Keyboard: 5 stars! Great wheighted action, low noise, just feels right and expensive. The black keys are maybe a little too sharp-edged for my personal taste, but should appeal to others.

Hardware: 4 stars. Sturdy case. Heavy, built to last, EXCEPT! ... watch out for the push buttons, specially those 8 buttons on the drum machine variation section. They just don't feel like they're going to last long. They may, only if you handle them with some caution. The dial buttons under the screen are OK, but have some imprecisions.The screen does the job well, but, considering the size of the digits, the screen iss large but oddly not too much informative.The pedal is wonderfuly solid and trusty.

Sounds: Too bad it doesn't come with the editing tools of the MR series built-in ... you have to get a computer and a soft editor. The on-board sounds are worth 4 1/2 stars. Good quality overall, some imaginative and powerfull, some weakenesses on the guitar/brass sections. The "Perfect Piano" expansion (built-in) is AWSOME. The best piano sounds I've heared in an electronic device yet! Deserves full 5 stars!! The "WORLD" expansion is very very good, specially with ethnic vocal lines. 5 Stars!! "Urban Dance", another great tool. Great sounds, cover some of the weakenesses of the on-board soundset. 5 Stars!I got mine with the rare 4 MB Flash RAM card, wich is extremely useful to store extra sounds, sequences, drum lines, etc. Get one if you can. I also purchased Syntaur's disk with about 150 new sounds for the ZR. It's really worth the money. Great basses, 303, Moog, and the sort. Some good analog emulations too. 5 stars!

Software: 3 1/2 stars. The weakest point of this synth. First, because the editing must be made from an external computer. Second, it has an annoying thing in the drum machine department: If a rythm is kicking and you change to another rythm manually ... the machine stops! Whatintheworld ...?!? This was supposed to be a drum machine or what? Sometimes when dramatic data changes must be made at one time, the machine clutters momentarly ... this could be dangerous in the middle of a live gig when you are doing most of the sequencing from the ZR ... carefully explore this machine's engine capacities before you venture with it in heavy sequencing live. The sequencer is fairly powerfull, though. Wish it had 24 tracks instead of 16. Third-party support is very little, too.So, don't expect to find a lot of sounds out there.The "idea pad" is the key-selling point of this machine. In the background, it captures EVERYTHING you play, and plays it back at your request, so you don't lose a creative idea you've just had. For this feature alone, I'll give it another 5 stars.

Overall impression: Go get one. Sounds are excellent, real good workhouse. But expand it to the max. It may not be cheap, but it's such a great composing tool (and a great synth, if you like to edit from a computer...)that I'm sure it will stay as the centerpiece of your songwriting work for years to come.

However, this allowed me to purchase the ZR-76. As a performance keyboard it's not as good, but as a workstation for creation, it's one of the best in its price category. It's a little weak in the brass department, but I understand that's fixable by purchasing hardware/software. The bottom line is this, it's not perfect, but then what is? It's affordable and you definitely get your money's worth if you have the talents, creativity and dedication.

I've created pieces that I only dreamed of before. The phat technology utilized by this instrument gives a richness and depth yearned for by many musicians and recording artists.

I highly recommend it and look forward to pairing it with other instruments and instrumentalists in the future.