A huge chunk of the cost is in the sheer number of knobs on the P08. Keybed + extra knobs is worth the cost for some. If you don't care about those, then you could also consider just getting a Tetra desktop module and saving even more money. Note that the used market for the P08 is trending towards ...

Yes, that is generally how you want to gain stage -- have max gain as close to the source as possible and then use downstream elements to attenuate/boost as necessary.

Just keep gain staging and impedance matching in mind and you'll be set. I use a Pigtronix Keymaster to handle the effects loop aspect. For pedals, I can highly recommend the Pigtronix Polysaturator, but an even more interesting one that I haven't tried but read a fairly positive review about is the...

A very good general purpose keyboard that might be in your price range is a used or new Kurzweil PC361. Amazingly versatile synth that covers pretty much every sound you want.

The AMT SS-20/SS-30 are fantastic and to my ears sound better than Sans Amp's GT-2 or PSA. I got mine on eBay from the seller.

Unless I'm missing something the sysex interval is only relevant when doing sysex dumps to external devices -- when I'm doing a straight sequence there's no sysex in there (and even if there were, the interval only is an issue if I'm doing bulk dumps).

ninja6485 wrote:Have you ruled out the possibility that your microQ is functioning improperly?

Haven't ruled it out, but I consider it doubtful since to have only MIDI timing be suspect seems like an odd malfunction to have.

Interesting results. I wonder if the Q has the same issues as the micro Q. I'm guessing they share the same code so I would consider it likely, but I have no way of telling. The Blofeld is rock solid though. I know my Blofeld feels very tight on arpeggiated sequences so it doesn't surprise me to re...

As I said earlier the degree to which the timing matters depends greatly on the style of music you're doing. If you're doing 32nd note HHs at 150bpm you'll hear a 2.8ms offset (especially when a note is only 50ms long). A 2.8ms offset is very much like a flange/flam, not necessarily bad but probably...

Bought a Manikin Schrittmacher from 'michenal' and after a hiccup which he was very, very apologetic for (and EXTREMELY responsive about) it arrived and is awesome. Would absolutely buy from him again!

I won't bother posting a graph this time, but after writing my transient detection program it was much easier for me to do extended runs to get more data. Same data as before but over 380 notes. Manikin => MicroQ: -8 sample median error, 6.02ms worst error Manikin => Blofeld: -2 sample median error,...

Won't bother posting a graph, but I ran the tests (now automated, woo!) on my Blofeld and on the MicroQ on port 2 (in case the port mattered). Blofeld was as tight as the NL2. MicroQ was still pretty bad. I extended samples to 60 seconds and was finding swings of over 5ms (either direction, sometime...

I don't see anything wrong with knowing what is going on with a piece of gear that is being used to write music. If it saves frustration, It may certainly be worth it. Frustration with equipment is a huge music writing turn off. Most of my troubles are with sequencing, and I could see how it could ...

No disrespect but you really ought to consider using it to make some music instead! I do that too :D But at the same time, there's nothing more frustrating than trying to make music with uncooperative tools. If I had not known about the MIDI timing issues I would likely have been extremely frustrat...

I'm a programmer, so I'll write something for scratch, shouldn't take long. I'm just going to load up mono WAVs, normalize them, then use specifiable window widths and threshold values to determine trigger levels and dump the output to a CSV, which I can then import to a spreadsheet.