Product: Suzuki SX-500
Price Paid: used
Submitted
08/19/2005
at
12:40pm
by
reddread
Email: reddread at chello<dot>nl
Ease of Use
:
6
If You want to program your sounds on the synth itself it is not very easy to do. A lot of fiddling with only two digits. All (and i mean all!) the parameters can be respond to CC and can be changed in realtime. Hook it up to a midicontroller and this baby comes to life.
The presets really suck. make your own sounds.
Features
:
6
8-note polyphony but reduces to 4 in the better sounds. only one filter for 8 voices but you can choose between single and multiple triggering. There a chorus inside wich can only be set on and of. It does respond to velocity. Rom amd Ramcartridges are available. There?s even a guy in Holland who makes new Ramcartridges.
There is an onboard sequenser (realtime one channel up to 300 notes) never used it.
Expressiveness/Sounds
:
8
No realistic sounds here. Without any modifications it sounds rather dull. If you pen it up and fiddle around with the potmeters it can sound a lot better and more agressive. The basic sound remains a bit plastic, but i like it. You can make good basses and synth-sounds and some sweet pads. Als SFX sounds are nice.
Reliability
:
8
It sounds a bit plastic and it is a piece of plastic but since there so cheap i would gig with. It never let me down so far. It has a bit of a strange adapter wich can not be replaced very easy i think.
Customer Support
:
No Opinion
The thing is made by Siel (its exactly the same as the Siel EX-80) Siel doesn?t exist anymore.
Overall Rating
:
8
If it was broken or stolen I would try to find another one or a Siel EX-80, DK-80 or DK-70 wich are all about the same. You can pick em up quite cheap her for about 50 to 100 euro.
Product: Suzuki SX-500
Price Paid: N/A
Submitted
05/01/2001
at
11:16am
by
Ivo Jager
Ease of Use
:
8
Found out it DOES respond to MIDI controller messages (although not documented), set MIDI to EXT, try C#58 and C#57 for resonance and cutoff, careful with the resonance because it only goes up to 15 max.
Apperently there are other functions that can be accessed, fiddle with the controller messages and see what happens....
Features
:
No Opinion
Expressiveness/Sounds
:
8
Ok, when I reviewed this synth I said I would tinker some with the filters. Well today I did.
\/\/ (_) \/\/ !!!!! It screams just like the TB303 ! Hooked it up to my KORG Z1, turned on the arpeggiator and it really came close !
Forget the presets, open it up, go crazy with the pot-meters it CAN sound awesome !
Reliability
:
No Opinion
Customer Support
:
No Opinion
Overall Rating
:
No Opinion
Product: Suzuki SX-500
Price Paid: N/A
Submitted
09/17/2000
at
12:55pm
by
I.R.W. Jager
Email: jager49 at zonnet<dot>nl
Ease of Use
:
4
Editing the SX-500 preset is hard (not impossible though) because of the dramatically ill-designed operating system.
Editing is not possible via MIDI. It's probably a waste of time anyway, because the presets give a fairly good impression of the ((limited) range of sounds it can produce.
I'd rather not go into the manual, I'm still in therapy you see...
Features
:
4
It has a 8 voice polyphony, no FX, and a pretty useless memory expansion card option (upgrades from 10 to 60 user voices).
The MIDI implementation is *VERY* basic. I recognizes the notes and the pitchbender, nothing more.
It's also equipped with a old synchornization interface ROLAND used a while before MIDI became the standard.
It has a onboard sequencer, but don't hold your breath: it stores 300 notes in two tracks 24 ppq.
Again it's horrible OS makes it even more difficult to find use for it.
I must say it has some great ideas (for its time) that are just horribly implemented. (sequencer metronome, different interfaces, fully programmable, drawbar emulation)
Expressiveness/Sounds
:
5
How does it sound.... Well... Not very exciting. Mainly because the filters are so gentle, it just sounds plastic.
There are some patches however that deserve your attention if you ever might stumble upon a SX-500. The organ imitations are useable especially with a nice reverb.
I got the faithless insomnia organ-stab-thingy out of it. The brasses are nice if you like that 80's sound.
But the most impressive sounds are the strings, one of which is amazing. (something like a choir of beautiful mermaids singing to you... just beleive me wehn i say it's nice)
I opened it up and tried to tweak it and I got it to sound a little more agressive by apparently overdriving the oscillators a little, producing a very mild distrortion.
Reliability
:
7
A salesman who used to sell 'em back in those days told me its weak spot was the powersupply.
Haven't had problems with it yet though...
Customer Support
:
No Opinion
Hammond-Suzuki probably would denys it ever made the SX-500 out of shame...
Overall Rating
:
4
Wouldn't buy it again for the price I paid (Dfl 125,- = EU 60,-), maybe for less.
It has something to it though, it'll probably become a collectors item (apparently it sold very bad)
I'm into DIY synth building, maybe one day i'll have a look at it an try to spice up the filters.
