You also get good quality samples of many real instruments like guitars, chiff flutes (aside: if you want to do a cover of "the chauffeur", this is your man) and organs, which takes care of most of your real instrument needs. So if nothing else, don't spend a grand on a JV-1080 just because you need a decent harp sound.

Thinness: The DJX sounds can be somewhat thin. However, they're much nicer than some of the much pricier but still crap VAs out there (supernova, virus, etc.) Also, realize that thin can be good. Unless you're Utah Saints, you want the singer's voice to dominate, not the synth. The minimoog, for example, does not play well with others. But the DJX tends to blend nicely into a mix. When I first got my DJX, I thought the effects weren't any good. Not true. I made the mistake of trying to run the synth sounds through the DSP. There wasn't much of an effect. But most synth sounds are pretty basic--a sine, square or a sawtooth in some combination. Consequently there's not much "digital signal" to "process." However, the DSP works quite well on the sampled guitar sounds. For a nice "Up"-like REM guitar with distortion, put on "nylon guitar" with the DSP at full blast using the hard distortion option. Turn on the reverb. Then use the assign knob to lengthen the release a bit. Another nice one I just discovered is to do the same on the "clean guitar" voice, and then put the dual voice on "strings". Tasty!

Now, as for what this box is not. It is not a synthesizer. Sound creation is limited to combining sounds via the dual option, and processing sounds through the internal effects. If you want to spend a long time on sound creation, buy a pulse. On the other hand, if you want some pretty good presets, buy this box.

For price/performance, I give it a 5.

is there any way to get the ability to sample anything longer than around 3 seconds?!?!? is there some way i can upgrade my djx for that?? peace, [o]