Need Workstation setup. How do i go about this?

[lateralus778]

I hate starting threads, but i pretty much ONLY have questions.

Heres what i need it to have:

-4+ track audio recording with USB connectivity
-Subtractive synthesis (Similar to Nord lead, JP8000, but not those damn "Supersaw" sounds)
-no "sample" playback crap like all these Yamaha and Casio arrangers - i hate those sounds
-dont care about sampling really, if it has it - great, but i probably wont use it.

So far it's looking like an Alesis Fusion, but i've heard all the thousands of customer support problems, as well as the slow OS.

I never get good deals on eBay, and i always end up paying near $150 for shipping.

Also, i would get a decent 4-track recorder and synth, but there are no pawn shops within 50 miles, and the nearest one only has old casios and an MMT sequencer (for $270!)

I've played around with a Triton and FantomX at a Guitar Center in Lincoln, NE, ( i live in Omaha, NE) but those keyboards pretty much only have presets i think? I hate using those things... Besides, they're way overpriced for what they seem to offer. Or at least i dont feel like paying for the extra CRAP that they do offer.

Is there anything simple? ( It seems i can never keep a computer for more than 2 months at any given time - something bad always happens )

Juno-G???

[BONES]

Not much that I can think of, especially if you want the 4-track audio recording thing. KORG had it as an option in the Trinity but dropped it in the Triton AFAIK, but you still had to have an external SCSI drive to record onto. Maybe you could find a 2nd hand Trinity with the option but I don't think too many people bought it .
Trinity and Triton both have full-featured synth capabilities, it's just that they use sampled waveforms as the basic sound. So if you start with a DWGS Saw or something simple, you can make your own sounds just like any synth. You can also get a MOSS board as an option, which will give you 6-voices of V/A synth.

[lateralus778]

Not much that I can think of, especially if you want the 4-track audio recording thing. KORG had it as an option in the Trinity but dropped it in the Triton AFAIK, but you still had to have an external SCSI drive to record onto. Maybe you could find a 2nd hand Trinity with the option but I don't think too many people bought it .
Trinity and Triton both have full-featured synth capabilities, it's just that they use sampled waveforms as the basic sound. So if you start with a DWGS Saw or something simple, you can make your own sounds just like any synth. You can also get a MOSS board as an option, which will give you 6-voices of V/A synth.

So a triton doesnt just have presets? Cause that's all i've seen or have been bothered to look into. I just dont see many knobs for actually tweaking anything. I'll look into the Trinity though!

[keyman_sam]

I'd strongly suggest getting a used Fantom S (on ebay or craigslist or wherever). Its sound creation capabilities rival that of some VAs. i.e. its sound engine is far superior to the Motif ES or any of the Tritons. The Fantom X can record 4 tracks audio, btw.

If you're worried about presets, simply reset them all, and they'll all be blank so you can create everything from scratch.

[MitchK1989]

the triton/fantom boards can be used for programming from scratch (starting with one of the included ROM samples of course, but there are basic waves), but the interface and the filters aren't up to par for this IMO.

Pretty much all the bugs on the alesis fusion are fixed now, the last one being the most major (sync issues between audio and midi tracks). The interface is much better than a triton/fantom, although the sequencer isn't quite as good. There is a loading time when you load up sample based presets, but it's not that bad (was greatly improved in one of the patches), and is a neccesity since the fusion allows the loading of samples off of the 40/80 gig HD (depends on the production run I think. The newer ones have 80 gigs... Of course, you can install your own... I think it's a lappy HD) instead of relying on a preset 512 megs of ROM and another 2 gigs of RAM (at extra cost, of course). The FM synthesis and VA synthesis on the fusion are actual VA and FM, not just samples, and there are up to 8 envelopes and LFOs to work with.

Overall the fusion is a very nice synth, but I wound up selling mine because I needed a new DAW and I had the 8HD 88 key model, which was too heavy and large for gigging.