Sounds: Hit and miss. It's clear to me where Alesis spent its time and memory...on the beautiful spankable Rhodes sounds! I would keep this synth just for the RayzRoadz patch (ProgPreset 1-03 I think) alone. Some decent basic analog sounds (i.e. Quadratix) as well, and some of the string patches are brilliant (I love DiamondStrings). But the acoustic pianos are godawful and tinny, and the B3s require a lot of tweaking to sound decent.

Userfriendliness: Well, for the fact that I had no manual for the first 6 months, yet still learned how to program and edit, I guess it must be fairly userfriendly. But GODDAMN I wish it had knobs and sliders to play with! Also love the fact you can easily split and layer the keyboard a million different ways.

And the amount of room for multitimbral is great...especially if you're like me and like to create a new program or patch for every song!

Durability: Meh. Mine had 'demonic possession' from the getgo...would 'wake up' in the wrong key (1 semitone low) and I'd flick it from Mix to Program and back to snap it out of it. And it still modulates into different keys on occasion...mebbe it thinks it's analog? Yeah, exciting to gig with...nearly shat myself a couple of times (but now I have perfect pitch thanks to this problem!). Plus the pitch bend didn't work at all. I just got it fixed, so now the pitch bend works, but it 'chirps' and 'tweets' , especially when pitch bend is set to max (+/-12 semitones). And it STILL modulates...gonna send it back to have them look at it again. Other owners of QS6es/QS7s have told me this is a common problem.

Overall, I'll miss it when it dies, but I won't go find another one anytime soon!

Interface - the #1 thing people seem to not like about it. Now, is it the greatest, most intuitive interface in the world? no. But, it's not as bad as people make it out to be. The first day I brought it home, I figured out how to make my own sounds. And after another evening of studying the manual w/ the keyboard in front of me, I got the hang of the drum and mix modes. The complete workings of the internal FX still manage to elude me, but I'm working on it. So, it's not going to be something you can hit the ground running with, but with a little sit-down with the manual, it's certainly serviceable.

Sounds - I'm a bit iffy on this part. I mean, there are some *awesome* sounds in there and it probably has the best presets I've heard, but it, like any board, has it's strengths and weaknesses. Pianos are good, I prefer the Rhodes (HardRhodes being my favorite) over any of the FM or EP/Pad sounds, which sound kind of like "new age" music to me. Strings are excellent, same with pads. Realistic instruments, well that varies greatly between sounds and all depends on how realistic you want. I do synthpop/industrial, so they work for me. Synths are..o-kay. Alot of people like them, but..I dunno, they just don't overwhelm me or anything. Might have a bit to do w/ the lack of a resonant filter. They do their job. Drums, same thing..they're o-kay. I wouldn't use them in a final mix, just because of the style of music I do, but they work when sketching out songs.

At the End of the Day - Excellent machine for rock, pop, synthpop, maybe even some goth. Industrial and Prog fans will probably be turned away by it's generally "meat and potatoes" type of sounds. And, thanks to all the real-time controls *excellent* performance machine. I'm really looking forward to taking it out on a gig.

Soundwise, no complaints at all. It's solidly built, puts out a nice strong signal, and my unit is pretty quiet. I'd say that more than half of the preset sounds are useful right out of the box. Many of the more "boring" sounds demonstrate their purpose when you start using the mod wheel (which far too many people ignore in their playing style -- heck that was half of playing back in the days of analog monosynths) and the Controller-A slider (which nearly no one remembers is there).

I've added the EuroDance Q-Card to mine, and again, better than half are very useful. The others are, well, a matter of taste.

Unlike other comments made here, I found the pianos in the QS-6 to be one of the weakest features in the soundset. I was so frustrated with them, I went out and bought a NanoPiano. Other complaints: Only one Q-card slot, which is why I bought a NanoPiano and not the Stereo Grand Q-card. I really despise the feel of the buttons on the front panel. And programming this thing through the front panel is an exercise in frustration, especially the effects, which are notorious for being particularly difficult to program. Fortunately it comes bundled with editor software, and a universal editor like SoundDiver copes with it quite readily as well.

I love the feel of the keyboard, the best one that I have used short of a fully-weighted piano action. Of course, that's entirely a matter of opinion, because lots of people despise the keyboard. But I love the heck out of it.

By programming the mix patches cleverly, this unit becomes a quite capable master keyboard. The keyboard is splittable in lots of ways, or layers or whatnot, and can transmit on multiple MIDI channels at once. Controller-wise, the keyboard supports velocity, aftertouch, and release; it can support two pedals; it has pitch bend and mod wheels plus the Controller A slider.

This is a very solid workhorse synth. How well it ages depends on how good a job Alesis does in keeping Q-cards updated and in your effort to get into the programming. At this point, a QS-6.1 is probably a better buy, but if you're budget conscious, you can get a plain QS-6 rather inexpensively.

DAVID VESEL http://www.ampcast.com/davidvesel