Alesis QS7.1 review (such as it is)
AlinMV said:
HomeRec
Now that you've had the Alesis board for a while, can you give us some honest to goodness opinion on the quality of the board... I mean does it sound good? I have a QSR, but don't use it much. . . The price was right at the time, but it sits in my studio gathering dust... I would like to put it to good use, so any review would be appreciated.
Someone wants
my opinion on a synthesizer? Talk about the flip side of the coin...
First, let me qualify this review with the fact that I have thus far only really listened to the output of the synth through inexpensive headphones and computer speakers, since I do not have studio monitors or a keyboard amp. Also, I do not know how similar or dissimilar the QS7.1 is to the QSR.
That said, I think the sounds on
the QS7.1 are very good. My personal favorite program is the DM5 Drums kit, which has excellent samples, especially the kick and snare. The piano programs are good quality, not even close to a P200 or a real piano, but they do the trick. A bit of tweaking is most likely required, however, as they are a bit "reverb-happy". The bass samples are okay, passable for background, but you're certainly not going to fool anyone into thinking Les Claypool stopped in to record a track for you. Finally, the string sections on the keyboard are very nice, especially for background music.
Bad samples include single stringed instruments. If the scraping, screeching "Violinist" sample was a real violin player, he or she would most likely be fired on the spot. It is horrendous, as is the viola sound. The winds section has a few decent samples, but most are mediocre to bad (saxophones are a good example of "bad").
As a final note on sounds, one feature I really liked was the entirely separate General MIDI bank. Essentially, the entire General MIDI sound set is represented, in order, in a single group of 128 programs, a feature which I did not find in any other keyboards (It may have been there, but I didn't find it). You can even set the keyboard to "General MIDI editing mode".
The editing is... well, in a word, complex. Lots of screens, lots of options, and lots of information to digest. The effects are arranged in a bizarre fashion as well... 5 sets of effects in different configurations rather than separate processors for each effect. However, once you get past the learning curve (aka read the manual in detail), there is a lot you can do with this keyboard, and you can get a excellent results, as it contains a very powerful synthesizer and effects processor.
The synth-weighted action was a major selling point on this keyboard. Unlike
the Yamaha S30 and
Roland XP30, this keyboard actually has some weight to it. And, since it
is only synth-weighted, it isn't nearly as heavy as 88-key weighted boards (
Yamaha S80, Alesis QS8.1).
The QS7.1 also has 76 keys, another strong selling point in its price range. It's not as good as 88, but much better than 61. There is also an "easy transpose" feature that allows you to transpose the keyboard up or down a maximum of one octave, allowing you to get at those hard-to-reach high or low notes.
Overall, I'm still fairly impressed with the QS7.1. I will most likely eventually pick up an 88-key weighted board for piano playing, as 76 keys and synth-weighted action
is a bit limiting. But for now, the QS7.1 delivers a good variety of sounds, good feel, and top-notch customizability for an excellent price.
