Yamaha RM1x

It??s easy to use if you are convenient with Yamaha sequenzers as QY70 or QY700. The manual is fairly easy to read. There are a lot of preset styles and patterns and you can combine them in your own user styles as you like, tweak the voices, mute tracks, build up pattern chains and all this in a very easy way.

The best in this box is the great variety of voices and styles, each with 16 different patterns. I like the preset voices, they have unlike other Yamaha voices in other synth and keyboards a little dust, but therefor the Rm1x sounds like no other instrument and has it??s own character. If you don??t like the voices you can hook up another synth via midi. The small keys aren??t pressure sensitive and for recording longer phrases a controller keyboard is useful.

As I just said, I like the special dusty sound of this box. And you can edit all voices within the patterns as you like them. You can get cheap dance sounds out of it, but also you can get very exclusive and futuristic sounds. But it??s made for electronica and dance music.

It,s build like a tank, very solid and with a good feeling if you are working often with all the knobs.

I like it very much, because it??s so flexible and in addition to my other keyboards, a Nord Lead 3, a SonicCell, a Tenori-On and a PSR-S700 which I use as a masterkeyboard it brings in the rhythmic patterns which I need from time to time for my music, which is mostly electronica.

Preset sounds are pretty useless, but I don't think people actually use preset sounds, you're supposed to use this thing to do music not to use it like a jukebox. I think manual is not so difficult, but you must definitely read it to get an idea of how the RM-1x works. Pretty easy after that. Sequencer really is simple and intuitive.

Good poliphony, worst keyboard action ever! You get used after a while, keys are very tricky, but you should definitely get a controller. It has no expansion capabilities, but I think it's pretty powerful by itself.

Midi capabilities in this machine really are what makes this thing so interesting. It's one of the best hardware sequencers available (don't care about the price), it really can compete with more professional and expensive tools, it has full midi compatibility, including pitch bends, knobs event recording, midi events etc. You can edit sequences in replace, overdub, step and grid mode.

Be aware! If you buy this thing for is sounds, you'll be very desappointed. This machine is not intended to be played by itself, It's much better sequencing other synths. Despite of that, you can get some decent synths you could actually use. Bass, Leads, Pads and almost all synthetic sounds sounds pretty decent (never professional), but any other "realistic" type of sound are not usable. Drums in this thing are the worst drums I've ever heard. Effects are pretty mediocre, but a few of them are actually usable, like midi delay. The arpeggiator is pretty cool but it only has 4 presets, altough you can simulate many more using sequencer in step mode.

I would never breakdown, but I can assure you the knobs are very weak, so you should treat it with care. I would definitely use it in a gig without a backup.

Lucky me, this thing looks pretty robust and it still works like new.

This thing would only get lost over my dead body! It's the central piece of my equipment and I use it for sequencing EVERYTHING that I do. Sounds are not good, but I use them only to create the song and play the song later with other synths. I'm a Computer Engineer and despite of that I can assure you a software sequencer will never be a replacement for a hardware sequencer, they are very different things. If you're like me, and think that sitting in front of a computer really scares the inspiration, get a thing like this. Be careful tough, because it's hard to get one in good working conditions, but remember this is not really a synth but an excellent sequencer.

The presets are a joke not to mention the sounds are beyond weak. Even if you edit the hell out of them they are wayyy too thin. I have heard good tracks on this machine but if you are looking for an all in one machine look else where. The manual is decent but lacking in some major departments. Like explanation of the job menu. It lets you do things to your patterns like (data thin out). How am I supposed to know what that does to my pattern. it says what it does but not why you would want to do them. In the roland 307 manual for example it says data thin out is good for freeing up memory

The sequencer is where this unit really shines. As a master sequencer it is one of the best i have seen. I do not use the sounds at all. Just have it hooked up to my laptop

Instruments are HORRIBLE. especially the real instrument sounds. Very fake sounding. With another synth to go with it you are in business.

it never crapped out on me but the buttons are pretty bad. Used to work but started using it again after a few years of it sitting and the buttons are unresponsive. Shouldn't be a big deal though.

never had too.

If it were lost or something I probably wouldn't get another. The yamaha sounds are terrible. I really am getting tired of these grooveboxes. Please tell me why you would fill up more than half of the machines memory with CHEESY songs that you CANNOT erase? On my korg em1 you can erase all the presets if you want. If someone buys the machine they can initialize the machine to the factory presets if they want but yamaha and roland don't seem to care about that!

I think this machine is pretty easy to use and if you use it a lot you get hold of the extras it has to offer, and there is a lot to be explored imo...

A lot of features, could use more effects, has quite a number of jobs

The sounds are OK, they are not fat or up to date but ok, meaning you should not use them without tweaking offcourse.

no problems here

I would buy it again if it was lost
I've been using it for a long time already, six or seven years
i like it because it's fun to use, got me into electronic music production
I bought many synths, samplers and other gear but the rm1x is the only good 'all in one' box for me ;)

This is easy to use for people who can take a couple days to master it. Once mastered, it's wonderful.

The only thing I don't like about my baby, the RM1X - is her memory. I wish she had more memory and floppy disks are not the most reliable. Can you buy them still? Floppies can demagnetize over time. I wish someone could open my RM1X and add a DVD burner to it because I use it a LOT. The keyboard action is not great.. but I hook it up to my Nord Electro via MIDI and control the sounds there.

Overall, the features are great. Wish you could apply more effects to one sound.. but that's okay. She's an old lady.

Forget all these wankers slamming the RM1X sounds. They obviously either love the overdone virtual synths and want to sound like everyone else, or they haven't yet explored the awesome capabilities of the RM1X when you get down and dirty with it. You can manipulate any sound in there to create a fresh new sound that's.... YOURS! Don't be an imitator... create your own sounds. Why make music if you are living by someone else's sound?

I only wish there were more snares to chose from - but that is it. This thing is great.

She's always dependable. She never has problems. The only problems I've had with her in all the 9 years I've owned her, is that I busted some of the keypads and lost some knobs. This is my fault for being irresponsible and taking her everywhere and not using a case.

Never used em

The Yamaha RM1X rocks. I'm going to buy another one.. and then maybe another one.

RM1X takes a little getting used to but it's worth the effort. Once you understand it it's a breeze. Could use a few tweaks for grid mode, but it's overall a nice feature if you're familiar with drum patterns. Built in arp is silly, but it makes up for it with midi play fx that are useful.

One of the best sequencers out there. Once you get your variations in, you can easily play around with muting channels and switching between patterns to create your songs (and actually in a creative way). If you're sick of looking at a computer screen during the writing phase, pick one of these up and really put the effort into learning how to use it. No more mouse until you're ready to record audio. It's a brilliant piece of gear. Don't forget that it's really a SEQUENCER and not a synth.

Although the sounds suck, I've gotten alot of good use out them. I've brought this along on vacation with me before, and then routed the sequences into real synths when I got home (with good results). The sounds are handy for on the fly writing, but that's about it. Giving it a 5, because the sounds are horrible, but also useful. I've actually used some drum sounds before when recording (because I wanted horribly compressed and mushy drums), but that's about it...

100%

n/a

This is a handy piece of gear that I wouldn't give up. I use it as a sequencer on a sampler for some of my drum tracks. The difference between this and the built in sequencer (in my sampler) is night and day. I've gone to no computer while writing, and the RM1x is indispensable. Just don't expect to use it regularly as anything but a sequencer. I never have, but it's definitely sturdy enough to gig with, and is phenomenal for piecing together patterns on the fly. Just don't forget it's name "sequence remixer". That's exactly what it is. Nothing more, nothing less. Everyone should be happy for its price that Yamaha even put a synth in it. Better to have a crappy one built in than none at all. $200 right now on ebay is a steal. If a few more hundred $'s isn't an issue, the RS-7000 has basically the same sequencer, but with sampling and a cleaner synth and fx.

took a while to learn how to use. the presets are silly (well except for the four-to-the-floor kick drum seq's, those are useful) and i've unfortunately heard people actually using them. the manual can be confusing at times and doesn't always tell you how to do things, rather it just tells you what the RM1x CAN do. patch editing is very simple, but that's as deep as it gets unfortunately.

this thing definately takes some time to get used to. it's not intuitive and it takes a while to your head around the whole RM1x concept. after that though, you're golden.

the keyboard sucks. i've had my RM1x for 7 years and several of the keys are no longer working. seeing as these keys are used for track selection/sections/mute/data it can be a pain to use when they don't respond.

as a midi sequencer it's great. rock solid. if you want to compose in a software editor then use this thing as a sequencer the thing will never flake out. i've used mine live numerous times and never have been nervous about it.

programming the sequencer blows. the whole phrase based construction, chaining etc is archaic. it's ok for sketching out song ideas, but little else. what takes a few mouse clicks in a sequencing application can take many minutes digging through menus and navigating the UI to enter data on the RM1x.

loading chains from disk burned me once, BIG TIME. when you load a pattern chain from disk it wipes the patterns out too. very poor design there guys.

the sounds are lifeless, dull and cheap. there's a few good basses, and some decent "bread and butter" drum sounds, but overall you need to compliment it with a quality synth to do serious work. the filter is ok, would have been nice to have at least a high-pass in addition to the low pass (how hard would that have been to add?), i'd rather have more/better filters than half the sounds.

onboard effects are lackluster. nothing special here. you can only add "delay" to one track in variation insert mode (notice the quotes, it's not real delay). the reverbs are ok, but the rest of the effects are pretty much useless.

aside from the cheapo keyboard the thing is bullettproof. i've gigged with it tons and it's never failed me. the floppy drive likes to give me errors and tell me it can't read disks, do yourself a favor and back up religiously to a computer (you can copy/paste right from RM1x formatted disks).

upgrading proved to be futile. i tried to get the upgrade ROM and couldn't get a straight answer from yamaha or the dealer. they bot pissed me off so bad i gave up.

if i lost it i wouldn't be broken hearted. i plan on phasing it out completely soon as it could easily be replaced by something far more powerful for the same money.

i love the stability and reliability of the sequencer. i've sequenced racks full of gear with it and it's always performed.

i hate the sounds and the tiny sliver of memory they give you. doesn't take much to fill up the memory, and it's not exactly quick to load from floppy either.

i wish it had better sounds that had some life and didn't sound like a crappy 80's beat box. i wish it had individual track eq's and at the very least a HPF in addition to the LPF.

it helps me make music as a quick "general" sound bank, but little else.

The presets are cool. But I would have wanted to get rid of them to free space.
Editing patches is easy. Even easier than fruity loops. There are Two good interfaces plus two realtime recordingmodes that come really handy.
The manual sucked big arse.

The polyphony sucks as the yamaha synth runs out of breath even with more complex drumloops. Takes usually 8-10 tracks to make it start gasping for breath. However, using it to control other synths it makes up for it.
Built in effects are boring and ordinary. But hey the thing is 10 years old now...
No way of expanding it and no internal memories for own sounds...
The sequencer is great, and I haven't managed to break the damned thing yet after 10 years of use.

Sounds SUCK. This thingy is really made for mindless techno or trance. *Another thing that is good at is making comp-riffs through the use of midi-delay and octavesetting.

Onboard FX have bad quality and really don't add anything.

The plastic knobs are a pain to play on. But it was never intended to be used in that way.

It has never broke. Ive got vomit, beer, drinks, and coffee spilt on the bastard and it still works.

If it was lost or stolen I wouldn't buy a new one. Virtual synths rock. It was worth the money though.
I have been playing it for 10 years in hiphop-gigs and freestylesessions, a few times in a trance party and a couple of raves, then it was part of an art exhibition in order to have something look like we weren't just taking everything out of the computer...
I love that it never breaks, I hate the knobs and the synth.
I compared it to a Korg before I bought it. It just worked easier.
Id wish it had better knobs and better synth and a sampler would be nice...

Don't go buying it anymore, there are better, not so outdated things out there nowadays. Sequencers are losing to computersoftware.

This unit is great IF YOUR A DJ WHO WANTS TO PLAY PRESET SOUNDS OVER DANCE MUSIC IN YOUR BEDROOM. Like the old MC-303 creating a pattern is archaic and time consuming. Notes are placed on a giant multi octave imaginary grid and you have to scroll slowly to see what note is what. This takes forever and you get lost easy. Then when you preview the pattern you don't get to hear what it sounds like over music. But when you're creating mindless techno I guess you just don't need to. Even scrolling between "styles" or banks, you can't just fly down to number 1 from 45 oh no it goes really slowly. Try spinning faster and it does no good. Slow is the only way. Then after finally dropping to p1 you can't go down to u or user. It hits rock bottom so you have to go all the way to the top slow and sure. But I guess when your a technician at a music hardware company you just don't consider details like that.

The features are good if you don't die of old age trying to actually use them.

Typical Yamaha sound set.

Would never try to take this thing on a real gig.

All-in-all it's design suggests that it was constructed for children with no musical capabilities. It's another poorly thought out overcomplicated Japanese concept. It's almost as if the technicians never tested the device other than just on a mechanical level. What takes 10 minutes in fruity loops takes endless hours (if it's even possible) on this frustrating device. GOOD LUCK.

The RM1x is a very simple machine to use ... unless you want to make things complicated. I've found that it is easy to lay down a bassline and synth type arpeggios but very difficult to deal w/ pads/chords or long held notes. With anything held longer than a measure you have to 'tie' into the next measure and after a while it gets frustrating. You also have to remember what notes you've entered as there is no way to tell what note is actually being played. Other than those things it doesn't get much easier.

The 'keyboard' sucks and it even takes a while to get used to pressing down the buttons as they are not sensitive at all. You almost have to punch the button unless you hit the very bottom of it (it takes some getting use to but it OK now). I've had no problems w/ MIDI and I use the RM1x to sequence all my external gear, can't ask for much more than that. It is all easy to set up and pretty much common sense if you know about MTC and syncing.

This is the downfall of the RM1x. The sounds for the most part are useless. If you have external effects then you can make them sound okay. Editing of voices is very limited but you can't save them so it doesn't really matter anyway. The thing that frustrates me the most is that the RM1x doesn't have voice memory... so when you turn the thing off and on again it won't save a bass voice that you had on track 1 but instead will play the default sound (I think its a piano) it sounds god awful and you have to change everything. There is a the floppy drive but it is still more of a pain than it should be for a list price of over $700. I never use the sounds on the RM1x, I don't even have the thing hooked up to my mixer.

Rock solid. There are 4 knobs right by the LED that are a bit suspect b/c they have been wobbling more and more as time goes on (they are still on but treat them nicely). Other than that it feels like everything is unbreakable. I've gigged a few times w/o a backup and have had no problems.

Had a response about a week later and they directed me to their 'national' support team so I figured the problem out myself.

My overall rating is a 9 b/c I only use it to sequence my other gear. If I had this box by itself it would get about a 3. If you have external gear then this is GREAT hardware sequencer but if you're just getting a 'groove box' then go w/ one of the Rolands.

newest os. the preset are not bad-i had a qy70 and there are alittle bit like that.it has 8(x2)knobs for real time editing and also you can edit asdr,ect so it is pretty good.editing patches is dead simple-the edit matrix manual is printed on the right side of the unit-could it be any easier!?!?!?!
manual is ok,this thing is a hell of a sequencer,too!!

the plastic chiclet keys suck,sometimes they "double fire",but i use an oxygen controller.
effects are decent enough-you can edit certain parameters of the effect,too.
the best feature is the disk drive!!!!! save sounds on your mac/pc
no bizzarre 3 volt or whatever they smart cards from roland here...
midid specs are the best out there.
seq rocks

drums are cool,
i make ambient,but electro techno,acid,house ect is good to make o this machine.and idm too

good solid metal casing,but why the plastic keys???(cheap)

???

i'd get it again.
it is great as the center of studio-use it to seq all othere equiptment.
beats mc303,mc505 has more sliders ect,but roland grroveboxes are soo dated sounding -and cheap crap generaly.
they make a product and 6 months later it is gone drom their online database. remember the mc09? yeah neither did i....

Be patient, all traditional instruments take years to learn by comparison.

MIDI filtering of in outs could be improved

forget the sounds, just use the sequencer. a few useful sounds are buried within, most are cheesy. however, I hear more and more cheesy sounds used in hip hop and r n b all the time, maybe some of you wil get lucky.

very reliable, solid metal case, cheap plastic keys, slighter better knobs. case is solid as

yamaha should have updated OS chips out of their own pocket, and made this known to all vendors. yamaha only did free upgrades for a few years and only to those that found out. cost me $80 AUD, I was pissed off.

This is a great hardware sequencer, just forget 90% of the sounds and use an external synth or sampler for you actual sound source.

MIDI sequencing on this thing is seriously good, and at current second hand rates it's a steal.

There are one or 2 MIDI bugs that can switch MIDI presets on external gear while you edit, but this is fixed with the last OS version. you can work around it anyway. overall, one of the best hardware MIDI sequencers ever made.

Had it for 3 years, I've used it to score and sequence music for film and for bands. It's been great value.

It's pretty simple to use. Sometimes you could wish for a software-based editor since it gets pretty tricky to edit patches where more notes are played at once. If you do more complicated tracks, with a lot of automation, editing gets even trickier!

But overall the machine is pretty easy to use IF you read the manual!

Polyphony is 64, which should be enough for most people.

The Rm1x could use some sort of simple synth-part since the preset sounds get pretty dull after some time.

It definately lacks memory expansion capabilities!!! I wanted to use song mode for sequencing other synths. But since it was limited to about 500Kb of memory, I had to forget this idea since my tracks are between 160Kb and 400Kb each (I mainly create psytrance and minimal trance). I could switch to using pattern mode, but since I work faster at a computer than on the Rm1x while building the tracks, I don't want to work in pattern mode. So now I mainly use the Rm1x for percussion sounds.

The Rm1x is pretty good for getting your ideas put to music really quick. The basis for some of my best tunes have been made on apparently an hour on the Rm1x.

More OUTs would be nice for those who use the onboard sounds. Since there are only two OUTs (Left and Right), it is not easy to add external effects to a specific instrument.

The feature of switching to and from record mode while playing is also completely left out. This would be very useful if you work in pattern mode and work within the more rythmic loopbased genres as for instance techno, tribal and so forth. This feature have completely been left out by Yamaha.

I have had some problems with connecting it the Rm1x to a software sequencer, and using it to send midi data further through the midi-out. Even though the onboard sounds on a specific channel were disabled, the Rm1x insisted on playing these sounds when the signal came from outside the box. I never got this fixed, and I'm not sure it can be. So my sollution was to get a midi interface for my computer with 2 midi-outs, so that I did not have to send the signal through my Rm1x.

The floppy drive is a nice feature :c)

The sounds are ok. I have found more than a few that I could use. However, after I have got my hands on a real synth (access virus c), I only use the Rm1x for percussion.

I still think it is good for laying down the basis for a track, but the sounds themselves cannot be compared with those of a real synth. At least not for the genres I deal with.

I have had NO problems at all with my Rm1x. I've played half-way through 3 or 4 gigs with it and it have not crashed on me yet. Only halfway because of my memory problems desriped earlier. :c)

I have never been in contact with customer support.

If my Yamaha Rm1x was stolen or lost, I would not get one again. I only use it for percussion these days, so I would much rather get a sampler instead since the percussion banks are getting somewhat trivial to me.

Had this been a year ago no one could convince me to sell it to them for all the money in the world! I have really had some fun with this machine, and I will never regret buying it!!

If some software tools that could help me easily set up pattern were available, I would most definately use it for sequencing again too :c)

I have not explored all of the uses this machine is capable of. I have not used it in Song Mode or Pattern Chain Mode. However, I understand how those functions work and others have reported good things about the RM1x as a Sequencer. I use mine as a live performance tool. I like to play along and improvise (guitar, drum triggers, theremin, voice, etc.) with a loop for a while and as I sense the audience getting restless, I can push a button to seamlessly move to a new train of thought. (Try doing that with a full band!) At first it bugged me that it would switch mid loop but now I like that. It means it requires a level of musical skill to operate and also awards you more control on the fly.

I don't like the fact that the quantize function doesn't work on the fly in real time record mode (like Roland Machines). You have to play your part and apply the function after. However I find the Step function to be very easy to use.

Manual was OK.

See other reviews for specs. Also see my "Ease of Use" section since I covered some of the features there.

I got this machine because my Roland MC-303 crashed and I lost all of my patterns. This surpasses that machine in most catigories. It has ample memory and a disk drive so you can back up your work. (Very important!) Lot's more user banks, voices, tracks, everything.

Some have knocked off points for sounds and the keypad. That might be because they have spent more time pursuing Electronica than I have so they have much higher expectations. Even those folks would give it high marks as a sequencer for controlling sound modules they prefer.

That said, I rather like the sounds in this box. Good analog modeling good effects, versitile sound editing functions. I was pleased that the key pad was much more usable that I expected (since I read other reviews slamming it.)

I have been composing for a month and still have not come close to maxing out the memory. I have no fear of crashes and, as mentioned, it has a disk drive to backup my work. I played four gigs so far and it performed flawlessly. It has a very solid feel to it.

Never needed to contact them.

I paid more than I needed to for this RM1x. You'll be able to get them for about $225-$275 on Ebay pretty easy. This one however had 3 total hours of use on it and the guy was here in town so I didn't have to pay shipping. So it all came out in the wash. It was still WELL worth it. This is the most important tool in my one-man-electronica-punk-jazz-rock band. It allows me to improvise while still having composed elements in the music. It has helped my improve my guitar soloing and has provided a fresh palet for composing.

I've never worked with yamaha synth before, so it wasn't that easy for me to handle the manual. I had many Roland machines before (TB303,TR808-909,MC 303-307-505) I think the were much more comfortable to use. But if you take some time to read the manual, it's no problem.

I think you have many real cool features in this sequencer!!! Midi delay, pitch shifter, and the most interisting thing....the disk floppy!!! I like the Grind- and steprecording...Its very easy to add melodys that you have heard somewhere.

Best Hardwaresounds u can get for that price!!!

1000%

#Never had someting to do with them#:-))

It's one of the best things i've ever bougth...especially for Acid, Techno and Hip Hop

usability sucks.
e.g. you can not switch from record to play while the sequence is runnning.
you always have to stop. very annoying.
another example: to undo something you have to press more than 10 buttons if you are in a wrong mode.

features are ok.

sound are ok but you get bored after a while.

Simply, this machine is very easy to use. I score films, and let me tell you, whenever a director needs some techno fast the RM1x is there for me, and quickly!

I have had the RM1x for a while now. It's a perfect fit in my studio. Mostly, when I'm doing films I just need a keyboard and some software but when I need some techno, and fast, the RM1x becomes the most important piece of equipment I own. It's definitly well worth what I paid. The only bad thing about it is that the track buttons get weak with time, If you can, don't use them much except to change tracks and sections-They'll quit working. But overall, you can't beat it, not with the ease of use and the price!

version 1.02 or summat......not upgraded
Presets so so.....
Editing easy and quick.....
Manual ok....covers most angles well enuff

64 voice polyphony if i recall....sorta enuff....
Keyboard sux....non velocity sensitive...
FX ok....quite a few, editable.....bussing a tad limting....
MIDI OK...needs a dedicated THRU ....
Sequencer fine....timing solid enuff.....giggable anyways i rek

Editability renders most presets quickly fixable....and to taste
Most styles addressable....mo' or less.....some authenticity issues tho....fairly reactive playing wise.....a tad fiddly...use master kybd!...Real time FX and tweaking parameters pretty tasty and flexible.....

Still solid after 4 years....no disasters......floppy drive would be first to go i rek......Recommend SysEx Dumps for backup....
Yeah i'd gig with it.......but wouldn't drink near it!

No need for this....but other dealings with Yamaha have been excellent...

Yeah i'd prob buy another but wouldn't pay more than #200 now....lotsa other good options in the marketplace now that supercede this rig...playing over 25 years....lotsa stuff guitars/keys/recording
I do like it's instant editability and reliability....it helps genrate ideas kwik stylee, partic drum loops tho cvant compare sound wise to MPC/sampler type of quality...but fine overall....it enables a song to be sketched out kwikly.....

The presets on this machine are plenty. I make
mostly rock beats with this unit. And have made
tons of Techno.Drum'n'Bass songs.
The manual is fat.

The effects built in are typical & easy to use.
I like using the drums on the Rm1X for rock & metal.
A monkey could operate this machine and sound like
a master.

The GM sounds are a little cheesy and not very good.
Almost compareable to a PSR unit you can buy at
Circut City for $99 bucks, but the more progressive
snyth and drum sounds are very slick. I know someone
on the Web is selling expandable sounds for this machine
for 30 bucks. I downloaded the Demo, and it was
cool to hear more sounds, but basicly all they did was
edit the sounds themselves. If I had time I could do the
same.

Never had a problem with this machine. Except for
the fact that the more Data you have the slower
the machine moves. But the disk drive is there to back
its all up. The knob are a little cheap, I lost one already
where you change your BPM.

Yamaha always has good product ranging from Motorcycles to
Instruments. A good company.

Here is a link to my webpage. Here I have used
the RM1X to compose my own songs. Go there if you
want to hear the machine hands on. Sorry there are
no Synth sounds. I used it for drums.
http://www.peterice.tk click on MP3. Sorry about the pop-ups.

This instrument is really intuitive to use, it has different ways to let you record/enter your music. After some use the RM1x lets you put down ideas really quick, which makes it a lot of fun to use.

The manual is yamaha style and is allright to lookup some information if you need to, but its not readable like a good book.(some manuals are, like the one that came with my Waldorf micro Q)

There are only a few sound parameters you can change, the most important parameters can be tweaked instantly with the knobs, others can only be changed in the voice edit menu. Although the sound editing is VERY limited, but it is sufficient to addapt the sound a bit to make it fit better with the rest of the instruments in your tune.

For the complete novice the RM1x comes packed with 60 demo songs. This lets you learn the RM1x a little and hear what different tracks of a composition sound like.

It's a REAL SHAME that these demo songs are built in ROM and there for can not be removed from memmory...

I think the polyfony is 64 voices which should be fine for the 16 sequencer tracks.

The sequencer supports everything in the MIDI implementation like CC#'s and aftertouch, SysEx(editing), XG and so on... this makes it a very powerfull sequencer you can also use to controll external synthesizers and samplers with.

The sequencer has 480 parts per quarter note resolution and has overdub/replace realtime and grid(X0X)/step non-realtime record modes.

There are sequencer modes pattern, patternchain and song. Song is 16 tracks of liniear recording. Pattern mode has 16 patterns(with 16 tracks each), you can switch the patterns(called sections) in realtime(you can (un)mute tracks in realtime as well). In pattern mode the RM1x can be a great live performance sequencer.

In pattern chain mode you can program a songs from your patterns(sections).

Each set of 16 patterns(sections) is called a "Style" while you can use more than one style in pattern chain mode there is a noticable delay when the sequencer switches styles. Also you can NOT record which tracks to mute and to unmute. To overcome these problems you will need to convert you pattern chain to a song. In song mode there are no hickups in the playback between styles and you can edit the tracks in superb detail.

The sounds on the RM1x are mainly aimed at dance production. They are not too impressive because Yamaha made compromises by compressing them together in only 4MB of ROM...

They could have included a more complex synthesizer (or sampler like they did in the new rs7000 which is like a RM1x with a phrase sampler built in). But i figure because the sequencer is powerfull enough to controll the coolest synthesizers and samplers you can get, this isn't such a big problem after all. The RM1x sounds all right...

The sounds can be led through 3 effects which like the sounds aren't too impressive but DO feature some parameters, so with some creativity you CAN edit the sounds and effects to create some quite nice sounds/tracks with the RM1x.

The minikeyboard/buttons are not pressure sensitive and they only respond when you press them down quite firm. I needed a bit of getting used to these buttons, they also do feel a bit fraggile. You can always connect a midikeyboard to the RM1x.(like I did)

The RM1x seems pretty well built in it's metal case, most buttons feel great exept maybe the minikeyboard and the rotary knobs(midi controllers) while the knobs under the display are very nice.

The RM1x crashed on me once... I don't know why.

I would use it on gigs even without a backup. The diskdrive makes loading easy/fast and all settings remain in memmory even when the unit is turned off.

I never had anything to do with Yamaha...

The RM1x is a lot of fun for the money. It's the best hardware midi sequencer you can get at it's price.(maybe even the best around)

It's great for starting a hardware/live setup, both as you first instrument or as a replacement for a computer in an existing midi setup.

I would get a new/used one if it got stolen for shure, maybe I would get an Yamaha RS7000(which is almost the same as the RM1x but with integrated phrase sampler)

The RM1x is THE center center of my studio and because it has sounds and effects built in you can also take it with you quite easily.(It's a shame it doesn't run on batteries)

ok first of all I am kinda new too this stuff but the quick start part of the manual is ok and you can sequence and screw with the presets almoast right away, but fo rthe rest of it you must get used too the tree of menu's and what not but that is too be expected for you want somethign worth using and its got knobs and buttons an dits not a stupid pc with a shelf life of that of a french cheese and it wil nto crash like a plane under terrorist instincts. I think its a bit harder too use than my dr 202 or emu sampler but its a 16 track sampler so it better have more in it. lots of stuff in there if you keep with it and read read read the manual. play with one before you buy it.

midi seems good and easy too set up, efffects are fairly easy and sound good a must for internal drum sounds as they are a bit thin. disk drive is nice scsi would be nicer check the emu xl7 but it costs more sequencer is super extensive as far as hardware is concerned I hate pcs and use the mac for pro tools only. there is a lot here btu you gotta dig its ther eand will keep yyou working at it btu thats better than some oh woop to doo I am sick of it and figured it out box.

I have not had too many machines nor can I afford too many, this is my first synth and my second drum machine, the sounds are dated a bit but great for the money pads are rockin, drums are ok, other stuff is there and nice, effects knobs, not realistic but its a groove box not the electric light orchestra btu hey you get what you pay for elo can only be afforded by sell outs like metalica. I will say thoguh that if you want more pay more and you will get it. a grand gets more than 3 to 400 by a long shot. but for the money I am happy for sure. Its dancey though I like that but know that before you buy one.

man its rough lookin compared too the plastic boxes I got for less4 btu the keys are kinda crappy, its in metal, dont throw it donw the stairs put it in a box if you get drunk and fall over all the time, otherwise I think its cut out for giging...

dont know wish I had a manual that talked amd coudl point

I woudl be mad as hell but woudl look at a triton or something like an mpc... maybe since I sample a lot and use it mostly for the synth and its more of a sequencing gem, but thats just me. for a centerpiece or standalone its sweet, I got other gear for drums and sampling though

This is a well thought-out bit of kit. I have had mine for 3 years now and i see it as my main instantaneous composing tool. Closeness to everything editable is the vital requiremnt for this activity. The two levels of pattern and phrase are intuitive. The key to this is that when your working on a channel, you have the phrase installed then any edits made to this phrase DO NOT require a selection of the phrase. If you like your phrase then you leave it. If you did one hell of a bum note then press Shift+job and it goes back to the original. You like your pattern, then you copy it to a pattern with a little button-pot selection and then you say to yourself,i want the same backing but give a bridging lead to a channel then select the channnel (always the same one with me) and select the phrase display, turn the appropriate pot to when the little length indicator by the side of the phrase number goes blank and hey presto a new phrase with the same length (You can ajust the length on the same screen, the other phrases just work with their own lengths repeating). Then hit the record button and you can enter your new lead. This normally takes me about 10-20 seconds. With 16 patterns per Style then you have lots of memory to group. This bit of finger pressing is a delight. It's faster than cubase almost (mouses being a bit fiddly).
As a song producer then it does pattern development OK but falls in the structuring side. This is where the Cubase is the king. You have no idea where patterns have been placed in terms of step numbers (But it hasn't got a VDU). This is where the RM1x is not a song developer but more of a Composer tool. The patterns can be conveniently sent as SMF's to Cubase for the big picture type of edit. If it had a USB interface then this could be quicker. But the RM1x has those old Floppies to work with. I have some from 3 years ago and now they are mangled to the point i would never put them in the disk drive for fear of geting them stuck. The Moto of the story is get yourself a Pc to accompany your RM1x. You don't need Cubase SX, any freeware software would do the job that the RM1x does not.
The Arpeggiator is very limited and does not drive outside Modules like my Korg and does not run from a keyboard controller (something else that is vital). That is an obvious basic error by the Japs.The arpeggiator is limited with options but i don't miss this because arpeggios are now a Cliche in dance/synth orchestral music. The sound editting was ahead of it's time and now all software/keyboards have a bit of this. One of the best features is the Midi echo which can give electronic composition to you without planning ahead. I have had amazing results from this getting complicated sequences/sub-sequences with a turn of a pot. All it requires is a simple note entry and quantization and hey presto Jarre is suddenly a brit. Muting is easy for developing your ideas of layers but just pass all channels to your SMF and do the muting in Cubase.

The layering of voices is very very tight and shows lovely phasy notes emminating even in chords. This feature does not venture to direct play though. The Yamaha does a good job of handling the Polyphony (as all Yamahas do). The range of sounds are good with obvious emphasis on classical synth stuff. I have done Jarre, Vangelis, Mike Oldfield and Robert Miles variations on this machine (I got a fantastic track of Children on the web, This impressed the wife as she liked this track). The controller data (which i love) is all there to be returned to you after a production. The best one is the filter sweep. I would have liked a bit more from the RM1x in this department because one of my favorites is to edit the filter and pulse width at the same time. But i could get a better controller keyboard i suppose. There is still nothing on the market second-hand or new that has the level of combination of sequencer and synth for the price. I believe the Motif has similar editing structures but does not have the Pots. The japs have given us the most important editting features at thumb level ie. Filter Frequency, Resonance, Decay time, Volume, Effects depths and you can program your own Pot configuration also! The only really really thing i miss on this is delayed OSC pitch modulation. This is an important textural sound quality to a lead and figures highly in my music. The controller wheel is not the same (and why is it in SYSEx and not in the Buttons?). The pads have all the editting i require at voice level except for cross fading (this is virtually on all other Yamaha Synths since the days of the SY22/SY77/SY99/SY85). The answer would be to have some mega controller keyboard that edits everything and puts the dog out in the garden.

The GM sounds for some unknown reason seem to be poor compared to the rest. The rest are all but a few silly lush-swirlly, one finger press impressive, mini-song,out of tune, shop enquiry pads that have no place in my material. The basic Saw/Pulse ones are an attempt at analog but unfortunately don't carry detuning of the oscillators. These are good. The filter is not really the Moog stuff and don't have a lot of distortion to them. The key to the synth is it has a good output stage. When the sounds are combined they all sound very no.1 material. I don't know many big artists using it but this is not a mega-expensive state of the art synthesiser/sequencer. This is the result of Yamahas years of experience in knowing what people do when they make songs. The expression is all there after you have worked out the controller map. The effects are good but not edittable like in Cubase but there again this does not have a C++ programmable operating system with every man and his dog making VSTs. The Delay is syncable but my trusty Casio calculator can do that. The phaser has some Jarre instincts to it but my latest VST's can do a better job. The effects are good when you adjust the parallel and serial mixture at the end of the effects edit screens. The reverb is quite generous for those infinitely outer-space sustains that seem to take a raw noisy saw to Pluto but still within hearing distance. The bit resolution is better than a lot of old school digitals but not in the league of the latest Cubase and 24bit sound cards. I have to say though, that when i have recorded it to an audio track in Cubase it holds it's own and does a better job than many VST sysnths. I have done this sometimes with intention of adding VST but never really ended up with it because the results were good. There is competion going on in a lot of people's heads at the moment between RM1x type beasts and the beast from Germany. I hover between the two. I have to say that the VST fraternity are getting better and better and better. Everyday on the web seems to throw up something new. I can understand why good old Vangelis had so many Synths in the 70's!

White entry buttons are getting a bit of dust underneath and need a good contact clean (only one at the moment). But this just requires a bit of a heavier finger.
Yamaha do make long lasting keyboards, like Roland, like Korg, not like Lada Cars. The thing is housed in metal (i hate plastic anything). Anybody looking for 2nd hand would not be disappointed although i would say that you should look for a home used one as any gigged keyboard will have Beer, Roadie and Van Additions added to it's anatomy (like all keyboards!). I suppose anybody selling it would be suspicious in any case because it's not the sort of music electronics that people think is S*hte. If you see one in the classifieds, ask one thing, has it been gigged?

Don't have any requirement. Mine still works beautifully.

I would kill the bugger who stole it.

Every thing is pretty much in your face so you can get started on your tracks the minute you pull it out of the box. and if you whant to get more technical the manual is great

the keyboard itself sux and is not velocity sensytive so youll have to get a midi controler keyboard to go with it. the fx are descent but the knobs arent very solid.

preset sounds are very good and you can tweak the hell out of them to get a nice professional sound. its very versatile too so you can use it with almost any style of music.

I use it regularly in shows I do live psytrance and its never givine me any problems although the keys are made of plastic and I do fell there begining to wear on me the key is keep it fairly empty and ALWAYS!!! back up your stuff .

Never dealt with them so I cant comment

Overal rating I give it a 8 because the machine itself is great but all the knobs and the keys are plastic and not very durable but if you plan on keeping it in a studio setup and not being to hard on it the sounds are amazing and I have made some wonderful trancks with this machine it trully is a monster.

don't know what OS i have but it runs fine
presets are suprisingly good remember this is a groovebox
so most people will wan't the presets so they can get down
to making funky trax right away
manual is good

could do with 64 voice polyphony (only 32)
the FX are fairly good quite a few variations though not outstanding
do a fairly good job.
expansion is a nono but does have a floppy drive for unlimited songs.
midi is well implemented i like importing exporting midi too. for use
with Reason.
Sequencer is the heart of this 16tracks can be panned however you like
with ease no glitching and sounds good as a whole.

GM sounds are not much cop but the synth bass sounds are quite impressive.
well this is a groovebox so its special skills are dance music and electronica.... good to hear some decent garage rythms though
velocity and after are fine.

Well it ain't let me down yet
with the ease of use the floppy drive gives you need never
gig without backup

never needed to contact yammy

if lost or stolen i would probably get another one.
i have been playing music for around 6years and i have other grooveboxes like the MC-505 MC-303 and Korg EA-1 plus rebirth and Reason.
I wish it was a TB-303 groovebox but that never gonna happen though
it can make ok 303sounds it don't have slide or accent control.
the rm1x is a very insprational tool for creating trax in a hurry
and for polished works.
for #200 off ebay this is a excellant groovebox for the money
it sounds a lot better than people think.

well, at first glance its very easy to program, and u start makeing sum cool patterns right away. but when u get into it a little more, its a comlex thing. and im glad for dat, cause once u figure it out, it can really solve ALL yr sequencing problems... u have to spend sum time w the manual..

this thing has it all! realtime, step, grid sequencing. realtime controler knobs (greal for LIVE use). a very cool grid groove mode. and lotsa other stuff...

well, it think its sounds really suck!!! but its a matter of taste i think..

it crashed once.... remember to back up yr patterns!!!

never needed:)

i would get another if it were stolen. i use it to control a yamaha a4k, jp8000, juno 60, jomox09, an some efx, and it does it with great style!!!

Hi, I'm Brian, on the Island of Malta.

A lot has been said about the infamous blue box, so I'll just add my bit. Some months after using mine, my initial amazement stated to wane, I got tired of mucking around with the presets, and I started to become more critical. Weak voices, a useless arpeggiator, and so on... I saw them all. Well, now, I am happy to say there is a workaround for most things, unfortunately, it's just not stated in the manual.

Regarding bass and lead, there are some real gems buried in there, but very few voices are 'ready to use' out of the box. You need to tweak those filters, and don't forget the effects.

With particular reference to hihat sounds, for those of you who like the sound of shimmering metal, all you have to do is to turn up CutOff and Resonance to get there.

With drums, it's not enough to dial up the right category of voice - you need to tweak it and combine it with other sounds to get something useful.

Most of the delay and echo effects have a bit of a problem with the arbitrarily set delay times - these don't follow the tempo settings, and results may not be immediately musical. But hey, you can always tweak the parameters yourself.

The arpeggiator is one of those features that makes me wonder whether a trainee had anything to do with the implementation. But once again, some mileage can be obtained if you use an empty track and use Beatstretch, and the rest of those knobs to control it.

The Pattern Chain mode is another badly executed addition. Apart from the awkward data entry mode, it lacks muting control and panel setting memory per measure. It is simply too sparse an implementation, and I'm surprised that Yamaha actually thought of providing a dedicated button for this 'feature'. I only find it useful, with some effort, to quickly set up drum backings based on preset and user patterns.

And the 'keyboard' keys really stink. Where the hell did Yamaha pick these up? I hope they're not recycling...

Good things? It's stable, and the timing is friggin fantastic. With some creativity, I think that yes, you can go a long way with this thing, if you have an external keyboard, that is.

In my case, the more I use it, the more I love it, and I certainly do not regret owning it.

Happy music making, boys and girls.

Best regards, Brian.

This machine has a multiple personality on this issue. it does succeed on a few counts...
and fails on others. if being "rapper 97" (with apologies to sifl and olly) and twiddling knobs is your bag,
then here ya go. just dial up a pattern and hit play. WHOOO-DOGGIES! 199x party in a box. the buttons and knobs are laid out logically.
however, if you come from a land of linear-based sequencing like me, you are in for a looooooong night over a manual
that reads like a recipe on how to build an rm1x using raw silicon and an engineer named sven. what's also crazy is the way the
bottom 16 buttons control, in any given moment, multiple features like track mute, changing sections, selecting tracks for real time
stuff, etc. you have to make damn sure what's going on above before you twiddle below. the large lcd is nice and
the job list concept is pretty neat.

for the jack, the features are pretty good. polyphony is adequate, effects are
are great and add a lot to the patches (careful with the bass boost, YOU WILL HURT SOMEONE, MAN!). if you are familiar
to pattern-based sequencing, i don't think you'll have any probs using the sequencer. unlike my current
sequences, which sounds like a bizarre quantized accident chained together nicely. memory's a tad low,
thank god for the floppy drive. but if this is your central brain in a live project, i'd
imagine there will be some between-song disk shuffling going on. and in the studio, you may have a helluva
stack going that will rival an egyptian pyramid. but, hey, but it's cheaper than a pc running cubase.and it looks
cooler than a laptop.

this isn't an instrument for realistic sounds. it's pretty much a serious dance box.
the synth sounds and pads are quite good, sit great in mixes, and, unlike your girlfriend
who feels neglected 'cuz you "spend so mach damn time in your room!", they love to be messed with.
(decent tb-303, if you are chasing one). piano and "real world" instruments are
better left untouched, unless you have some serious plans that john tesh hasn't
thought up yet. yup, real time knobbies are always fun for the kids. sounds getting old?
you can bypass the tone module completely and use the rm1x's nice midi delay on that
wizzy lead 2000 you are saving up for.

i haven't toted this box anywhere yet, it seems pretty solid in it's metal blue
existence. the electronics and MIDI have been straight with me. i wouldn't get all NIN on it though,
i don't think it likes water bottles. or chocolate sauce. dittos for vomit.

this is my only yamaha product so far, i've heard them pictured as
nice as custard pie, or as evil and devious as the devil rubbing his hand
together in glee.

i bought the rm1x to satisfy the lack of a decent hardware sequencer in
my rig. I wish it did, but it hasn't yet. maybe i need to spend some more time
with it. but it is hard when there are only so many hours in the day. but that doesn't
mean that is it not for you. i found some good sounds, good features, and good live
features that might fit the bill for you in this blue box. go down to
your local "guitar center" or music megamart of choice and play for yourself.
just bring headphones so you don't have to put up with that 5 year old kid banging
on the triton, or your greasy brother trying to figure out the chords to "jump".
yikes. then buy it used.

major pain to use this thing-----must read cryptic manual over and over and it makes my head hurt

maybe it would be easy if you are a technician but Im not.

presets suck bad

too many features----multi-function buttons and menus to drive you nutzo---I wish it was simpler so I could just use it and have fun but its not-----most features are hidden deeply within the machine and not apparent----you must read manual over and over to find them----many features are still hidden to me so whats the use of all these features if you cant find em?

this thing is full of rank sounds that are worse than bad. some of the lamest "pop" sounding presets I have ever heard.

Very disappointing! Usually Yamaha does a good sonic job, but what happened here? Very funky sounds that will embarass you

seems pretty reliable although I would not gig with this because its just too complex to use. I cannot afford a stress attack on stage so I leave it at my studio. It is built heavy and solid although the keys and buttons feel cheap and chintzy, the case is pretty tough.

Yamaha is not really too great for support, but who is? Last time I called for assistance, they wanted me to pay them for answers to questions on the RM1x. That was new to me and totally wierd.

Had this thing since 99 and found it to be a dust collector. I dont really feel that it was worth keeping around and I sold it after the holidays. Been playing for over 30 years and I like more simple gear. Kinda old skool, but I cant deal with all the complications of gear when Im tryin to create grooves so I stick with the simple stuff. For sequencing now I use the MAM SQ-16 which is very intuitive and fun to use. The RM1x was a road-block for me and I dont like roadblocks. Im amazed that people can figure this machine out or are they just playing the presets? I hope not cuz they do blow green monkey chunks!

Standard OS. Never needed to upgrade. Presets are great, although a bit "1998". Tweaking is possible, but it's not like an analogue maonster - it's quick and easy to fiddle around safely. Manual is good and well worth reaqding, even if an old hand.

Loads of voices at once, effects are pretty good too, but it's good for sending audio to a PC for further enhancement. "keyboard" is suprisingly useful, although not velocity-sensitive. The sequencer is perhaps the best on any hardware module.

It's brimming with dance sounds, that - with a bit of tweaking - can sound pretty current. GM sounds aren't too hot - look elsewhere if you just want standard MIDI files.

No problems ever. Floppy discs mean making backups is simple and cost-effective. Much safer for syncing equipment than a PC or Mac on stage.

You can make music straight away, by mixing preset patterns and then jamming basllines/riffs over the top. It's quicker to set up a sequence than a software sequencer, and you can play it in bed!
Must be the best VFM for any groovebox. Add sampling (the RS7000) and you have all you need to make dance music.

Unfortunately I'm at work. (bored) ^_^
I can't recall the software version. But I've never had any problems with the OS.
The presets are great! I've no problem with the preset sounds for 2 reasons. #1 It says in any ad for the RM1x that it's made for dance music, i.e. techno, trance, house, etc. These genres of music do not necessarily lend themselves to acoustic sounds. They call it electronica for a reason. If you want acoustic, absolutely do not get the RM1x because it's terrible and reproducing those sounds. But for what it was made for, it's excellent. #2 while it's not a synthesizer, it does contain a large amount of parameters for altering sounds. Don't be dismayed. It is however an excellent source for learning about the foundations of synthesis without getting too bogged down (unless you want to). So the tools are there to create great sounds for techno music, if you are not lazy. Editing is an absolute breeze, again if you're not lazy. If you listen to the preset songs, and break down each part and each phrase, you'll immediately see the amount of work you'll have to put into it. If you want the RM1x to create for you, you're SOL. You don't even have to be a tech head, just willing to explore. The greatest discoveries were probably accidental.

The manual doesn't require a PhD to get through it, but if you really wanna understand it, it will require LOTS of re-reading, while at the same time going over the instrument. There's a lot there, and it has quite a bit of depth.

Polyphony is 64, multitimbral at 16.
Effect include VCF Low pass, cutoff, resonance envelope, 11 reverbs, 11 choruses and 43 variations, including some kick @$$ echo, delay and panning effects. Midi is 16 channels. The keys are not pressure sensitive.
The sequencer is off the freakin' hook, and it easily its strongest point.

The instruments are NOT realistic. Read what the RM1x is for. Or go to vintagesynth.com you can listen to it there. It imitates some analog sounds pretty good, but for the most part, it is very digital.
Genres it works well for? Techno, hiphop, rap, trance, goa, drum and bass, house, ambient. Rock? LOL!!! Classical?? LOL!!! R&B maybe.
Playing is fairly static. Some expression from some sounds, like pads, but again you need programming skill to tweak it. Then it'll do pretty much anything you want. No velocity or aftertouch in the keys. I use a controller board, program in RM1x directly or program in Cubase or Cakewalk.

Great for gigs. Heavy, encased in metal, though the keys are plastic. It could easily be a great weapon if you ever need to defend yourself. Never once had a single issue with the OS, crashing or anything else. Without a backup? Hehehe... I don't know if I would ever do that. But that is not because of the RM1x... that's just me. The RM1x is definitely designed from a DJs perspective. If you've DJed you'll appreciate the layout and functions and the ability to switch stuff up on the fly.

I've dealt with yamaha, but not concerning the RM1x. They were courteous helpful and resolved my issue promptly.

If lost or stolen... yes, because of the price. Yamaha has an RS7000 out now that I might get instead, but that's around $1300. Wah! =(
But because of the programming and synthesis depth, the RM1x is a true investment that will last a long time in a studio. I don't see it really becoming dated anytime soon... unless you are just a gear whore. =)
I started playing sax in 5th grade. Moved to dance and rap when break dancing was popular. Played in a band in college (music major) for 3 years, did some gigs with DJs, did some DJing myself, quit for a long time and in 1999, decided to do dance again.
Gear? I have so much crap. most of it I rarely use. I should have a giant sale on ebay. But mainly this, the Su700, an old alpha juno, and a DJX that I'll eventually sample what I like from and sell. A compressor, some midi stuffs and other boring gear like that, and a ton of PC software.
I love that I can create mad, crazy, slamming techno tracks with it... the potential is only your imagination. I hate that you can't alternate effects. Example: you get 4 parameter effects to select for a song. So lets say you have a Flanger 3 on your lead, and you want to use Flanger 2 also under that same effect listing. That's a no no, and cancels the Flanger 3. There are ways around this, again through programming, but it's not a big enough deal for me to go through all that.

It definitely aids me in making music. Trance is an interesting study and vastly different from the house music, Kraftwerk and Afrika Bambatta I grew up on in the 80s. So the RM1x is a good tool for experimenting in that genre. But I must admit, sometimes the programming gets mind boggling and I find myself consulting online about synthesis technique. But it's simplistic enough to lay the groundwork ASAP, then go back and tweak whatever you need to later.

Just to put things into perspective I am a guitarist/bassist who came to
the world of MIDI sequencing about 5 years ago and I judge my capabilities t
to be competent in this arena. However I am NOT an expert so I will
usually defer to others who claim to be unless ,of course, it is
obvious that they are talking garbage.
In any case my goal in purchasing the RM1X was to use it as a
hardware sequencer with other gear (planet phatt, and various
other drum machines). With this setup I'm able to put together
a sonf structure and record the audio into Cubase or perhaps
an analog 8 track. From there I add vocals and guitar parts.

I realize that the on board sounds are not fantastic but I did not
expect them to be. Nor should anyone who takes some time to research
the unit before buying it. For those who continue to complain,
whine, and moan about the on board sounds.. why did't you listen
to the online samples or go to the music store to check it out
before you bought it ?? Only the most ignorant of consumers would
buy something like this without taking some effort to check out
the sounds.

The goal of this unit is to be a good, solid hardware MIDI sequencer
and in that regard it largely succeeds especially when you consider
the cost. Its compact and it does't crash like my computer with cubase
does on a regular basis. I do use Cubase and ACID to process MIDI lines
I have created on the Rm1-X. This is a very good combination. I recognize
the strengths offerred by each environment.

keyboard is not really a keyboard - though you can play chords
if you wish but just get a cheap controller . plug it in and quit
bitching about the lack of a real keyboard.

The effects are okay - nothing stellar or spectacular though ,again,
I suggest that the RM1X is best used with other programs and module
sounds so I usually reserve the application of effects for when I am
manipulating the MIDI files elsewhere - like in Cubase. Still The
harmonize and bass-boost can make for some interesting sounds.
Hey.. You can ALWAYS sample these sounds on one of those cheap
phrase samplers and whack the sound to your heart's content.

The best way to assemble tunes is to create MIDI loops (drums,bass,
lead sounds) and put them on a pattern button and then come up with
variations and put them on other pattern buttons. Do this for bridges,
intros and endings and then its a snap to organize a song or explore
arrangement possibilities. Its dead easy....

As far as features such as quantize. Well its got that as well it
should. I tend to try to play parts in real time to keep the groove
a bit loose so I don't tend to make everything robotically rigid
but for dance styles you probably would. The arpeggiator could have
been better. Its adequate but not exactly fantastic.

The sounds are not very realistic but I did NOT
expect them to be. I KNEW this before I bought it. I assummed that
others did too but I see alot of people posting reviews in this forum
who , for some reason, were too lazy to check out the sounds before
they bought the unit. Either that or they expected them to mystically
change into some EMu-module overnight. I cannot honestly understand
why some of the people here complain about the sounds for the price.
Mind boggling... Use the RM1X with a cheap phrase sampler or a shareware
audio editing program like cool edit and you can make awesome sounds.
Quit whining and get to work....

I really believe that some of the harsher critics of the RM1X are
simply frustrated with their inability to come up with good tunes
but instead of being honest about it they want to slam the gear.
"I'm a pro, I invented MIDI, I've been gigging for 40 years,
I'm so good that record companies won't give me a contract cuz I
will dominate the world market. blah, blah.. and the Rm1X is for
beginners... blah,blah..." Yea. Right. Tell us what CDs you've
produced and we might believe you.

Good loops and sounds are based on the groove. A good musician can
get good loops assembled on almost anything. We ALL KNOW (or should)
that once you get the MIDI loop tight and grooving you can use it to
drive samplers or modules and it will sound killer... Seems that some
of these "pros" haven't figured that much out.

I have never had problems with the unit. It works well and has never
crashed once on me. Not once. I've driven other modules with no problem.
Never !! Compare this to my PC which crashes
at least once every cubase session.

I have never had to deal directly with Yamaha. I've never had any
problems with their equipment.

I don't know if I would buy it again since this field keeps changing.
The RS700 is sort of a RM1X with a sampler thrown in though I think that
you could buy a second hand RM1-X and a second hand sampler and have
the basis for a nice setup for less than the cost of a new RS700.

For me the RM1-X is a great tool.

No idea which os.....bought about 2 years ago.
Presets are fun for pissed and stoned mates to "remix" with.
editing patches is verrrrry easy.
The manual pretty much sucks if you have little experiance in midi.

I forget what the polythony is, but its not enough...oh, 64.
The keyboard is made of little plastic squares layed out in the style of a keyboard, which is cool...but, they lose response after a while and are shit for chords and intuitive drums.
It has no expansion abilities other than a nice flashy light thing.
The midi is cool insofar as you can record every effect into the sequencer, in realtime or with simple programming.
The sequencer is the reason i bought it..as an alternative to a soft system, and, it has been a good friend in the last coupla years...
It must be the simplist sequencer avaliable to man, with lots of crazy effects to manipulate the totally crap onboard sounds.
16 tracks is not enough, and the memory is totally small, resulting in clock slowdown at best and total collapse of song due to zero memory left more often.....you NEED a sampler with this, and it can control my Akai s2000 perfectly, even adding the play fx, which is great....i cannot get it to control cc on the s2000 though.
Good for minimal and hip hop sequencing.

The instruments should be treated as raw sound to tweak as much as possible if you want them to sound anything like professional.
I have used rm1x for minimal experimental electronica.
Onboard fx are of low quality soundwise, but so good at totally changing sound beyond recognition you have to love them (midi delay, harmonize, octaver are cool,nice variation fx, interesting filter and lfo, but, the "job" fx are really what i will miss from this machine.
The rm1x is about sitting down and getting into programming, not being Rick Wakeman.

Like i said the low memory lets it down, but, i have gigged the rm1x and it didnt let me down.

I ordered a floppy of new patterns and it never arrived.
Never any freebies either.

I would not buy another...it is a beginners all in one.
I have been playing music a while now....also own s2000, Folio notepad and stuff.....but am about to move onto a pro set-up.
I love the Job fx and realtime recording of fx.
I hate the low memory, 16 tracks, voices and master fx.
Compared to mc303, mc505......maybe mc505 is better!
I wish it had expandable memory, 48 tracks, more master fx options, the sounds of a trinity and jp8000, imported akai files, more filters and lfo's, no presets at all, pads like an mpc, 2 midi outs, midi thru, audio ins and it rolled spliffs.
It certainly has helped me baby!
The rmix is a fantastic entry level machine that will learn you how to sequence midi, edit sounds and use fx like a madman....eventually though, you will either need a soft sequencer and new sounds or an mpc2000xl and new sounds.

Fun to use, and extremely easy to learn. Manual is atrocious. It's a good thing this machine plays itself. It doesn't like to play with other gear(tempermental)

Crazy sequencer, bass boost is awesome. Arpegiator needs work.

Ok. I hate when people trash this machine. It does sound bad but compared to what???? You paid $500 bucks for it!!! For that price it sounds wicked, compared to other machines it's pretty lame. If this is your first box or synth, you will love this. if you're an expert user buying this then you need to revise your career.

Machine is rock solid

Pray your stuff doesn't break! Only Roland are worse! Take heed Yamaha...

It was a good buy and fun at the time. I've had it for awhile (2 years)I mainly bought it for the sequencer, but it was still a fun piece of gear! definately a good place to start if you're learning and some usable stuff for advanced users.

I got this as my first non-guitar, non-saxophone music product, and I had never used anything like it before. I was going to get a Korg Electribe because I've heard lots of good stuff about them and their simplicity of use, but the salesman was a huge fan of the RM1X and, incidentally, played almost the same sort of stuff I do, so he gave me a used one for $500.
Most of the presests suck; okay, let me rephrase that, the only time the presets are worth anything are when you're drunk and joking about how you could take tokyo by storm if you only had a record deal.
The manual is alternately informative and confusing, but that may just be me. I used it to figure out some basics and then struck out on my own. The quickstart guide at the Yamaha page is better if you want to just plug it in and start experimenting.

It's got a built in effects block that I never use, so I can't comment on it. Reverb and chorus are okay, I'm more used to using guitar variations thereof and so I find them frustrating a lot of the time.
It can accept 3.5 inch floppy disks for storage purposes, and I've seen a few websites online selling expansions for the sound banks so I take it you can add sounds if you have the know how or a credit card.
It has one midi in and one midi out; it'd be nice if there were two of each but you can't have em all I suppose. The keys are preesure sensitive, but I prefer to just leave the sensitivity off as for some reason, if you don't tap the bottom third of the key, it just plain won't pick it up. Kind of annoying.
The sequencer is awesome. I love the grid feature, you can pump out some really good techno and rap on it.

Some of the instruments are really good and some are pretty damn bad. The pianos aren't terrible but you're better off with a different machine if that's your focus.
The bass sounds are pretty good, generally speaking. I want to get a Korg Electribe A that I can use in conjunction with this, as those seem to churn out better low end, they're cheap, and the Yamaha more than picks up the slack.
YOu could use this for a lot of genres. I play rock and use this to put in a good backbeat, mostly. Think of the Moog in Blur's song Girls And Boys or the Roland in On Your Own, the backbeats off of Filter's Title Of Record, or anything by Static X, that's how this thing measures up. Not bad for $500.
I've got a side project with a couple friends of mine who are MC's and I've done some rap with this box, sometimes adding some live guitar or bass to finish it off. I've also done some cliche sounding house music with it, which a lot of people seem to like.
Switching between sections (cuing in breaks and such) you have to be sure to hit the bottom part of the pad or it won't pick up you intentions, and it can ruin a perfectly good jam.

I tote this thing with me everywhere in a big shoulderbag. It's been a few months and it's not failed me yet, save for the F1 swicth popping off during midday rush on the subway, but that's no biggie, it just slides back on.
I'd gig without a backup synth, since I have a band and we don't necessarily need this thing to tear up the floor.

I've never dealt with Yamaha but their website is pretty informative, plus there are a few dedicated forums that provide a wealth of knowledge.

If someone stole this I'd get another. Definitely worth the 500, no doubt about that. I like the fact that it has an actual display screen as opposed to just a numerical display and a few LED indicators, which most of it's rivals in cost have.
I've been playing the RM1X for a few months now, I've played alto sax for five years and guitar for two. I've got a hotrodded Epiphone SG, Gretsch Bo Diddley, Fender Tele '52 reissue and a 1967 Aria 12 string hollowbody in the guitar department, all of which are lefty converts played over a Vox AC30. For my sax, i have a cheap Vito student model, and for production I have a Mac G4 with a wealth of software & hardware.
I love the whole thing, though a couple times I've lost really good tracks because if, say, you have drum parts on tracks 1 & 2, and bass on track 9, then you put something on track 4 (skipping track 3) and then something else on any track but track 3, track 3 will mimic the last track you used (follow me here?). It's annoying as hell!!! The only times I've gotten pissed off at this thing have been over that. If you just remember that's an issue and try to remember not to do that, it's okay though.
I did comparison shopping for a YEAR, mostly because my girlfriend was pulling one of those damn "you have enough gear already" things and either blew my $$$ before I could get a chance or our cat got sick and needed meds. I was looking primarily at this or an Electribe, particularly the S model, or possibly one of the many Roland/Boss offerings. A couple friends had the Rolands and they all hated them, or loved them but then would confess that there were some serious limitations, and the Electribes seemed like they'd be great if I had the resources to buy all of them, but if I had that money, I'd probably get an Emu groovebox or just save for a full-blown synth.
It definitely is an integral part of our sound, and it'll remain as such for quite some time to come.

i found this unit fairly easy to use,within an hour i was programming drum patterns and making-up simple songs..sometimes i got a lil lost looking for where i wanted to go,but one you learn your way around the editors its pretty easy..

the rm1x midi capabilities are very cool..you can set it up to control just about everything on other boards when hooked-up to midi..i used it mostly for contolling my emu sampler..the rm1x internal sounds and effects are pretty poor..i always wondered why they used such poor sounds and effects in a sequencer that can do so many things..

the internal sounds are horrible...i would only recommend a beginner that has no other keyboards to use its internal sounds..adding effects help make some of the sounds a lil better but they still sound old school..i made a few drum beats with the internal sounds but they just didnt sound cool with its own sounds..its hard to get expressive with sounds you dislike..some of the fx sounds are very silly..i usually made bad horror soundtracks with it..

i wouldnt take this to play-out with...this unit gets a lot of midi errors and your songs will get all jumbled-up..not good at a live show,it could get a lil embarrasing!..this happend to me often..i also asked others about it, and theirs do it to..alot of times i get midi bleed through from midi channel to midi channel!..you end-up with outta time or poor sounding songs..and to top it all off,most of the keyboard buttons dont trigger correctly!!..after time the buttons get worn and they trigger poorly..resulting in - no triggering,trigger off time or double trigger when you just want it to do one note!..

never tried to get any....

if it were stolen im sure id never buy another one...i ended-up trading it for a oberheim matrix-6...i feel much better being rid of this unit..i lost money on the trade but i have a much more professional piece of gear now..i do my sequencing with cubase now..its much better to do on a computer anyhow..now i dont get headaches looking at the lcd display!...i think this unit is for beginners or someone that really neds a hardware sequencer..but now yamaha has a much better sequencer out..save your money for that one!...

My RM1x came with version 1.12 of the OS. Since my intent for this box was to use it as my main sequencer, the free upgrade to v1.13 is a must. If you don't get this upgrade, everytime you press a transport button, it sends a program change. Also engaging the 'filter program change on MIDI out' doesn't work. I'm using an external rack-mount intelligent midi-merger to filter the program changes until my upgrades come in.
The presets are pretty good. Great if you're looking for sythesizer style sounds. It certainly doesn't replace a quality sampler, however. When I was reviewing this product, I couldn't believe how many negative comments there were regarding the sound quality. Sure, to a non-creative, impatient person with no patience I guess they're pretty lame. However, I bet that I could make the thing sound better than many more costly devices with just a little tweaking and careful recording techniques. In a phrase: is sounds fine.
You can edit the patches right from the box... no computer required.

The manual is ok. Some areas are a little shy of detail. It comes with a seperate manual written in languages other than english.

Sequencer: this thing really keeps the creativity level high. Very easy to get music into the box and make adjustments. This was the main reason why I bought it. I debated between the RM1x, the RS7000, and the QY700. For the price, you can't go wrong. And the built-in disk drive reads/writes IBM format.

The sequencer is great. I won't waste time repeating what others have already said on this. If you want a great sequencer, forget that expensive junk for the PC and get this baby.
One note: it claims to be MTC/MMC compatible. Here's the details: it won't generate MTC, only sync to it. It will output MMC only in song mode, not pattern mode. Also, I haven't found a way to change the frame rate (ie. 24fps, 30fps, 29.97fps, etc). I don't think you can do it.
The built in effects are not bad. Nothing you've never heard before though.

Not bad. But be prepared to get creative... it has a lot of potential.

Nice metal enclosure. The RS7000 costs over twice as much and it's all plastic. Like any equipment, if you're a careless and clumsy hoodlum, you'll have no problem breaking it. So be careful. The metal construction makes it more durable, not bullet-proof. I like the construction.
I've used it for extensive periods of time in the studio and it hasn't locked up on me.

Not sure yet. Let's see when I get my upgrade. Since the upgrade is free, Yamaha should post the ROM binary on their website so us engineers could burn our own ROM. Anybody want to send me the binary?
Don't cringe... sheesh, it's free for crying out loud. You can't use it on anything but an RM1x, which you have to buy from Yamaha.

Good value. If stolen, I would buy it again.. after, of course, exposing the thief to 200 dBspl 3kHz sine wave at a 2 ft distance for 1 hour and then yelling "Can you hear me now??"
If been playing/engineering with MIDI since 1985. Wrote one of the first FM synthesis generator/editors for the Ensoniq Mirage on a C64. Trust me, I've been around. I have a lot of other gear.
I did DETAILED comparison with the RS7000 (side-by-side). Very similar. RS7000 has basically same features, but a little easier to navigate through various functions: more menus. QY700 is great, too. Beautiful display. Had a hard time debating. They are very similar, function wise. I guess the knobs on the RM1x sold me. They're a great feature. Something to note: on the RS7000, you can make ANY knob control ANY MIDI controller value. The RM1x only controls PAN, VOLUME, REVERB, CHORUS, VARIATION, Q, FILTER, MIDI DELAY (internal), and a few other internal variables. I wish they'd change this to be like the RS7000. Simple software upgrade.
I got this thing to help me make music hello. If it didn't, I'd send it right back.
Personal note: make you're own music. Don't just settle for chopping up and gluing all these premade loops and press a button and say 'listen Mommy, to the cool music I made up.' All this fruity loop, and Acid nonsense has injured the creative talent of many people. Hey, if you want great music with one button? Buy a radio... much cheaper.

this is one of the easiest synths i have ever used. the presets are pretty lame but given the sounds on this thing i can understand.

the keys on this thing arnt pretty crappy. this isnt a real big deal however since a lot of sequencing is done in step/grid. speaking of which the grid recording is by the coolest recording on any sequencer i have used. very cool. no quantizing that i ever found. big minus. fx wise this box is decent. could use some more effects and more versatitly reguarding the fx inserts. on a better side the midi on this is a beast. it almost makes up for all the bad things about it. each of the rm1x's 16 tracks can be assigned its own midi channel in or out or both. this is an excellent box to use to control other machines via midi. specially live..with the muting and section changes real time with no delay. i also might add that while the sounds are often thin the cutoff on the rm1x is the best i have ever used. its very sensative giving you a better, bigger range.

lets put this simply..
-kicks - a few good sounding kicks most are pretty bad
-snares - mostly shitty
-cymbals - AWFUL. worst i have ever heard. mainly the open HH and crashes
-pads/strings - pretty bad here again. very thin sounding. almost useless
-fx - a stronger point in the box. some pretty good sounds here
-analogue/bass- very dissapointing. while there are a ton of analogish sounds they are 90% thin and crappy.
that covers most of the different sounds. again tweaking and effects can always improve any sound most of the time. but with what is given on the rm1x it might take hours..or a miracle.

no problems here. great live.

never needed

overall the rm1x is a GREAT sequencer/ midi master device. the internal sounds are far from good so be sure you have other instruments to pull sounds from. the 16 part multitimbralness is always great for that. im currently selling mine to get a nord lead 2 because i recently bought a karma.

I think its very easy to use, if you try the presets and
play with the knobs. The sequencer is great! Not like the
Roland-sequencer. Very good display, and very intuitive.

32 voice polyphony, I think thats enough for one box.
You have 16 tracks. I use always some tracks to sequence
my other gear. It works great with the Roland Alpha Juno 1
and also with the Korg Electribe EA-1. MIDI works great!
The effects are also good. You have reverb, flanger, and also
distortion and wah-wah,... The only thing i dont like is, that
you only can use one variation effect per pattern. You can
use reverb, flanger and one variation effect. If you like on
another track another variation effect, you have no possibility.
The next problem is, that you only have one audio-output.
2 Mono 1/4". (==> Stereo or mono if you only use the left.)
You also have a 3,5" floppydrive, like in the PC. You can download
songs from the net. Thats cool!

The sounds... thats the biggest problem with this box. The basses
aren't bad, but the bassdrums and the snares really sucks! I make
my bassdrum with the Korg Electribe ER-1. There is only one snare
on the RM1x I really like. There are also not much hihat's, so you
must always use the same. But you can pan them, filter them, effect
them,... thats not too bad.
But... THE BASSDRUMS REALLY SUCK!!!

It's not plastic, the knobs are good. I used it for one
year, without making a backup. I never had problems with it.

Never had a problem with the box. The manual is'nt bad.

If it where stolen, I would cry for my songs if I hadn't any
backup. I would buy it again, but not new from the shop!
Used you pay the half price.
I would wish that it has 2 or more audio outputs and a Midi-
through, and also a Mixer like the MC-505.
I also have the MC-303. The drumsounds are better from the Roland,
but the RM1x definitly is the better box. I think she's also better
then the MC-505.

Easy to get started on, but really takes a while to learn all the in's and out's of this baby. Lots of knobs and mute buttons make it really fun for live stuff.

Better polyphony than the competition easily.
Effects are pretty decent. Wish it had multiple audio outputs rather than just the left (mono) and right. Completely MIDI controllable, you can make this sequencer do about anything. This hardware sequencer is the best out there for the price, hands down. The keys are cheesey you will need a midi controller keyboard.

Anyone who says that the instruments are just crap has obviously not invested enough time with them. Theres so much tweaking that can be done you can make them sound like anything. Mess with the LFO/attack/decay/release/cutoff/resonance/etc. Get creative. Still they could be better and an extra sound module or synth or sampler is a nice companion.

This thing is built like a blue tank.
I specifically bought it to gig live and not have to rely on some crappy PC to do sequencing. I trust it completely.

Well the fact that Yamaha has decent support is already way beyond most stupid manufacturers. Though if you buy this baby used and try to upgrade it they will charge you for the OS upgrade. Buy new and its free (better keey the receipt, they're nazis about this stuff).

Its a vital piece of my kit. If you need a reliable kick butt sequencer for live work, this is your baby. The sounds are good for dance/industrial/house/ambient but you will want more eventually.
For all those brainiacs that say that software is better they are missing one major thing. This machine is geared specifically towards making music. I use software sequencers too (for the final mix) but its too easy to get thrown in a million directions with them. The way Yamaha has focused creation of beats into this machine while still allowing you to create completely original tracks under limitless conditions is simply awesome. I like it so much I'll be starting a fan/info site for it. Check out www.rm1x.org in the near future.

If you delve into it for about a week, you'll have this thing figured out. I was making crap patterns after a day. They get better with time.

Only 32 polyphony. It has one of those tiny little keyboards which means it is not pressure sensitive. Buy a cheap midi keyboard to control it. The sequencer is the strongest feature.

This thing has horrible sounds. It is best used for dance-type music, especially if you want to sound incredibly dated.

It is very dependable. I would use it without a backup.

Never had to deal with them.

If this unit were lost or stolen, I would replace it with a computer program. I personally feel that it is worth the price, but this thing is just not my style. The sounds are too light. The effects are good, but they do not work for me. I own a Roland Jx-305 keyboard. It has been discontinued due to the fact that it was not as popular as the MC-xxx series that it was modeled after. I like it better than the Rm1x, though. Computers are the best things to go for now. I've been using Fruity Loops and sound forge 5.0 for a few months, and those two put together are more than enough for me. I am making better music with those two programs than I could ever dream of with the Rm1x.

This thing is a breeze for anyone who has used a hardware or keyboard based sequencer. The big display is great and you can highlight any parameter showing and use cursors buttons OR the dedicated knobs. It's setup is very intuitive. After I figured out the Yamaha jargon compaired to Ensoniq it all made sense. A beginner might be overwhelmed but thats what the presets are for to mess with and figure out how things work.

This has everthing but sampling capability. I was going to wait for the RS7000 but since I all ready have a cheap sampler and learned how easy the RM1X is to assign MIDI I just bought it. It drive my drum machine and sampler tighter than my Ensoniq SQ2 did. The floppy drive is great, allthough a zip drive would've been better. The SMF import thing is cool to. I can do up a song convert it to SMF and give it to my bandmate and put it in his Korg N364! It responds great to a Real MIDI controller. It could have used a second set of MIDI ports and audio Outs though. The real time controls are great and their parameters can also be proramed by hand if your not into the knob twisting. The midi delay is crazy and when combined with its arpegiator. The manual just says what things do but isn't very detailed. Again a beginner of sequencing could be overwhelmed but that is a plus in the long run. I don't know if the OS can be updated or not and nothing can be expanded.

I like the sounds for what they are worth. I do Goth-industrial and have other gear for my realistic sounds. The dance bleeps and bloops and drums are all I expexted from it anyway. The drums are good I think and respond well to tweaking. I've found many of the pads and strings can be really expressive if you have GOOD Midi controller that has aftertouch and velocity. The voice Atoms Pad is a good example of this. The thing that does bug me though, is the fact that the sounds are all "dry" until you apply effects to your patterns. I'm used to synths that insert the sound w/ its default effect in a track. It's not hard to apply the proper effect but it can be time consuming. Overall the effects are really good and combine well with the play FX mode making up for this. I could see a button pusher, DJ, or preset using poseur really being annoyed by this.

I bought this for live gigging. I know this thing is a tank by how it feels. It feels solid (its metal) and balanced the disk drive it smooth and fast a hell and the wall wart has wire at both ends so it doesnt hog your power strip. I'll really know in a year or two after some gigging. It hasent burpped or don any wierd OS things so far.

Not that I had to for this but from the recent past Yamaha is great. I had a used SU10 and they sent me the manual free of charge. Yamaha also does a good job of putting manuals for almost everything on the internet. I got the .pdf and studied tha manual for free before I bought this. Music salesmen are like used car salesmen so having up front info (that is actually accurate unlike some companies) is nice. Try finding this for Roland or Korg instruments!

I bought this to replace my Ensoniq SQ2 for live gigging. I've ported two songs so far and they sound very close if not better. Sure it took some tweaking but 10lbs is better than 55lbs on the road anyday. It really is meant for composers but has enough for beginners. I liked some features of the of the competition (the MC's, Electribes, etc) but i need sequencing power not prewritten material (allthough there is plenty)or unlimited sound modeling. Like most Yamaha products, the RM1X price is fair value of features per dollar. Why buy an MC303 with a shit sequencer and Midi implimentation? The 505 is better for sound than an Rm1X and almost has a compairable sequencer but is only worth half as much as they charge and that new D2 box (the orange box) is a fucking joke for $500. Electribe sequencers dont come close. Any decent modeling synth or sampler can be driven from the RM1x anyway. Experienced DJ's and rich kids with their parents money "mommy look what I can do," push button, should stick to there overpriced groove products and stealing riffs from vinyl unless they are willing to learn how to be a musician. All others should buy this for the sequencer alone, which is WORTH the pricetag. Short of buying a laptop computer and all the software and excessories the RM1X is the best newer portable sequencer on the market. Hell, its the best synth workstation for the money too!

Preset Patterns sounded excellent 2 years ago, now they are a bit dated. Good voices: organ1, DX pianos, some EP, flute, Bad voices: grand piano. Editing voices does not do a big difference on the sound although it is fairly easy. The manual is thin (which is good) but for the amount of information it gives it could be even thiner.

Keys are hard to press and do not sound every time you press them. It has a reasonable amount of effects which are easy to use. Sequecesr has some good live performance features (sections, mutes, transpose) but in the editing department (cuting, copying of tracks and patterns) it is not that easy to use

It surprised me that it has good lead-solo voices. With its EPs or organs you can make a rock solo It will sound a little muddy and distorted but that is just the point. In general it sounds complex (compared to 2 variation of autoaccompainmetn keyboards)

Metal case.

Had it for a couple of months, It's not as fun to play as an autoaccompainment keyboard, I am probably going to trade it for one.

I had used an ensoniq asr-x for years, then I was forced to pawn it when I needed money. I was real close to buying another asr-x until a guy at my local music store showed me the rm1x and su700 by yamaha. I wasn't very familiar with yamaha and didn't really want to buy anything other than the standard roland or ensoniq products, but after I heard what these things could do and after listening to the quality they had, I took out a loan from the bank and bought both. Best purchase I have ever made. Oh by the way the rm1x is very easy to use. Especially if you are familiar with keyboards or similar gear.

This new "groove box" concept of finger tip sized keys really annoys the hell out of me, but I guess its better than having to pay $200 more for a keyboard, but I would recommend a midi controller for this unit. The effects are great espesially if you run them through an alesis nanoverb, adds a lot to the sound.

Very dance music oriented which is one of the main reasons I bought it. I can't stand it when I go to play a "synthesizer" and all it has in it is horns, pianos, guitars, and crap. If I want to play or hear those instruments I will pick them up and play them, but when I think of a synthesizer I want to hear techno sounds.

Extremely reliable. If I was a millionare I suppose I would buy a backup, that is a stupid question by the way.

I have never had to call them, and I hope I never have to.

My advice would be to go to a music store and play around with this thing for a couple of hours. If you love dance music this machine is perfect. For me this machine is perfect.

I found the RM1X easy to use. It is easy to make your own patterns, although the song mode is a bit fiddly. This machine is best used for pattern based material which it excells at. It is very good for dropping in tracks and muting parts etc. which gives a DJ kind of feel. Although I havent used it in a live situation I would imagine it is very easy to use and you can be creative and mix in and out of parts well giving you alot of originality in what you are doing rather than having everything pre-sequenced. Editing of sounds is'nt one of its strong points. You can edit everything but its not as intuative as I would have hoped for, but it does make what you can do easier if you know what I mean.

I found the keyboard useless for playing anything that you would normally do on a proper keyboard but it is'nt really intended for that use. You can easily add a midi keyboard anyway so that is not really a problem. The keyboard is usefull for step time sequencing with the key acting as each sixteenth beat of a note and you can drop in your note on each key. This is very good for buillding up beats but unlike on the MC303 etc you can only see one bar at a time, and it is is a bit awkward moving to the next bar. The effects are not bad, but I have dedicated effects units which I would prefer to use. There are no expansions to the unit. It would always be nice to load in new samples on any module, and I would love to with this as I am not too keen on the overall sound set included. The main advantage of this unit is the sequencer. It is very good for buiding up patterns and very easy to use. One of the reasons I bought it was the inbuilt disk drive. Very important to keep all your patterns and songs etc.

I found the sound set on the RM1X at first to be very good, but after playing around with it the sounds are all very similar. There are loads of digi type sounds, which are good if you like that type of thing, but I could have done with more original sounds to give this machine more of its own character. The pads are all very buzzy but there are some good sound effects, and some of the basses are very playable. The drum sounds are very weak and you look down the list and think you have 50 drum kits but most of the kits are the same samples in different arrangements and then you have 25 kits, with the other 25 the same kits just slight variations on the sounds. The kick drums are limp and the snares very sparse and not very pleasing. I would have expected allot higher standard in the rhythm samples, seeing as this is a dance machine. The realistic sounds are not very realistic. I sound like I hate the sounds but they are good (except for the drums) if you want to sound like everything else at the moment. If you want a bit of creativity and more depth to them then I would advice you go for a dedicated sound module and use an alternate midi sequencer. I had hoped to use this for making allot of my beats, You have the step sequencer which is great but no great sounds to back it up.

There is no doubt it is a reliable unit. I have no problems with the actual reliability of it. Solid and dependable.

Never needed to contact Yamaha with this product. I did send them an email once though and didn't get a reply for about three weeks.

I no longer own this instrument. I swapped it for an Emu Xtreme Lead with a Techno Expansion card fitted. If it had the sounds to back up the features it has it would have been an excellent piece of kit. I once had a MC303 and although it only had 8 drum kits I found I was making much more interesting beats with that. I would not recommend you buy the RM1X, but that is purely my own personal experience. Other people without a computer may find it brilliant for what they want, and what it does best is building up patterns. I found it tried to be too much of everything but didnt master any of them. This could also be my lack of creativity though as the preset patterns did sound very good.

This is a piece of cake to use. It takes a while to learn,
particularly if you are used to 808, 303 style interfaces, but once
you know your way around, it becomes second nature.
The size and resolution of the LCD screen makes for a very user-
friendly interface with menus and graphics, so you always know where
you are and whayt you are doing.

Sequencer, drum-machine, synth, effects.
Buy it for the sequencer. If this box had no sounds and no on-board
effects, it would still be worth the money for the sequencer alone.
There's nothing you cant do. The MIDI delay lets you change the pitch,
gating and velocity of the feedback and because it's all done with
MIDI, you can apply it to any of your instruments. How did I manage
before I got this???
The tweakability is another major selling point. The built in sounds
may be naff but you can twist and warp them all to hell until they are
unrecognisable.
I dont use the arpegiator but I imagine it's useful if you're a trancey
person.
Basically, the features on offer make programming original beats and
rythms very easy indeed.

To be honest. The sounds aren't great. They're flat and shallow. Most
of them I wouldnt touch. They're saved by the ease with with you can
play with them. There's a wide range of effects, and you can really
let rip by pitching sounds up and down, gating them, fiddling cutoff
and resonance. And you can capture all your tweaking in real time to
the sequencer. AND THEN you can go back and step edit one note at a
time. The possibilities are mind boggling. You really have to
push this thing to the limit to get an interesting sound out of it..
but it is possible.

I've been using it heavily and some of the knobs are starting to get
a bit wobbly. Take care.
I've also had the odd stuck note - which I imagine would be
embarrasing in a gig - especially since I couldnt get it to stop
without turning the bloody thing off and on again.

Never needed them

This is astonishing value for money. There's so much you can do.
Don't think for a second that its all you'll ever need. If you don't
have any other synths you'll soon be aching for a fatter, richer
sound. And if you want to make punchy dance music you're gonna want
a separate drum machine like a 909.
I use it to drive a drum machine, synth and sampler and the
sounds on the RM1x fill in the gaps nicely - but thats all. The trick
to getting a good sound is to tweak the hell out of it.
Most importantly, it's a very powerful and editable sequencer, and a
perfect replacement for the computer in a live setup. It's pretty
much at the heart of my setup and as far as I'm concerned it's
irreplacable.

Im using the latest versions of cakewalk, cubase and other editors. But find hardly use of them because the RM1x is fully equipped with everything you need. There are al lot of presets in sounds and ritmes. You can make your own from scratch or edit the existing ones. I love it. Good manual too (in diferent languages.)

16 multitimbral with a lot of effects to use. There's a diskdrive to and it's compatible with the computer.

I use it every weekend to drive my fans completely crazy. Im a DJ.

Can't comply to that. Only one reason, I didn't need it till this moment.

I am using the latest software version considering I just bought it brand new at guitar center exactly 16 days ago. Editing patches is a sinch. I have been Djing for 2 years and wanted to get into producing so I bought this as my setup along with a cs2x. The manual is good for learning the first few days you get it. I cought on extremely quick and started making my first track in 13 days.

The features on this thing are incredible. The poly is 32 in the tone generator and 64 in the sequencer block. The built in effects are good and can alot can be used at the same time, and are easy to use. It has midi in and midi out. Basic midi. The sequencer is where this thing is frigen incredible. I did some wacked out sick beats with this sequencer from scratch. AND I've only had it 16 days. You can create some crazy arpeggios on this sequencer and you will always keep this even when you expand your setup because of the extremely powerful sequencer. See, I was having trouble making up my mind on a hardware sequencer or a software sequencer. But I thought that a software sequencer would kill my creative mind and take the fun out of making music so I went with this and I am so glad I did.

The sounds on the rm1x are good for a beginer as myself. But I even think that the sounds are to mechanized in some weird way. That's why I got myself the cs2x. But as of now I just use the internal sounds and with alittle tweaking they are pretty darn good. I like the drums but the bass doesn't kick as hard as I would like it to but that can be fixed also.

I can no doubt depend on this blue monster. THe thing I don't like is the knobs are somwhat flimsy and seem that they will wear out alittle quickly but this doesn't bother me one bit. And the keyboard is flimsy but good for what it is meant for (triggering). I would use without a backup no doubt.

I've never delt with them so I have no comment here, but, I have heard they are not too good.

Well this is where the real shocker comes in. As my first thing I bought a korg triton 61-key workstation and wasn't too happy because of the learning curve and didn't have the sounds for my style of mellow house, and progressive trance. So i brought it back for the rm1x and a cs2x (I know most people out there think I am crazy and I kinda regreted it) UNTIL, I brought the rm1x home and started using it. I was so happy with my changeover. The rm1x just fit my type of music better. It is up to you and your style ofmusic on if you should buy this or not, go to your nearest music store and check it out. If it were stolen, first I would go on a search for the person who dear steal such a precious item and then probably be really mad concidering I am 16 and took the money for this gear out of my car money. So that wouldn't be good. I would no doubt replace this concidering it has helped me make a first song in only 16 days and have learned many aspects of it in that short of a time also. What I love about it is that it helps me take what is in my head and lay down a track in no time. As of now, there is nothing I hate but I will later post another review to the rm1x when I get better with it. I compared this to other products and did LOTS AND LOTS of research before making a decision. THe salesman at guitar center tryed to get me to buy an used Mc-505, but for some reason I had me heart set on the rm1x, and I am glad I did because I am happy with my purchase. It helps me make music no doubt. I recomend this for beginer-pro that wants a peice of kit that will expand with any setup, anyone in need of a great sequencer and decent tone generator, and anyone into house, trance, techno, dance, and even some hip-hop. Well this is it for now and I will post another review later on when I am done with a few more tracks and when I learn how to use it to it's max. Peace.

Once you get familiar with it, you can move around pretty quickly. It's super fun to tweak the sounds on. The control is great. The keyboard thing gets a little annoying, but you can always use a bigger controller.

Most features of any hardware sequencer in its class, hands down. This thing is the BEST. I like Yamaha because they don't seem to skimp on features (like roland, akai, etc.). This is no exception to that rule.

The sounds are great, and there are tons of 'em. Even if you don't like them, though, you can tweak them so much you that wouldn't care.

I've had this for over a year and never had a problem.

Never had to deal with them.

What a great machine. I could no longer live without it. I use it with a sampler for beat-loops and, and a couple of sound modules. I get amazing results. A real PRO piece of gear.

version 1.12 (i think!), this is the most easy piece of equipment i ever used (toasters aside!). editing patches or effects isnt a hard task on this one. the manual seems to be pretty well writen, but i honestly never read the thing...i was able to figure out how everything work within minutes (ok, maybe an hour then!)

the keyboard seems a little flaky, and not really reliable, it sometimes double trigger notes, or sometimes dosent trigger it at all...use a keyboard to trigger it if you want to extend the longevity of the keys.

by now you should already know all the specs for the unit, so ill just add my PROS and CONS!

PROS: sequencer to die for, very versatile in the recording modes dept., 16 keys to trigger differents parts (way cool!)...try to do this with a software sequencer! grid groove, once you master this function your groove and looseness will dramaticly improve! 16 tracks sequencer (well,its better than his 8 track silver cousin!)

CONS: the grid step sequencing DO NOT work in realtime, meaning that tr-x0x style editing is not really inspiring...for this deciving feature ill have to deduct 2 points....other than that its a nearly perfect machine!

first of all, i didnt bought the unit for its sounds or effects, and i didnt expect much in this dept either!

the drums are pretty good thought! since i dont own a drum machine, i was pretty impress on the rather wide selection of drum and perc the unit have (47 kits,and a boatload of other percs).

as for the other sounds, nothing really caught my attention, except maybe that sweet electric piano sound...there is not much to edit here, so go get yourself a good dedicated keyboard!

the fx section is good and fairly editable for such a cheap unit...but again, an outboard dedicated unit would be a plus.

i guess i could depend on it, but the keyboard will eventually crap on me!

Yamaha support?? you must be joking right??

go thru your dealer to prevent headaches.

i love it!

i dont rely on its sounds (i got other gear to back me up!), but the sequencer offer more than i've expected.

this machine actually saved me from all of this software madness. i used cubase for a long time, and this software actually killed the creativity i use to have, but the rm1x is making see the light again.

i recommend this unit to anyone seeking a creative boost or a change in the way of creating and manipulating tracks.

Okay I know that my software version is pre 1.13....
the manual was half decent, however i found it was written for new comers some what, me not being one it is a little annoying when everything is explained so simply....

The preset patterns shit all over the mc505's preset patterns..the preset sounds are better....i find the drum kits sound real, ie the 909 hi hats for example sound so much better than the 505's samples....

The menu system with super large green display is definetly a plus, however it requires a somewhat different approach to the mc505, so while being easy to use in one regard it can be more complex in another....

but unless u have a button for everything u can't really expect a box such as this to be 'simple' to use..u just have to grow into the thing...

I think the sequencer polyphony is 64 notes, with the tone gen having 32 notes...my keys are a little dodgy, however it was purchased 2nd hand so i'm not surprised..

The efx block is half decent, i've only had it for a few weeks and i haven't been able to get into it much...

Expansion capabilities? no.

Its a full blown midi sequencer though, however the bug with the original OS shits me up the wall, i can't use it to control external gear because it sends random PC messages when u do things like hit record etc, and the supposedly FREE upgrade isn't FREE in australia because of some jackass excuse that our dollar isn't strong enough...
basically this is a load of crap and a defect on the behalf of yamaha...since when do u have to pay for a free fix to a design fault?

Some sounds are crap, some are excellent, but being a ROMpler u are kind of limited...like with my 505 i have come to a point, after two years of exploring different genres, all my songs sound the same...to me anyway...u really need a synth/sampler to get the most out of this box. The onboard effects are half decent, midi delay is okay but i would have liked to have seen a delay efx unit as well....

I really love the way u trigger sections, like u play them like samples...me being a live performer it really allows u to be creative ....

Uhm....could i depend on it?

Yeah i guess so, i've been relying on the mc505 without a backup for the last year or so...and i think the rm1x is better in many regards...

but i have two minds about yamaha...that midi sequencer bug...hmmmmm

What shits me is the fact we are expected to pay for an upgrade that every other country gets for free, when the main point of the upgrade is to fix up a bug that yamaha overlooked.

If it were lost, i would buy it again. I've been playing out for a year, writing for about 6. I own an mc505, behringer mx2004, virtualizer, roland xp10, guilemot maxi studio isis sound card. I love its sounds, the section triggering, its look, i hate its midi stuff up, i hate its lack of a midi thru port (just like the 505..there is space on one and they don't require much circuity)..i hate external power packs...

I wish these things had samplers...i would say it helps me make music..i wouldn't have bought it otherwise..

i would have given this box straight 9's or 10's if it weren't for the fact i'm now a disgruntled yamaha customer because of the midi bug.....that i have to pay for to get fixed...bugger them all to hell u can never win hehehehehe

For a beginner in the dance music genre, this is a must but It's a definite for any aspiring producer who wants to create genre crossing music at a low cost. My unit isn't upgrade which doesn't even matter because to me this thing came out the factory perfect. The presets are amazing but (as some would expect for a sound module) a little cheesy. the tone generator could use some work but it isn't enough to complain about. What amazes me about this thing is how I took it out the box, fooled with it for a couple of hours and already had a completely original song recorded. It shines at it's ability to fuse vrious forms of music. I make Hip-Hop and Techno so the fact that I can take hip hop beats and throw them on top of epic trance sounds means alot to me. The Manual is shit but luckily it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how to edit the sounds. When you get ready to program full songs though you're going to have do some reading and probablly some websites (www.rm1x.co.uk is a good one.

The efects and polophony never mattered much to me because I use the Rm1x fpr what it's ment for....sequencing. I route all my drum sounds through a seperate with better sounding drum kits and all my synth sounds through my Korg MS2000 and other modules. To me the overal sound quality is disapointing when it comes down to record so I choose to use seperate units. Thats only my opinion.

I'm not sure about expansion, from the looks of it, any expansion would probablly have to require taking it apart. Nevermind that, you'll never run out of sounds you can manipulate on this thing, so unless you're lazy you should need to expand it. It's the ultimate MIDI machine. THe Midi Sequencer is the best and combined with the floppy disk drive it can't get any easier than going on the net and downloading midi patterns and using them in your own songs.

Lacking. Like I said, I use other gear and just sequence with the RM1x. One it's own the Rm1x sounds to 'manufactured' even to a novice like me. This machine is must have for Hip-Hop, dance music and other forms where maximum creativity is a must. It makes songwriting extremely easy...even for the dumbass. =]

Deus Ex RM1Xica!! Put your all faith in this thing!!!!

Wouldn't know but thats a good thing because I haven't had to call. There is a new OS out now but I don't want it. I'm already use to the old one.

If the Rm1x killed my first born son I'd still go out and get another one. It's as essential to my set up as my computer was before I got it. I don't reccomend using it on it's own though. Although easy to get your head around, the sounds don't carry enough impact alone. Doesn't sound bad if you use it live (through a PA) though. The perfect set up is the Rm1x as your Master controller for a Keyboard/sound module and Sampler. Or if you're w\a virtual fan, you can use it with Cubase, as well.

The yamaha rm1x is very easy to use and it has a nice LCD screen that makes it easy to program. After reading the manual I was making my own tracks in days, so any one with experiance using a roland or other groove sequencer should catch on rather quickly

The features are pretty nice good sound effects, wide range of capablities and a 3.5 floppy disk is the greatest thing on this unit because it allows you to save all your user banks on file. I also like the LCD screen because it makes everything much easier.

The sounds are great. Sound quality is rich clear but it lacks bass at first, but theres a low boost feature where you can alter the lower frequncy given it more bass . The sounds are great for techno, trance, drum n bass and the presets are acctually pretty good. 654 sounds 46 drum kits theres plenty to work with.

hasnt left the studio, works great.

no problems here

I recommend the yamaha rm1x for anyone looking for a great groove sequencer at a low price. Real easy use, good sounds, great quality and good effects.

This box was so easy to me when I first started, that I made a nice pattern the first ten minutes of me working with it. The step recording is a piece of cake. It has the grid-step recording setup. If you are recording in real-time, you will need a midi controller. The keys are not built for real-time recording and they are not velocity sensitive. When editing the patches you may find many more unusual sounds which is very useful. The presets sound great, and I don't even listen to dance music. If you have worked with computer software sequencers this will be a cakewalk.

It has 32 polyphony which is enough for me. The RMX1 has 16 sections of patterns. The box has a variety of reverb, chorus and variation. You can also edit the effects. The one downfall of this box is that the play fx swallows up polyphony and spits it out. 50 patterns and 20 songs can be saved in memory. You can also save your tracks on floppy disk, which is a big plus.

Don't expect many realistic sounds. Remember this sequencer is dance oriented. It has over 650 sounds; I don't know exactly how many. There is 20 drumkits and all are useful ( GM drums are the same as on other equipment,GARBAGE ). The bass pad bank is impressive to me, because it has a variety and the voices sound full. A few patches are to thin sounding to me. I create rap music and there is well enough sounds for me. If you tweak around with the voice editing you may find some interesting sounding patches.

I would use this on a gig anytime. This piece of equipment hasn't ever locked up on me( those darn MPC's ); not even a split second pause.

I have no idea.

I will buy this gear again if I lost it. The biggest problem this gear can cause you is getting only 3 hours of sleep everynight, or your wife making you sleep on the couch for not paying her any more attention.

The manual is not that good for someone who bought this as his first
piece of gear . For people who know a lot already i heard it's good enough.
For a first time user it takes some time to get used to the thing and all ,
but after 1 or 2 weeks you should be able to handle it more or less.
So after those two weeks , you really get the hang of this box ,it's EASY TO USE!

The Sequencer is Great .
There's a lot in this thing that could be of use.
If i must find something that's not perfectly right it would be:
-the Drums and Bass sounds are not PUNCHY enough (although you can always add that extra punch with soft programs).
-The in-built sounds could have bin slightly better ...
:-)

AS IT SAYS IN THE MANUAL , the Rm1x is a complete DANCE WORKSTATION :
-so it's good for Trance/Goa/Rave/Hardcore/Dance/Jungle/Drum&Bass/House/Techno etc....
The onboard effects are "OK"
Some of the instruments are not very very very realistic , but for Dance they are certainly realistic enough...

Don't no yet , and hope i'll never have to know

If it were stolen i would bye it again , in the Groovebox chain it surpasses all others!
Untill now i only own this piece of gear , and i am quite satisfied , i am thinking of hooking it up to
a Supernova 2 , and a Roland XV 88 heheheh!
L:-)

This is the part where rm1x really shines. Very easy to use and make your own little songs. Manual is good and you dont really need it because the machine is so easy to use. It takes a week or so to really get the grip of the machine, but after that you know enough to make songs.

It has over 700 sounds. It should be enough for anyone. You should have a keyboard of some sort...the keys in rm1x are not good (and are not pressure sensitive). The sequencer is very easy to use and great. The disk-drive makes it very easy to backup your songs.

Well, altough there are over 700 sounds, the quality isnt always the best possible there is. Piano, strings, horns and other natural sounds are not so great. Expecially the strings. I dont like the sound at all. Dancesounds and drums are good (maybe drums could be little better still) and these are the sounds that are mostly used (it is a dance-machine after all). But, the sounds are still good enough to make other kinds of music also.

Reliability is solid. Couple of the knobs are a bit loose (but i play with this thing daily) and the keys are looser than they were when i bought it, but no problems have occured.

never dealt with the company...no opinion

I have had my rm1x for 4 months now and it is the best gear i have ever had. If you like doing your own dance/ambient/blah/blah electronic music, dont want to spend your whole life savings and want one machine to do it all, then rm1x is your choice.

For a first time user the yamaha Rm1x is a great tool. Although there is lots to do and it can look a little complex at first. If you have a little knowledge however this machine can really sing. The tone gen section is great although it would have been better with 64 note polyphony instead of 32 as the play fx section can really eat at the polyphony. The sequencer section is awesome and supports all the cc nnumbers, sysex ,xg sysex cat, and pat ,rpns and nrpns.Editing is a breeze and the real time controlls fall easily to had and are assignable to all the cc,s . All the lfo section the patch change section and the effects section are recordable in overdub mode as are the control knobs. So you can break anything you ,like! The manual is good and comprehensive but misses out explanations for things that would definatley confuse the novice. The os one mine is 1.12 but I happen to know that it has recently been upgraded to 1.13 although the difference is minimal and has only to do with it not outputting a patch change resest when the zero back function is operated.

The sound quality is awesome, alhtough there is a very slight snap when you give it too many effects patch changes. The effects are strong and easily manipulated to pleasing effect although the reverb could be better, but maybe I'm getting jaded know! The amp I use is an old Sony 175w silver jobby. I have no favourite artists but I'm big on electro and techno and it kicks ass for both of them both in my DJ sets and in my live work.

100 percent reliable as a gigging sequencer better than any computer as a live sequencer I have absolutely no worries on that score

Yamaha are friendly and effecient

Techno and electro
been playing 1 year with it
if stolen I would kill whoever did it if I could ..it really is that good
I love everything about this machine, it's exactly what I wanted
compared it to all the roland products and they just diddn't stand up at all
It really helps my cretive juices floww
Only problem is two outputs,the cut off knob is getting a bit loose, but since the knobs are assignable it won't be problem if it breaks down

After just a few hours of use you'll find yourself piecing together impressive patterns and songs.

It has an impressive number of features given the very low price. The synth section is a little limited - but you can create fat sounds simply by layering them together. Why not hook in up to an EX5 ? The sequencer section is great.

Clearly aimed at the dance market - breakbeat, progressive house and trance are this machines forte ...

I've not come across any reliability problems as yet, though there's been a couple of niggles ...

Though I've not really gone to Yamaha, I do feel they could offer more support through their website. More in the way of downloads, new patterns etc etc.

A great machine that's not only great as an introduction into Dance music production but one that can offer experienced users something too.

This thing is idiot proof. You open it up, plug it in, turn it on, and push play...BOOM, you have a funky pattern going and push buttons to change it. The preset patterns are mind-blowing as presets go in my opinion...but they're still presets and it shows. It's really easy to record your own patches though, and I found that you can make the drums sound really human if you mess around with them for a bit. The Divide Drum Track function is wonderful, and it has an arpeggiator...nothing special, but hey...I can get it to do cool stuff. The manual is your basic Yamaha Manual : Tells you what you need to know as quick and simply as possible. Doesn't really delve into examples, but with something this easy, who cares?

32 note polyphony which you'll overload if not careful...I did it a few times but since then I've learned effects can make less sounds sound a lot better, so I haven't done it since. It's got lots of effects (EQ, Distortion, Overdrive, Delay, Flange, Chorus...etc, etc, etc...) and these are customizable to your liking and are all of good quality...but I have beef with this: You can only have 1 Variation effect per style!!! AGH!!! Yamaha, you make really stupid mistakes sometimes. This isn't SO bad once you can work around it with sounds, but god...it pisses me off. It's little keys are good for step recording, but you'll wanna hook it up to a keyboard if you're doing anything serious. In/Out. Its sequencer is quite powerful (110,000 note) and plus it has a floppy drive. Also, its resolution goes up to 60th notes...that's really fun...bwahaha

Realistic? HA! I have yet to see a box of this style to be labeled realistic...it has a few nice pianos and strings, but overall...it's all synthetic, and you can tell. It works well for what it was made for: Dance and Trance and Techno, etc...but I'm sure you could get it to do Rock and Hip Hop just fine too. Amazing drum kits...all 40 of 'em...Effects spice things up nicely. Only thing is that the onboard keyboard is a joke. Cushy rubber buttons...blah. But hey...it works for what they're meant for: parameters and muting and switching patterns.

I have yet to have anything bad come out of this one. It's sturdy and metal and I've dropped it a few times with nothing bad happening. The 4 knobs near the LCD are a little flimsy compared to the rest, but I glued them on good, so it's fine now. I have gigged without backups and it's never failed.

I can't live without it. Integrated with a JX-305, CS1x, and D-50, it's still the centerpiece. It sounds more full than the JX-305/MC-505
and it has a much better sequencer in my opinion...not to mention easier to use. It's definately a great box for serious music or as a scratchpad to start on. I use it for drums and basslines, sometimes synth pads, and play the JX and D-50 as leads. I'm sure there's much better things out there, but nothing touches it for the amazing quality and price.

I took a couple days of manual surfing to get the nuances of it, but a lot of the features are easy to figure out right out of the box. I was re-mixing presets in the store before I even saw the manual. All the features are easy to find, all the buttons and knobs are clearly marked, and the large LCD screen just makes everything easier. The manual is nicely laid out and makes everything clear, and explains all the functions clearly. Comes with a big "List Book" that lists all the sounds and all the parameters of every effect. Very handy.

Its analog style controls are like having a miniature Phatboy built in. The sequencing functions are nice, but I still prefer to edit on a computer. It does offer an event list style editing that makes it easy for small scale editing, which is very handy. A nice feature is one that allows you to break down a song into individual sections, allowing you to re-mix track by track, section by section. For example, you can re-mix just the snare drum in the chorus, either by creating a new pattern, using a different drum sound, or both. Then, after you re-mix the song section by section, you can "glue" it back together as a full song. Another great feature allows you to break a drum pattern recorded on one track, down to eight tracks, with each piece on a separate track. i.e.-Kick on tr.1, snare on tr.2, hi hat on tr.3, etc. Making it easy to use different programs on individual pieces, or effecting individual drums. An internal MIDI router makes it easy to bypass the internal synth and send to a second external unit via the MIDI out/thru port. Just in case you want to use another synth. There's so many sounds here, I don't know why you'd have to. Built in floppy drive for backup, and it reads Standard MIDI files. So those can be imported and exported.

The drums are great. There's over 40 kits, and all the drums can be tweaked to your hearts desire in case you happen to not like the sound. A lot of nice keyboard sounds, including some nice Rhodes and Pianos. A lot of ethnic sounds, haven't experimented much with them yet, but the sitar was OK. I like the Alesis Nanosynth's sitar better. A plethera of bass to choose from, so there's something for everyone's style. Strings and horns were above average, and more to my liking when tweaked. Analog sounds are good too. Again, there's a lot to choose from, so you can't go wrong. The on-board effects are tremendous. 11 reverbs, 11 choruses, 42 on the variation block, including piggyback reverbs and choruses, delays, EQs, phasers, distortions, flangers...and yes they're all editable in real time. Plus, there's an overall bass boost that adds a nice punch to the mix.

Solidly built, it probably will take a beating, but I've been very gentile with it so far. I've brought it into the studio several times and it synced perfectly with an Alesis BRC, so that's a plus. I would recommend making sure you know your way around the menus before taking it on the road or in the studio. But that's just common sense.

Dealt with them once about something I couldn't figure out regarding syncing to an external computer sequencer and recording data in real time from a computer sequencer. Received a VERY helpful and detailed three and a half page response that more than explained the problem.

If I lost it I would buy it immediately. It's the number one weapon in my current recording arsenal. I even prefer it to Acid Pro. I've used it in a professional studio as my back-up band and it sounds great. For the price it's unbeatable. I know there's a lot of talk about other products (Roland MC505, MC303, etc), but the RM1X blows them away. I've used both and I've recommended the RM1X to everyone that asks. It's easier to use right out of the box, it's got a better display, and I like the sounds better. Keyboard players will have to use a controller, but that's probably the only weakness. But since the onboard "keyboard" is clearly not designed to be used as a serious keyboard, and is made to handle on-board functions, I can't complain about that. It's easy enough to hook up an external controller anyway. This is one serious piece of hardware. I can't recommend it enough.

Easy to get to grips with, incredible presets possibly the best I've ever heard, 60 Preset styles that cover every type of dance music possible. Really clear and decent manual, only reason it didn't get 10 is there's a lot to take in.

Decent groove sequencer, that's all ya need to know really, the keyboard is crap, I'd recommend getting a controller device, although it's probably okay for really simple stuff

All the dance sounds are great, The general MIDI bank is weak, but you won't be needing it at all, sometimes the Non synth sounds, (Horns, Strings, etc) Sound a bit electronic but no real problem, effects are nice , 3 fx banks , Variation , chorus and reverb. Really nice arpeggio which is customisable.

Okay falls down a little here for one reason, the damn buttons are really unresponsive! (Dunno if this was just a fault with mine) But playin at a live gig and you press the button and it don't respond could be pretty damn costly!

never used

Definately worth what I payed for my site www.dijaiwig.co.uk has music which was created on this machine alone, it's a powerful piece of kit. Sexy Massive LCD Screen is lovely, strong metal box, and it generally looks the business, really good if ya wanna impress ya mates. Maybe work on the raw analog synths (FM, Sine waves , etc) would have been nice as some of these are quite weak, but you can tweak them. Easily pay twice as much for something this quality tho I thought.

I've owned my RM1x for less than a week now, and I have atleast a grasp on all of this units function. It is very intuitive. The only other sequencers I've own were the Alesis MMT-8, which was easier, but less powerful, and the MPC2000 which was more powerful, but much more difficult to figure out. The RM1x has a well layed out front panel, and all of the functions are easy to get to. The menus are written out on the right side, so you can look there to find out where you need to go. All in all, very easy to use.

This sucker is loaded wit options. Being able mute parts on the fly, change patterns, and switch which parts are affected by the knobs, makes this unit very powerful. You can also choose whether each of the sequencers tracks affects the built in tone generator, any external instruments, or both.

700 sounds that are very good for dance music. There are sounds in this box that I've been trying to achieve for a long time, buthaven't been able to. Not just your standard bass synths, strings, and stabs. But also bass drops, clicks, blips, horns, etc. Each of the sounds can also be edited in many ways unlike other machine like this. (ie MC-505)

Not a problem, but it hasn't even been a week.

I will be keeping this unit till I die. It is so usefull and easy to use. Great for anyone who wants to make dance music. Whether you only want on box, or are looking for a dedicated sequencer like I was.
BUY THIS BOX

I think it's hard for beginners to get good sounds out of this thing.Even if you read the manual(and understand it!),I don't think it'll help people who never tried a synth.But the best thing to remediate is to experiment!

Very much effects,very much sounds of any type,amazing drum section.You can make any type of music you want.

Most of the sounds aren't good if you DON'T use effects.But once you use them,the quality is incredible,it gives a very good depth to your sound,and can transformate it any way you want.As I said before,the rythmic section is very good.

The onboard is perhaps a little bit slow,but it can be accelerated,so no much problems here.This unit is based on "dance" music,but I tried to get sounds for Rock,and did it.It is flexible enough for that.

It's all built in metal,so I think there will be no problems if I ever use it on a gig.The keys are perhaps a little bit weak.

Never dealt with them.

I'm a beginner in dance music,and this is my first sequence-remixer,but I spend hours on it and I like it more and more.If it were lost or stolen I'd regard on my money,but I'll surely buy another one,

Kind of lost untill I realized that almost all features are kept hidden in the Job list. I tend to think that part of the manuals purpose is to give you a run around so you don't have to get it from them:) But Once you grasp the concept, it proves to be quite inteligently laid out!

This unit was bought because i thought that the sounds were usfull enough not to have to turn them upside down before use, thus I can use my 32 notes of polyphony sparingly. Even so them 32 notes still don't go as far as Id like them to! Effects aren't bad, but not good enough to expect us to use only 1 stereo output. More outs would be nice to rought through external FXs.
As a sequencer...NO problems as of yet!
have 4 midi devices hooked up in a chain, all controlled by this, and have witnessed not any bunging of data. It's a blast for live, you get right into it .......ROCK ON!!!

Expresivness??
Well sure just DON'T use those little white tabs on the bottom.(you see them? those little white tabs?) The sounds do sound good, way more versatile than some of the "Groove machines" that we won't be so evil as to mention..RrRrRroland.. cough ,..cough.
Lots of Dance stuff but mine is used more for experimental electroism.
No problems so far but could run into major problems for any fans of sound-scapes or atmosphere. As for my "broken mechanism style" it does the trick!

OK, All Right, these two sections might not apeal to the keen costomer!!!!
I...Have not touched my RM1X for 7 weeks now!!
When I bought my unit, brand new mind you, it came with a faulty disk drive!! Figuring that it was lack of knowledge I spent 3months toiling with the stupid manual trying to figure out why ALL my work got all fucked up when ever I loaded it!!
Finely, I sent it back to the store and haven't seen or heard of it for coming up to 2 months!!! let me spell that out: TWO MONTHS!!!
Make sure everything works before you take it home!! I guess on the + side in the duration of the 3 months that i had one nothing ELSE broke down. YEH YAMAHA!!!

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HE HE HE HE HE HE HE HE HE HE HE HE HE HE HE HE HE HE HE HE HE HE H
HO HO HO HO HO HO HO HO HO HO HO HO HO HO HO HO HO HO HO HO!!!!!!!!

Over all? a great unit if we had a working relation ship!!
Smart, FUNNY, Versatile, Good Looing But I Can't take it anywhere with out it embarresing me!!

This machine is easy to get started with and can keep you busy exploring its features for hours. Supposed to be great in a live situation, but I don't use it that way so I wouldn't know. Lots of real time knobs are fun to play with.

I think the polyphony is 32 which I have maxed out many times.
You're going to need to get a separate MIDI contoller to play this thing. The little buttons on the front aren't very good for laying down grooves. The little buttons also don't sense velocity. The effects are a little on the weak side. Only one type of effect can be applied at a time.

Some of the instruments are cool. I find though that I gravitate towards the same ones though. Mostly a dance machine, but I hate dance music and I still love this machine. I often use some of the preset drum patterns to build up a song. It plays 100 times better if you use an external MIDI controller.

Out of habit I always back up all my files, but it has never crashed on me.

It's a good thing to get if you're starting out with electronic music. It's easy to get started and it gives you everything you need to start making some basic tunes. I use it to sequence my software on my PC. The Rm1x is the only piece of hardware I own. Hook this thing up to Fruity Loops, sync up, and you are ready to go!!

The manual, like most musical equipment manuals, is a little difficult to follow at times, but overall, the RM1x is a breeze to operate. The learning curve is not very steep at all, and you should be able to get a firm grasp of all its features in a very short amount of time. The large backlit screen makes most tasks very easy. I no longer needed to use the manual at all after only a few weeks of use.

Where the RM1x really shines is in the sequencer department. If you're looking for a great synthesizer, look elsewhere, but if you want a hardware sequencer that's extreamly powerful when used live, then the RM1x is the way to go. Like I stated above, the large backlit screen makes creating and editing patterns a breeze. The RM1x is definately aimed at the creation of rythmic and dance based music, and I'm not sure how usefull its non-linear sequencing abilities would be for non-dance purposes.

The synthesizer section is the RM1x's weakpoint. Basically you have a ton of preset sounds, that you can modify slightly, i.e., lowpass filter settings, portamento, very limited LFO, Simple EG. Some of the presets are ok, but for the most part, it has a very thin and digital sound, and it takes a lot of work to keep the mix from sounding muddy. If you do some layering and unison setups, you can make some fairly decent sounds, however this eats up a lot of polyphony. Bascially, don't buy the RM1x and expect to get an all in one wonder machine. The RM1x is such a great sequencer, that it would be a shame if you didn't use it to control more gear than just itself. On a side note, I found the DJX's soundset to be slightly better sounding than that of the RM1x.

I've hauled my RM1x all over the place, and I've left it turned on for days at a time. I've only had it crash once in hundreds of hours of use. I feel totaly confident using the RM1x in a live situation. However, there have been some reports of the buttons and knobs getting a little worn over time.

I've never had to deal with Yamaha.

If I lost my RM1x, I would definately buy another one. It controls all the synths and samplers in my rig, and I'd be lost without it.

This thing is pretty to easy to wrap your hands around. I've had it for 4 months and am still learning new things as I try more things, but it took about a week before I was really comfortable with it. The presets, ofter criticized, are not bad. Actually, if you are able to throw some effects on your voices, they sound really good and sit well in a mix with other instruments. Alone, I would be sick of the presets pretty soon, but you can do alot with one other piece of gear - say a decent keyboard.
The manual is a little thick to read at first, but once you get into the Yamaha mindset, it is quite useful.

The features on it, all in all, are mediocre. As a sequencer, there are a few things that annoy me - like you can synch FX to tempo, you can't record mutes, you can't record patterns in song mode and there is no MIDI THRU. Otherwise, the sequencer is fantastic. I got it because it does everything, but I will keep it because of the sequencer. Song mode is easy as hell, pattern mode is a little strange to wrap one's mind around, but very cool once you get used to it.
The FX are pretty good, as of today, there isn't any expansion possible (and this hurts because it only has 2 analog audio outs, and only one MIDI OUT) but for $600, you can't really complain. The keys are not pressure sensitive, but you can adjust the velocity.

I find the presets to be good and bad. The synth sounds are crap but the possibilities with the Bass tones are endless. They are hollow to start (which is good sometimes, when that is what you want) but you can EASILY fatten them up with some chorus or reverb. The sounds are not all that realistic but remember that this is a dance oriented instrument.

I have not had one bad experience with it. Never crashed (cross my fingers), never lost anything. Very stable to this point.

Haven't needed it yet.

I have had it for over 4 months now and it is the CENTER of my setup. If I lost it or stole, I would be very disappointed and would definitely consider getting a new one. It fits well with my Korg N364 and ER-1. I wish expansions were available because there is no onboard EQing and there are only 2 audio outs. Another MIDI out would be great as well. But, I also remember spending a little over $600 for it and to me, it was a bargain. Don't compare it to things twice as expensive (like the MC505 - which I considered but passed over). This allows me to make the kind of music I want to make. It is not the end-all of hardware, but it is a damn good start and I will keep it, even as I expand.

This thing is really well laid out, sort of similar in organization to the QY-70, but with more controls that make it easier to get exactly what you want, ONCE you've learned it. Having used the QY-70, i figured this thing would be a breeze. And while it IS similar, it's a lot more complicated. So if you're new to Yamaha's screens and organization, get ready for a couple of weeks of learning before you're going to be able to do much programming. But the complexity is all there for a reason, and once you've got it down you should be able to do whatever you want with minimal effort (there are several ways to perform many functions with relative advantages and disadvantages, which is wonderful). A couple of irritating details (for example, switching between tracks is oddly ackward), but mostly a great interface.

Hell yes there are features. At least four different ways to enter data, all different and all useful depending. There are just tons of screens and you can get very "deep" into everything. This thing pretty much makes a MC-303 look like a my first casio. Read the yamaha site for a list of features. There are some weaknesses, tho. I found the arpeggiator to be pretty simplistic. My biggest gripe with the QY-70 applies here just as well - the lack of effects. Yamaha claims "three effects processors," which means chorus reverb and variation. Each track can be bussed to any of the three. This means if you want distortion on your drums and rotary speaker on your electric piano you're screwed. Maybe okay for some (and addmitedly that's not QUITE the end of the story - you can simulate delay, tremlo, and other things with midi), but to me this is just a HORRIBLE state of affairs. To make matters much worse (again, for me), there is only one stereo output (!!! - my SR-16 has four outputs). I'm not really qualified to evaluate the quality of the preset patterns (which are all dance), as this is not what i bought the thing for. But i'd just say that they seem impressive in programming complexity, but it's an open question whether you could actually "rock a party" with the presets. personally, i'd feel a little stupid. but yes, yamaha DID try to make this something that could be used in "live performance" (knobs and informative lights all over the place). the extent to which they succeeded remains an open question.

I used to have the QY-70, and was dissapointed to find that not all of those sounds are here. there ARE lots of nice sounds, mostly electronic but a decent sampling of acoustic instruments, esp. as pertains to electronic music (eg, lots of ethnic instruments). There are LOTS of cheezy synth tones on this thing, although if you want someone to think you've got a minimoog i'm not sure it's going to happen. 808? check. 909? check. rezzy bases, DX-7 strings, "setting sun" bass drum drop? check, check, check. Esp. great is how much you can edit the sounds - all the usual suspects (cutoff, res, a/d/s/r, etc etc- all here, and on knobs no less). the built-in keyboard is more useful then it looks, but of course no velocity sensitivity.

comes in a very nice metal case, but the knobs look a bit fragile. the "playing" keys look like they could take some abuse (and feel great, BTW), the programming buttons a bit stiff. but i'm sure this thing's going to last for a damn long time barring abuse or serous carelessness.

i'm sure the customer support people are very friendly and great. haven't called. incidentally, the manual is not too great. very cluttered and skeletal, not too readable. i've always wanted like an "appliation" book that tells you what different featuers would typically be used for. sort of a cookbook for frequently prepared recepies. but you never see that :-(

there's nothing else like this. i'm not thrilled, but it's the closest to what i need. much more serious then the roland stuff. i'm sort of trying to take the dance out of it, which is a challenge since it really IS a dance machine. i'd say this thing and a cheapo sampler and you could do some pretty decent trance/whatever, tho intricate drum & bass maybe look elsewhere. it's mostly a great machine.