Back in 1996, this beast stepped up as Alesis' flagship synth keyboard, packing a freshly minted 16MB waveform ROM with phase-accurate stereo grand pianos, killer organs, and even waveforms pulled from Keith Emerson's legendary analog modular setup.
Its QS Composite Synthesis engine delivers 64-voice polyphony for lush layers without dropouts, each voice boasting a sweepable lowpass filter, three envelope generators, three LFOs, and a deep modulation matrix to route controllers anywhere you want. The 88-note weighted hammer-action keyboard feels authentically piano-like, with velocity, release velocity, and channel aftertouch for expressive playing, all housed in a rugged all-metal chassis with solid oak end-pieces measuring about 51 by 4 by 16 inches and tipping the scales at around 48 pounds. Hands-on controls include pitch/mod wheels, four assignable sliders, and a tiny LCD for editing its 512 factory/128 user programs or 400 factory/100 user mixes, plus two PCMCIA slots to double ROM to 32MB. Onboard QuadraVerb-inspired effects shine across four independent stereo busses with reverb, delay, chorus, distortion, rotary sim, and more, alongside MIDI I/O, ADAT optical out, expression pedal input, and 64-part multitimbrality over 16 channels.
Players have long praised its pro-grade action and versatile sounds for live gigs and studio work, though that small screen can make deep edits a bit of a menu slog—still, it's a vintage workhorse that holds up for anyone chasing that '90s digital warmth.
