

Sound really techno if you edit well the patch. All the typical sound are in it ! The effect are good too. Finally it sound fat and deep.

Very good support.

ALl lot of sound !!! For more technical information: http://www.quasimidi.com/englisch/sirius.htm
URGENT:!! I sell mine because of finacial problem. 4 month old, one year guarantie, excellent contition. Sell with all: Sirius, Box, Microphone, External alimentation, 2 audio cables, 2 adaptators, documantation,garantie... ToM, contact me at: garnier@iname.com, live in FRANCE - Paris.