Feature:
No accessories came with it, there really should be at least a short USB cable.
Jumping to mark points is instant and easy. On the down side, the silk screened lettering is unfortunately much too small for my old eyes. There's no real reason for it, they had plenty of room and chose to use a small font and a dull white. Some attention to ease of use would have paid off here.
Quality:
Solid enough but again, the pre's are junk. Live recording can be a problem due to long pauses after recording tracks, to rebuild files. The longer the track, the longer it goes offline when you shut down. I think if I ever tried to use it live I might just leave it on for all 4 sets. You could convievably use this thing for your only mixer, live, recording while you perform. I would NOT want to try it.
Value:
I'm still pretty happy with it, despite its flaws. It should be about $200 cheaper due to the bad pre's, which add to the real cost of setting up a decent system centered around this thing. For those without a DAW or external effects, the onboard affects are decent.
Desirability:
Nothing with a display as small as this is going to get much of a rating for 'sex appeal' It just looks like a pretty ordinary mixer with a few cute red green and yellow lites and an LCD display.
Sound:
I like this device better than another reviewer but he's right about the trim pots; they are horrible, definitely the weakest part of this device. I've had it for a few months and been using the pre's on my old Mackie 1202. Now I'm looking for a tube pre to warm things up a bit. Other than that it's mostly a good product; the USB interface is wide open, allowing you to see the whole drive in Win XP or Linux. The user interface is pretty good. Team this up with Ardour on your Linux box and you've got a hell of a DAW. The fact you can only go 44khz is a flaw but personally I find it adequate for my needs.
Ease of Use:
The manual is great, downloadable online and for the most part, if you understand an analog mixer you can get results from this box. But here again, the pre's are the problem. Wether plugging in an SM57 or a Rhodes NT or a AKG C1000, they are just pure clunky junk that responds not at all until they come live at the end of their travel and peg the VU. You'll need to find a ballpark setting and do the real work with an external pre on each track you use. On the other hand, how many DAW's in this price range can handle 8 simultaneous inputs?
Support:
Haven't needed to call.
Overall:
I really wish I'd known how bad the pre's are in these boxes, and if I'd known I might probably have continued looking. Korgs refusal to fix this issue is mystifying. Not that it makes them unusable or anything, but if I hadn't already owned some gear with decent pre's in it to beef up the signal path I'd probably have sent it back. Things are changing fast in this arena and while the D888 is a good niche product for those of us who will put with 44khZ and want more than 2 channels of recording at a time, that alone isn't going to keep this product selling. I predict within two years someone will say to me, 'You've got a Korg -what- for sale?' because nobody will remember this thing.
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