Alesis AirSynth Digital Hand Controlled Effects Unit

I see I am the only person here that actually owns the AirSynth, and let me tell you, the specs do far less justice for this little box than I thought.

In about 1 hour of playing the AirSynth, I had already created a piece of music with it. I used the AirSynth, and some looping software through my computer.

Here is my thoughts so far;
The AirSynth has a lot of great sounds, ranging from robot sounds, some environmental sounds, to good old fashioned noises. The sound set is excellent overall, and despite taking some practice to control, the AXYZ interface is very expressive. It is very good at getting your thoughts turned into sounds.

As far as working with it in the studio, it is very good for production work to post production. The AirSynth is great for adding a sound effect here and there to nearly completed music.

The downside is that the AirSynth has no guitar amp connections, just RCAs. This is not a big problem, because you can use adaptors, and in some cases (such as people with boom boxes with RCAs) it's probably a good thing. The P3 power supply is a sticking point too, as it runs on 9VAC, and has no batteies, it is not "street musician" friendly. Not a problem for the studio, but you need an outlet to run it at the coffee house, etc. You can't rig a battery to it, because it needs AC power to function.

The RCA ins were an excellent idea. You can plug in a CD player or sequencer, and play along with the music. One drag is not having a volume control on the AirSynth, so you have to control the volume of the input to balance them out. This is a minor inconvenience, though.

The AirSynth is not like the AirFX, and is not a replacement to the AirFX, but using both together would be interesting...

Overal, the AirSynth is excellent, and does things no other effects box does. I am very happy with it, and it is worth every penny of the suggested retail, as well as it's sale price!

the sound quality is very good, and the presets are quite flexible and for the most part, useful. there are several 'theremin' patches on it, but to my ear what really shines are the outrageous SFX and the simple pattern generators. fun fun fun!

like the airFX, this instrument is a blast to play and to play with. subtle finger movements and wrist action become second nature with the presets, and people seem to love watching it being played.

as long as you don't expect to be doing Bach fugues on the little thing you should be pleased with the way it deals with pitch/melody/rhythm.

there are several 'sequencer' patches which allow you to create drum patterns, ostinatos, etc. there are also a couple of 'random melody' generators which have a neat 'loop trapping' function. one patch features a pre-quantized pentatonic scale. another patch allows you to select one of several base pitches, then alter harmonic content enough to create melodies. very cool...

i have to think hard to find anything i'd change or wish for. here are two minor points:

1 - as near as i can tell, resetting the tempo causes the latest sequence or random melody to reset - you have to set tempo, then load a melody/sequence.

2 - MIDI heads out there might quibble a bit over the lack of MIDI, but i feel that this would miss the point - this is a simple but unique instrument, not a be-all/end-all synthesizer controller thingie.

...oh, yeah: it looks downright sexy with its kandy apple orange paint job and futuristic styling. kazow!