Emu E5000 Ultra

Advantages: great sound, great features
Disadvantages: steep learning curve

...I have used this machine for the past 4 years (and its predecessor the E64 for another 4) and rate them the best on the market. Even with all the soft sampling available nowadays, you can't substitute it for a hardware sampler for speed, ease of use and reliability. The E6400U has a great bottom end, its convertors are pretty good all round. Easy to get samples in, trimmed and ready to go once you get the hang of it ( takes about 2 hours with the plain english manual.) Its the possibilities of modulating the sample that make this machine stand out. You can control the filters, lfos, envelopes and just about anything else with any parameter, so there endless mod possibilities. In-built FX, 8 outputs, SCSI, loadable up to 128mb of ram which is enough for any track, I wouldn't part with it for anything.... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average somewhat helpful

Advantages: Quality solid mixer with excellent preamps
Disadvantages: Manual doesn't offer computer to mixer connectivity help

...I have owned my Mackie mixer for over a year and have enjoyed every minute with it. The build quality is absoloutley superb, it's a tank of a mixer with a host of connectivity options. The majority of home studio owners will no doubt want to hook up the mixer to an audio interface, in my case an EMU 1212m. Unfortunatley the extremely well written and informative manual doesn't give any help to hook up to a computer which is a glaring omission. The hook up diagrams for other setups in the manual don't help at all. Connectivity isn't too much of an issue once the signal paths are understood (however EMU users suffer even more frustration trying to get patchmix working correctly with everything else. If you are one of these people send me a mail and I will try and help). My setup has the OUTs of the soundcard going into channel 13... Read review

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Advantages: Nice and cheap
Disadvantages: Sounds awful

...Squier produce guitars for Fender while also producing their own versions of quitars. In fact, they make 2 types of guitar. Yuo either have a budget Squier for about 120 quid of a Fender, by Squier for about an extra 50 quid. To be honest, there is not a lot of difference between the 2 and if you want to spend a bit more, you can get much better guitars. Would you like me to explain? Sound. ------ Well, Electric guitars are electric guitars right? Er, Wrong. They all sound different. A Cheap squier sounds like someone strangling an out of tune cat. Fret buzz is a problem to a dodgy neck that stretches and contorts like an emu's neck. It wont stay in tune for very long despite constant fiddling with the tuning heads. Build quality. -------------- Solid enough but it has plenty of rought edges compared to a real strat. Then again its... Read review

Ciao members have rated this review on average helpful