I have to give it a 5, because, while it cannot compare to newer akai samplers with tons of features, it still is very usable for only 1/10th of the price.

I use the long2 setting for the samples, and yes, they are somewhat scratchy, but then again, so is everything else.... I can deal with it.

Plusses in my book: It's Battery powered! I'll be on the train, or even in my car (watch for a guy driving a red Eclipse with his head looking down) during traffic, and mess around with it. Hell, I could get out my old MC-303(I created a battery supply for it, just go down to radioshack, get a 9 volt plug thing, hook up about 6 batteries, and you're all set for a while) and have a midi setup on AA's. The pads on mine are still nice and soft, although I don't know how much usage it had on it.

The operating system is SO EASY to learn.... The nice little lcd matrix works great, and the buttons don't have like fourty assignments to them. All easy and clear.

Sample time editing is top notch, as I mostly use my computer as a "storage-bin" for my samples, and I play it on there, patching into the input on the MS-1. Of course there's a bit of delay in the time, but one can edit and clip the samples within the utility mode.

Bad stuff (insert dramatic music):

1) Pitch control is global, and only goes from -20% to +10%. Yuck,yuck,yuck!

2) No midi through.

3) Internal can only hold 16 samples, no matter how much more free space you have internally. Bad news for tone samples, or really short ones.

4) Occasionally lags when a few samples start going.

5) No internal F/X (not much complaint from me though, I prefer external ones)

Overall... It's not for an all out studio (although this 250 buck sampler can't compare to some 1500 dollar akai...) but it's great fun, sample "natural" (as in outside) sounds, and playing with..... Take it down a notch if you don't really care about portability.

If all you plan on doing is small loops. drum hits, efx, etc then this is a great little phrase sampler. The audio is really good, clean punchy and has ample low end which 10x more expensive akai's seem to lack.

All in all, I started my sampling with one of these, and it was fine for a while, now I've gone on to bigger and more expensive samplers, ie. E-mu.

For the money these can't be beat, especially because they have a little dinky sequencer too, for the price you can't beat it.

The Ms-1 is probably one of the better phrase samplers out there. No gimmicks, just straight forward sampling, editing, durability and excellent sound quality and crunch.

sample time and utilize it for drum loops, as a drum machine - via the utilization of a external sequencer, for

backing vocals to bounce on my 4 track - yamaha mt4x - weird sound effects i get by layering my synth sounds

and also an array of personalized vocal samples I get from singers i do traxx for, so the machine is meeting my musical needs. by the way, my upgrade 6mb card costs

me approximately 179.00 - the music stores don't want you to know how to get them this cheap because it cuts into their profits. most local computer stores can get you those

pcmia cards alot cheaper than a music store - if i'd have bought my 6MB card from a music store it would have cost me

approximately $350-$400.00. If you add the costs of the MS-1 ($395.00) and add the music store card upgrade i got ($350) you

could almost by a sampler module.