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Average rating:
4.3 out of 5
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I used to own an S2 Turbo. I sold my Yamaha SY85 and got the GEM, I must this great workstation did not get the success it deserved, I thought i was great, With a decent amount of Sample RAM and although the interface takes some time to get used to, it does become second nature after a while, great sounds, great build quality, great sequencer, great screen, nice keyboard, Excellent MIDI spec. You could pick one up for about £600 second hand, Bargain.
I reluctantly sold mine to buy a Triton.
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The GEM S2 Turbo is a very good instrument with tremendous great options for the time it was released. Imagine what you can do with 4 extra outputs if you assign them to different amplifiers and speakers... You could create complex true quadrophonic sounds and textures! Another nice thing to try is to make 16 channels the same sound, but give them a different pitch-value and a different start time. You now got your own small arpeggiator or phrase-synth. Now to Ralf's question. You want to record or play a part into a sequencer without playing (generating) the sound of the GEM. This is easily done by going to the tracks section. Once there go to the first page (the one with the sound-routing). You'll see 'Generation' there. This is how the actual sound-output is called by the boys at GEM. Turn the alpha-dial until Generation lites up and press the Enter-button. Now the arrow in front of Generation should dissapear. You've now set this track into local-off mode. It will transmit and receive MIDI-data but will not generate the internal sound assigned to the track anymore. I actually use this a lot in my live setup to use the GEM to trigger my Roland XP-50, works great! If you have any more questions regarding the usage or tips/tricks for the GEM S2, just leave an e-mail. At first the complex functions and controllers the GEM can utilize startless users at the first time (at least it did to me) but after some time the big display and the functions become very intuitive and a breeze to work with. I use the GEM as a master-keyboard and it is very powerful for that task, especially since you can assign the sliders and user-buttons to almost any controller you want. Pity is that especially the Brass-sounds of the GEM really are crap. The synth-brass sounds are good, and that is what I feel about the GEM. It is a very good synth in emulating those old analog synths like the ARP 2600 and the Elka Synthex which if you play them at low octaves really take into the bass-sublayers that make your hair go into Elvis-style when played at the appropriate volume offcourse :-) Big minus is that this synth with integrated sample-player was never a runner-up in the music-business and thus is now worth very little cash if you'd want to sell it or trade it when buying a new synth. My advice therefore is to learn to master the GEM S2 and if you own one never do it away anymore. It's functionality and features do really not stand into any comparision to the to-date value, in other words, it's way to good for the money you would get for it nowadays. Some things I would like to see for the GEM S2 is the possibilty of building in a SCSI-interface for storing sample- and sounddata, and some homepages that carry sounds and performances. Okay, that's what I have to say on the GEM S2 Turbo. Be seeing you all and keep the music play on! Ohh yeah... to all you GEM S2 non-Turbo users... The Turbo-Kit is an absolute MUST!!!
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