Alesis Fusion 8HD 88-Note Keyboard Workstation

Alesis Fusion 8HD 88-Note Keyboard Workstation Review

I bought my Fusion about 4 months ago when I learned that Alesis was likely discontinuing the series. So why am I writing a review on a probably-discontinued product? Because I want to lament the premature demise of a keyboard that was definitely before it's time. And it was unfortunately a product released before investing adequate time QC'ing the thing, as the Fusion operating system was still quite buggy when it was first put on the market in early 2005. The sad part is they FINALLY fixed most of the bugs and the keyboard had the support and backing from Alesis it should have had from the start about 2+ years after it was released. By that time, unfortunately, the word-of-mouth reputation for the Fusion was already mostly bad, and trying to recover from that "bad press" appears to be a struggle Alesis is about to give up on.

I'm a fairly adept synth guy though far short of "expert". I have some experience working with and programming sample-based synths, analog synths, and even PD (phase distortion) and FM (freq modulation) synths. I have a few Alesis products, a couple Moogs, and even an old Casio VZ-10 and Yamaha's FS1R and DX200. I love tinkering and plinking when time allows (that pesky full time job gets in the way) and have a decent ear for mostly getting the sounds I want. Despite using a few soft synths, I admit I prefer hardware synths.

Though I ended up with a Fusion 6HD this review applies to the OS and electronics of both the 8HD and the 6HD as they're identical. I went through 2 Fusion 8HDs that both had problems with their keyboards. The black keys struck with a higher velocity than the white keys, and any highly velocity-sensitive programs (like pianos) sounded out-of-whack because the black keys were noticeably louder than the white keys. Checking out Fusion forums, I learned this isn't/wasn't an uncommon problem unfortunately.

SO...with a little bit of history and background, what do I really think of the Fusion?

Well, mostly I'll comment on the synthy-ness of this keyboard, which is its real strength (it's also a sequencing workstation with multitrack recording capability). The ratio of programmability versus price on this thing is/was incredible. What I paid (<0) offers more power and programmability that my Roland Fantom X6 and literally at less than half the price. It has 4 synth engines including analog modeling (for those classic squeaky, squelchy synths sounds), sample-based playback (for more realistic instrument emulation), frequency modulation (for those DX7 klangs, rings and other metallic weirdness), and even physical modeling (mathematical emulations of wind instruments). The options for routing and modulating the sounds are incredible and the interface for programming is fairly decent (on a 1-10, I'd give it a 6 or 7). The modulation table lets you route almost anything to modulate/affect an expansive list of sound parameters, as well as letting you program modulations for the modulations. The different filters offer some impressive frequency sculpting to any of the different synth engines (FM as well), and the effects are more than adequate to help polish up the sounds.

And how does it sound? Well, that's a bit subjective (ok, QUITE subjective)...the analog still sounds virtual to my ears, but smoothly so. It's a fine complement to real analog and a suitable substitute in most instances. The sample playback is fine and obviously largely dependent on the samples used. The included samples are decent, though nothing spectacular, but fortunately Alesis offers software for easily importing popular sample formats. The FM is VERY nice. I'm a fan of the less obvious uses of FM (not the painfully overused "DX7 Rhodes" piano from the 80's) and this thing is 10 times easier to program for FM than any of the old Yamaha DX keyboards. Lastly, Physical Modeling on synths hasn't really been explored much since Yamaha tinkered around with it a bit (the VL1, I think), so it's nice to see it added as an option. To my ear, the sampled flutes and oboes still sound better than the physically modeled ones, but if you get creative with the PM, you can create some truly weird and wicked sounds.

If you're new to synths, the technical details won't necessarily make sense, but my main point for writing this is if you're in the market for a VERY powerful synth for way little money, this is definitely one to consider. As of this writing, a few music stores are still offering the 8HD model, and the 6HD can easily be found used for half a grand.

Kudos to Alesis for the vision to create such a synth, but bad on them for the buggy realization of that vision. They finally mostly fixed the problems, but for the Fusion product line it might have been a little too late.

So, to round it all up...if you're into crafting, tweaking, brewing your own sounds and don't mind diving into a keyboard a bit, this is an AWESOME gadget to let you do so. If you're mostly looking for a nice pallet of pre-manufactured sound colors, this will deliver somewhat (especially with the free download-able banks offered by Alesis) but there are other keyboards (Fantom or Motif) that offer more in that department, albeit for more money.

Alesis Fusion 8HD 88-Note Keyboard Workstation Feature

• 88 note fully weighted keyboard workstation
• Four integrated synthesis types - Sample Playback, Virtual Analog, FM and Physical Modeling
• 40GB internal hard drive
• 64MB internal memory; expandable to 192MB
• 32 Track MIDI sequencer with multi-channel digital audio playback

Alesis Fusion 8HD 88-Note Keyboard Workstation Overview

The Alesis Fusion 8HD Integrated Keyboard Workstation's ease of use makes it easy to handle your most demanding production tasks - almost effortlessly. Four types of synthesis and a built-in 24-bit sampler make your music easier to manage and produce. Save and load programs from the on-board 40GB hard drive -- or from the removable Compact Flash memory card. Onboard effects processing is powerful, and easy to control with the fully assignable buttons and 360 knobs. Fully programmable arpeggiator, easy importing & converting of files & internal storage make this the keyboard no studio or workstation should be without. Multi-channel input and output options in both analog and digital (S/PDIF and ADAT Lightpipe) 96 mixes (ROM and HD) 13 filter types Effects - 20 Reverbs, 10 Chorus, 50 Insert Effects, 4 Band EQ 24-bit Analog and Digital Conversion (64x oversampling A/D; 128x oversampling D/A) 512 samples per multisample 16-bit sampling depth; 44.1 kHz sampling frequencies Sample formats - Alesis format; Fusion Converter Software-PC/Mac (Imports. wav, aif, Akai S-1000/3000/5000 Samples/Program data and Soundfonts) Sampling sources - Analog input L/R, Stereo output (resampling) 64MB onboard memory; optional expansion to 192MB Sampling Time - 11 - 53 w/onboard memory; 37 - 15 w/full expansion memory Arpeggiater with 490 presets & unlimited user expansion, plus phrase and drum machine playback Sequence format - SMF Type 1 Pitch bend & modulation wheels Assignable trigger buttons (4), switches (2) Backlit LCD External Storage - Compact Flash Type I and Type II (Flash and Microdrives) Power Consumption - 50 W Connectors - Stereo main & aux L/R out, headphone out, S/PDIF out, Coax/Optical out, ADAT out, MIDI in/out/thru, sustain pedal, footswitch, expression pedal, USB (to host), external HDD (SATA), HD recording inputs 1-8 Dimensions - 51.5 x 14 x 5 (130.8 x 35.6 x 12.7 cm)

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*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Oct 24, 2010 19:45:03