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Works pretty much as advertised. Lots of decent E.P. and B3 sounds. Acoustic pianos are better than most E.P.s but not as good as the best VSTs like Ivory or Galaxy. Still, by layering two piano sounds I was able to get something that's better than any live stage piano I've had to date. No glitches so far. The supplied software lets you define your own patches for instant recall on stage. It's a cinch to use. Biggest drawback is not being able to add your own VSTs. You have to buy the more expensive Receptor to do that. Hopefully Peavey/Musebox will provide some compatible versions of our favorites on flash card in future. I'd love to be able to get Galaxy Vintage-D into this thing and would pay extra to have a few of my favorite premium sounds like that.

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Musebox is a Linux core computer and solid state hard drive packaged with A/D converters, MIDI, USB, and some other interfaces. It runs software synthesizers and effects but does not provide any sequencer or song producing applications. The front panel interface gives you enough direct control for live use, and the VGA monitor input and USB keyboard/mouse jacks allow you to access the internal software environment. It can run two synths, one guitar, one vocal/mic, and two master effects all at the same time. Synths: strange mix of options, but with a little playing around it's actually quite good. MusePlayer is the primary sample playback app. You can't access the samples directly, but you can take factory patches and change filters & envelopes & LFO's. Very good monophonic portamento mode here, no clicking or popping over long pitch sweeps. This module has its own internal effects which are good. Grand Piano sample is huge, too long to load for the sound I get, so I use rock piano shorter sample. Organs are good, woodwinds not too bad, but overall orchestral instruments are mostly average. Museplayer has a nice pro sound overall,. U-HE Triple Cheese is freeware string-pluck-blown modeling synth, very good! It also has great mono-mode with portamento which is good because the Linn Alpha3-Free analog modeling synth is poly only. Cheese has some unusual sounds & is very programmable. Alpha3 is a programmable basic analog poly-synth with lots of modulation. Other synths are AAS Player, Amber, Alchemy ... all just demo versions with a few sounds each and no editing. Guitar effects based on Peavey apps. This stuff crashes now and then when trying to open editor. Allows choice of amps, stomp boxes, rack effects, etc. Not bad overall, but doesn't blow me away. Can do various distortion, compression, delay, chorus, flange, phase, etc. A few of the amp models have bad noise when I plug in my strat ... just like a real amp system with ground loop problems, ha ha. Cool thing is you can route a synth module into the Peavey effects ... great for lead sounds. Musebox has other effects for vocals, wacky filtering things, compressions, etc. The vocal effects include pitch harmonies, which is interesting and I need to experiment more with that. It's kind of overwhelming, but I like ability to run synth, guitar, and vocal at same time from one box. It's sort of like my Yamaha CS6r, which is the next closest thing short of the Muse Receptor. I wish it had more controls on the MIDI page: hold pedal on/off can't be set for MIDI zones, for example. It does what it says, and it is small to fit inside a carry bag. Perfect for amateur gigs, and very flexible in home studio. It has a card slot for new apps. I would love to see that OPX Oberheim softsynth available one of those cards, but it would have to be the full version with edit capability. Demo versions are useless. The other thing that worries me is how to do remote storage of my program data? I don't know if that is even possible, and I get nervous without some way to back up all the hours I put in. Overall I am happy. Because of Musebox I have a lot of old rack stuff I don't really need anymore.

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Verified Customer zZounds has verified that this reviewer made a purchase from us.

Wish I could have auditioned this unit before I bought it, but no stores in my area wanted to stock it. I listened on the web site to samples, but the real life sounds weren't even close. Sounds were amateurish....regardless of the sample size, running mono or stereo, all the keyboard samples sounded thin, muddy, and weak. Like GM sounds from a Casio. I am a keyboard player and this was my first experience with VST's pluggins. Muse should have stayed with just making VST players.......

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