the present state of the Alesis Fusion?

[devolition]

I've recently decided that I'd like to acquire my first workstation, and I'm working with a slightly flexible $1000 budget. The last synth I bought was the Micron, and that was a couple years ago. So I've spent the last few days becoming acquainted with what's available.

 

The Fusion's price is definitely right, and I like the four synths in one concept. Now I have a few questions.

 

1. I've read a bunch of negative comments about the Fusion. I guess the "sounds" are considered mediocre by some. Are those sounds the rompler ones? I assue the VA, FM, and PM sounds are all reasonably good, which are the sounds I'm more into. As long as there's a halfway decent piano and strings section, I'm not so concerned about the sampled sounds that it can make.

 

2. I've seen complaints about the Fusion's sequencer not having a pattern mode. I think I understand what that means--I'd have to copy patterns throughout a linear track if I want them to repeat ad nauseam. The only hardware sequencers I've ever used are the Alesis MMT8 and the Yamaha QY70. Do you think I'll be disappointed by the MIDI sequencing functionality? What about the audio sequencing? It's less important to me--more of bonus.

 

3. Are there any glaring bugs that aren't worked out with the latest OS?

 

4. How does the Micron compare to the Fusion's VA engine? Is it redundant to have both?

 

5. From what I can tell by reading about the other workstations in my price range, they seem to be greatly lacking in the sonic programmability depth that the Fusion has. Am I mistaken? Should I consider another one?

 

Thanks for any comments.

[mobobog]

I have a fusion 8hd and the micron

 

1. In my opinion the worst thing about the fusion's sounds is that they come flooded in FX, even the VA, PM, and FM ones. So the first thing for me when i dont like the sounds is to tweak the effects. I tweaked the piano's reverb and now i liked it, i tweaked some FM piano

[Superace25]

After so many people complained about the initial presets, Alesis contracted Hollow Sun to program some new banks, and they are generally considered to be much better. You can download them here. If you buy from Sweetwater, they sell the Fusion pre-loaded with the Hollow Sun set and a few other things.

 

Do yourself a favor and check out Carbon111's extensive review.

 

FYI, I am also considering a Fusion in the near future. I still need to save up a bit, and I'm a bit nervous about losing the wonderful keys on my S80.

[Khazul]

The fusion is actually very good - my main winges about it are lack of tempo sync on fx (for eg delays), and that the sample switching is very obvious.

 

In the end though, I have an HD8 when I could have had a Motif ES, Fantom X, Triton Extreme etc - ie I didnt really buy it because of its price, but actually that its a decent board in its own right and at the time myself and people in geneal seemed pretty confident that alesis would sort out its omissions and issues etc.

 

Most if the bugs have been sorted, some of its suprising feature holes have too. I actually quite liked its sound to start with - quite a refreshing change from the way more processed sound of samples in the other romplers... but after a time the rawness starts to grate when you find yourself spending way to much time fixing the resulting audio.

 

Its still a very good and unique board that can be had very cheap. What has probably save dit for me is that I also have a MOtif ES rack - so when I need clean sounds - I use that. Was supposed to have had a Fantom XR as well but some ass on ebay was f****** about.

[cruster]

Khazul, can you tell me how the keybed on the 8HD compares to the Motif?

[Khazul]

I personally dont really like the key action on the motif es 8. My guess is piano players will generally prefer the yamaha, whereas synth players looking for a much more expressive weighted hammer-like action keyboard for piano type parts will prefer the fusion keybed - slightly lighter weight, still has the piano like hammer feel (ie it doesnt feel like a weighted spring like some), and a possibly faster return than most yamaha 80 key keybeds Ive played (Motif ES and various high end yamaha digital pianos). Seems nicely balanced to me and good momentum, soft endstop with lots of room for aftertouch too.

 

I had a jazz piano teacher for a while last year - he quite liked the fusion keybed - he normally only plays very expensive accoustic grands, so if his opinion is anything to go by - it aint bad.

[mildbill]

1. VA - excellent. FM - excellent. PM - limited models, but very good. Sample playback - hey, it's a sampler - it'll sound like what you load into it.

 

2. Don't know - I use Cubase.

 

3. You can't hook up an external hard (unless it's in a computer acting as the master), but you can save to a computer or compact flash card.

 

4. I have both a Micron and the Fusion and I don't think the VA section is redundant. Similar achitectures, but enough differences to give them both their own sound.

 

5. Kurzweil's K series is just as, if not more programmable. Next in line, after the Fusion and Kurzweil, is Korg, then Roland, then Yamaha. I don't know about the others. Ensoniq/emu made some real programmable stuff, but I'm not sure if they ever made a proper workstation.

[devolition]

Thanks all for the input. The Fusion is sounding pretty good to me, except that I don't know much about the sequencer yet. I've glanced at the manual, but it's hard to tell how that translates to actually using the sequencer.

 

So, does anyone actually use the Fusion's sequencer? I would definitely use it, so I'm very interested in how well it works in practice. I guess I could try to find one to try--the nearest GC is a good 45-60 minutes away when traffic is good.

 

The only other sequence-able instruments I have--a Micron and a drum machine--have built in sequencing, and I prefer to stay away from the PC until I'm ready to record audio.

[Superace25]

For what it's worth, the Fusion is being discontinued soon. Here's an email from my Sweetwater sales guy:

 

Peter,

 

Because the Fusion has been a significant keyboard for us I would think we wil carry the FusionRAM. However, the Fusion6 has been discontinued. We are still getting 88s, but I assume it is just a matter of time before they too will be discontinued.

 

Thanks,

 

Matt

 

So make your choice soon!

[Diametro]

Soon-to-be-classic!

 

 

FUSION likes ...

 

-- vintage / oddball soundset (some of my favorite sounds are from any of the 15 Hollow Sun freepacks ... just some weird, raw stuff and strange samples) ...

 

-- well-made ...

 

apparently, it's a good hard disk based sampler ...

 

-- FM bells have scary goodness; good selection of synth sounds;

 

-- four arps with decent programmability

 

DISLIKES ...

 

-- never really gelled with UI even though it's straightforward ... not enough dedicated control buttons ...

 

-- 1 knob per synthesis type

 

-- random dislike: trigger pads only function when depressed ... meaning you can't set and forget ... and why?

 

-- random dislike #2 audio tracks function only in most simple song creation terms or as a means to play along with backing tracks.

 

-- audio inputs turn off when sequencer is playing ... this has a profound impact on its use as a mixer when attempting song creation on the Fusion or the sequencer being slaved to another MIDI device (which it does a good job of staying synced) ...

 

-- bread and butter workstation sounds lacking (Orchestral almost nonexistent) / soundset very patchy... (but the grand piano and electric pianos are good as well as aformentioned synth sounds and tubular bells; PADS out the WAZOO!!! But only a handful are actually all that great ... )

 

 

In my galaxy of synths, it seems to get overshadowed a lot ...

 

 

But she's staying in the fleet for now!

[elsongs]

I have a fusion 8hd and the micron 1. In my opinion the worst thing about the fusion's sounds is that they come flooded in FX

 

If that's true then I don't think the sounds on a Triton, Motif or a Fantom are any better

[Birdienumnum]

For what it's worth, the Fusion is being discontinued soon.

 

But the older Andy, Ion and Micron are still around. What does that say about the Fusion? I guess Diametro was right: gobble gobble gobble!

 

Oh well, nice try Alesis. Next time, don't rush the product out (same problem with the IO14/26 interface). But I still love my Micron & ADAT.

[elsongs]

But the older Andy, Ion and Micron are still around. What does that say about the Fusion? I guess Diametro was right: gobble gobble gobble! Oh well, nice try Alesis. Next time, don't rush the product out (same problem with the IO14/26 interface). But I still love my Micron & ADAT.

 

Rompler Market = Tons of competition by larger manufacturers who own the market share.

 

Analog/VA Market = Only serious competition is by smaller companies, and Yamaha, Roland and Korg don't really care about VA much less analog anymore, so Alesis is the only major manufacturer, and the default market leader, in this regard.

[Diametro]

I believe Numark will continue to manufacture Alesis hardware synth products until slackening demand makes it unprofitable.

 

There will be no new hardware synths ever again ... That's my guess.

 

That's one of the reasons I decided to keep the Fusion and the Micron even though I had buyers for the them ... C'est la vie ...

 

I'm going to make it a kick-ass mellontron sampler!!!

[elsongs]

 

There will be no new hardware synths ever again ... That's my guess.

 

 

 

I seriously doubt that. video games are popular, and more kids these days play MLB2Kwhatever on their X-Boxes than Little League...but sports is not obsolete.

 

Even with synths came out, some people predicted that these "fake" musical instruments would make "real" instruments like guitars and drums, etc obsolete.

 

Last I checked, guitar-based indie rock is far more popular than techno.

 

Until someone develops a computer that can fully boot up in less than 5 seconds after power on, then we will still be seeing hardware synths.

[Diametro]

By Alesis aka Numark.

 

Capice?

[Khazul]

Diametro - yeh - agree with your comments above - along woth a whole heap of other gripes, but the odd thing is I still keep it despite thnking of selling it often.

 

I guess the reasons I keep it are:

 

- none of the other workstations actually grab me *that* much to be worth shelling out for (especially as I would want the 88key version).

- the current value of a second hand fusion if I sold it is now soooo low (cheers for that alesis you b*****ds) that it just isnt even worth selling - ill probably give it to my girlfriend when it ceases to be of use in studio (hopefully when next gen fantom appears).

- Its actually a nice keyboard to play - I do need an piano like action for some stuff and the alternate 88 key workstations cost a furtune - actually its cheaper to buy a fusion + a Motif ES rack or Fantom XR.

- Can do some really good sounds *if* I can be bothered to dig into its UI - like you - I just dont really gel with it - seems to required a rediculous number of button pressed even though its easy to navigate, and of course there is no useful external control support via midi for parameter tweaking between what you assign through its performance controls.

- Sequencer and sampling where a couple of the things I bought it for - in the end never really used either as the sequencer was too buggy when I bought it so had to make other plans. When it was finally useable I tried it couple of time out of curiosity, but never got into using it - now I use an AKAI MPC 2500 for hardware sequencing needs.

 

In the end - this board and alesis has pissed me off possibly more than any other bit of gear I have ever had because its software was so bad in the early days, but now I guess Ive just got used to it - I know what I can be bothered to do with it and its worth keeping for that and some patches in it are real gems that make the rest of it worthwhile.

 

I would dearly love to get hold of its source code and finish the job though and turn it into what it should/could have been - no chance of that of course

 

To me its one of these really really useful boxes that does lots of really good things, but somehow the sum of it seems less than its parts... I wouldnt buy one again unless it was all I could afford, and yet it can do so much that none of the other common workstations can match.

 

Another way to think of the Fusion 8HD - its priced allmost as a high end 88key controller now - you get the synth engines etc for free and if you can get into it, they are actually pretty good so long as your not after sounds that demand the latest features of the latest digital (VA+) synths.

 

I think the fact that I couldnt even buy a decent 88 key controller for what I would get selling my 8HD is the major reason I keep it.

 

 

Interesting contrasting this thing with the Virus TI which was just as much (if not more) of a disaster when I first got mine in sept '05, with a very dodgy v0. something or other OS etc. The big difference was it sounded good from day one (if it ran for long enough without crashing to get much out of it beyond a satns saw) and most importanty - Access kept at it - and are still keeping at it in a way that made all the early pain worthwhile - now its by far the best and most important synth I have and actually very reliable too now - wouldnt change it for anything at any price. Had Alesis not done a big stufu to its customers and instead kept at it, then the Fusion could have been a very good board too.

[mildbill]

...-- random dislike: trigger pads only function when depressed ... meaning you can't set and forget ... and why? ...

 

 

 

Well - they're triggers and not switches. A trigger's like a one-shot, you press it, it does its job and then it's done. A switch will stay on till you press it again. It would be nice to have some type of 'hold' function for them, or be able to switch between trigger and switch, but they're usable as-is.

 

Re-sale value - forget about it. That blow-out GC had on them pretty much did that in, even tho prices are higher now.

 

You guys have probably used it way more than I have, and so, found more to dislike about it.

 

It's definitely a different board - well worth the price as a synth/controller. But it promised so much, and then Alesis just seemed to give up on it right away.

[Meatball Fulton]

As a Motif owner I'll say Alesis had a couple problems out of the gate.

 

First, it was announced long before it could ship. The expectations were very high as the price was pretty low considering what was under the hood. When it finally arrived it was buggy and had lackluster presets. Once the word got out that there were issues with the sequencer and hard disk recording a lot of potential buyers were scared off. Face it, a workstation with a busted sequencer is a tough sell By the time Alesis fixed the bugs and came up with better presets, the damage was done.

 

Ironically, the price drops actually increased it's popularity. People who were turned off by it at $1500 were quite happy with it for $500. This is not uncommon, I can think of a number of other synths that only became popular when they were being blown out. So the Fusion has finally found a niche due to the current insane low price. Sadly, that doesn't help Alesis make any money.

 

So, who knows about this Fusion RAM mentioned in the Sweetwater email, is that going to be a diskless version?

[Superace25]

So, who knows about this Fusion RAM mentioned in the Sweetwater email, is that going to be a diskless version?

 

Sorry, it's just a memory upgrade. Sweetwater installed them as part of their "sweetwater edition" fusion. Details here.

 

 

Sexy, ain't it?

[Diametro]

No, proprietary memory that's hard to install is not sexy ...

[mildbill]

Well - it is a bit sexy. From Sweetwater's Expert Advice:

 

""The Alesis Fusion is unique in that it loads sounds directly from the hard drive into RAM as you scroll past a Program. This is cool since you no longer need to go to a "Disk Mode," find the file that contains your sound, and then decide where and how to load it. It does all that automatically. If your RAM gets full and you scroll to a new sound, your oldest sound gets dumped from RAM to make room for the new sound."

 

 

I don't know any other board that has that.

[Dr.Innovation]

As a Motif owner I'll say Alesis had a couple problems out of the gate. First, it was announced long before it could ship. The expectations were very high as the price was pretty low considering what was under the hood. When it finally arrived it was buggy and had lackluster presets. Once the word got out that there were issues with the sequencer and hard disk recording a lot of potential buyers were scared off. Face it, a workstation with a busted sequencer is a tough sell By the time Alesis fixed the bugs and came up with better presets, the damage was done. Ironically, the price drops actually increased it's popularity. People who were turned off by it at $1500 were quite happy with it for $500. This is not uncommon, I can think of a number of other synths that only became popular when they were being blown out. So the Fusion has finally found a niche due to the current insane low price. Sadly, that doesn't help Alesis make any money. So, who knows about this Fusion RAM mentioned in the Sweetwater email, is that going to be a diskless version?

 

Wow great post!

I was going to say it was a piece of {censored}!

 

To those of you who have an Alesis Fusion I wonder could you post a snippet 30sec composition of what the Fusion has to offer?

[XorAxAx]

The Fusion is proof that even a killer product can be ruined by incompetent management.

 

Alesis: Great Ideas, Poorly Executed.

[mildbill]

 

"To those of you who have an Alesis Fusion I wonder could you post a snippet 30sec composition of what the Fusion has to offer?"

 

 

 

 

It sounds like you've already decided the Fusion isn't a good board for you.