Message 3/14
Date: 22-Aug-02 @ 03:58 PM -
RE: Kawai Q80EX
hmm? no, i don't think you can do much during playback.. at least when i had mine, most pages are inaccessible. you can't even change songs (there are 10 in memory at once) without stopping the sequencer.
what you DO have is 32 tracks available on 2 midi ports at any given time, all available for mute/unmuting - which that can be pretty powerful. it is a very good choice for song-style sequencing, pretty good choice for loop-based sequencing as well (i got a 6/4 pattern going against a 4/4 pattern once, it can do fancy things like that than many others can't do without 'tricks'.. i.e. the usual way to do that is to copy the 6/4 pattern twice so it's 3 bars of 4/4 = 2 bars of 6/4 and loop that, something like that.)
but only decent for live. it can work fine, but you can't change patterns on the fly. they're cheap enough to buy 2 though, and sync them both to something else; this will let you stop one and load a new song (or do anything else you want) while the other is still playing. it's probably still better than the mmt8 even with this limitation (DISK DRIVE! for one)... i'd still go with a pair of even original q80s over one or two mmt8s just for that
heard too many stories of an mmt8's memory giving up the ghost right before a gig... so you'll need a sysex filer to go with it
i don't remember for sure, but iirc the MMT8's 8 tracks are polytimbral i.e. you can have notes from channels 1,2,3,4 all on the same track... the Q80's tracks are only notes, and the port/channel is global for the track, so only one channel's notes can be on a given track. you might need more tracks on the q80.
better yet... i don't know how the rm1x compares to the rs7000... but the rs7000 completely rocks as a midi sequencer... it's sorta like the best of both of those boxes... the rm1x only has one midi output (the rs7000 and q80ex both have 2)... but the rs7000 lets you change patterns on the fly like the mmt8... has a great step editor like the q80ex (ok it's even better than the q80ex)... has a grid editor (neither of those have that)... all kinds of fancy quantize options like the q80 (haven't used these yet but they're in the manual)... all kinds of stuff to do live... transpose any track live... save to smartmedia (BETTER than floppy if you ask me)... etc.
a rm1x costs about the same (or more) as 2 q80exs. i also thought the q80 was better at 'microscopic' event editing etc. than the rs7000... but i might just not be used to the rs7000 yet (haven't had it that long, and haven't been able to spend much time with it). the rm1x will only give you 1 midi out.
but the rs7000 can do some tricks the q80 just can't. if the rm1x is like the rs7000 (and i hear it is), then i think you might be a lot happier with the rm1x for live...