Yes, the Easel arrived.
OK I knew about the wobbly knobs and I knew there was no manual and an external power supply. I'd asked several times about the MIDI and specifically how to set the channel - KMR didn't know and failed to find out but thought it was some power up option maybe. Well, it turns out there's no option because the MIDI is basically pish. It even makes the MIDI of the Korg MS20 Mini (with its fixed MIDI channel) seem advanced and useful. Unbelievably, it's the 21st Century and I have a synth locked in Omni mode. Seriously. I've written to them asking when this will be fixed but it sure didn't get my off to a good start. I created this cool percussive patch and wanted to sequence from the P3, not a lot to ask I don't think!
I'm so glad this isn't a review! I ordinarily make notes - initial impressions I keep to myself.
Here's the list version 1. You'd think this was a budget thing, new, rushed to market.
Not good if you like accurate tracking - but listening to Todd Barton's videos suggests that this is a common thing. Paul L confirms his doesn't track perfectly either. The tiny trimmer isn't for tracking/scaling as I hoped; it's a very fine tune.
External power supply
I like the case. Feels good. Whole thing is smaller and lighter than the Synthi. Not as well thought-out though.
I like the use of colour.
Knobs feel cheap and they wobble, especially those on the keyboard.
Another user from muffs just informed me:
you can´t clock the arp and play MIDI notes at the same time.. it hangs... If you want to play notes youmust disable MIDi clock send from your device..
Keyboard's transpose buttons should have bi-polar knobs to set values methinks.
This is like learning synthesis again from scratch (a good thing).
A printed manual would really have helped. For the aux card too.
It's very easy to bugger the tuning by grabbing the wrong slider. Having a whole row of them is actually worse than the Odyssey since the Odyssey at least set coarse tuning apart from all the mod depths. Uniform layout seems to be against Don's idea of more than 5 controls together being harder to use. Thank heavens for the fine tune!
MIDI - it's omni mode or nothing. Fuck! Doesn't even respond to MIDI CC64 or pitch bend. Somebody really just couldn't be bothered here. Or worse, didn't understand MIDI at all. I'm seeing this more and more.
Envelope is odd. I still need to work out all the nuances. Nice and punchy despite just being attack and decay, with the sustain parameter and that switch needing some practice. Hate reading manuals on-screen but I will have to and soon.
The other 1/4" jack seems to be a (fixed polarity?) sustain pedal input. Useful for keeping the arpeggiator going. ##update - avoid as it seems to do odd things to keyboard triggering.
The arp is pretty limited (2 directions) but it does sync to MIDI clock at least.
Not enough patch cables, especially if you bought aux card. I need at least another dozen - and some that are long enough to go between the aux card and rest of the module. Three of the cables are instantly tied up connecting the keyboard to the main module - surely something that could have been normalised internally then overriden if necessary.
Afraid the reverb is not gonna be very usable - it booms when you play the keyboard, flick switches, touch the synth at all... Stupid design. BBD delay would have been better. Maybe I'll grow to love it for percussion duties.
Possibly the K version would have been better after all given the keyboard's oddness and the daft plastic bits in between keys. Synthi keyboard is actually better to play. The 'black' keys have sharp edges - sharp enough to cut if you catch them at speed. Madness!
The sockets are tight. But a pile of bananas wobbles and needs care. Stoner alert as could easily catch a tower of them and break something.
The aux card may have been a mistake. It's a lot of money for a basic digital oscillator and noise generator but the voltage control over the envelope stages seems to be a good feature. Already made good use of that. Oscillator could still be handy as a mod source though, freeing the other (plain) oscillator. Alarming how the whole module pushes down as you fit the card though. And I'll have to be careful not to catch it and snap it off. Design cockup: it sticks up and obscures some of the controls - making is difficult to access the 4 switches directly beneath it. Still feel it's more useful than the program card but perhaps I bought in haste (and based on Todd's videos). Early days though and I may be singing a different tune tomorrow. Hard to really assess until I get more patch cables. For £800 they could have supplied a few with the card - ones long enough to reach the sockets on the module.
My impression after a couple of hours: they did not set out to delight, these chaps at BEMI. With the general quality and shitty MIDI, it almost feels like it's made with contempt rather than love. After just a couple of hours, if someone asked me how much I thought this would cost, I'd probably estimate between £1,000 and £1500.
I hope that, after our first stoned bonding session, I'll feel a lot differently. Dearly hope. Friday afternoon probably.
Fear not, I will do a more full review as I learn my way around it. In fact I'll hold off posting this until tomorrow's session as I'm conscious that I didn't really say what I did with it, what its strengths appear to be right away, the things I actually like (yes, there are some) etc. etc.
Today (Wednesday) was frustrating because I spent most of the morning dealing with plumber. Got a couple of hours in in the afternoon and worked through Todd Barton's example patches and reading key parts of the manual.
Discovered what seemed to be a problem with a key not working. Apparently caused by my use of the sustain input to keep the arpeggiator going. As this isn't documented I'm going to have to find out if it's something to avoid. The socket is labelled sustain but perhaps I misunderstood.
Got a reply from Buchla admitting that it's Omni on but no commitment to make the MIDI fit for purpose. Still trying to get enough patch leads to work with. Suspect many people buy the program card and do their cabling directly on the app. I have hardly been able to use the aux card yet.
I did get some typical Buchla noises today thanks to the examples and some messing with them.
Full review still to come as I'm conscious I still haven't totted up the good stuff. I have not given up. It makes the 0-Coast seem even more impressive though. ;)
