Quasimidi • RaveOlution 309
The RaveOLution is a stand alone groove box that has taken the techno world by storm. Very popular among DJ's for live performance and interaction with the audience! It features a very advanced sequencer and a host of excellent analog and electronic drum and bass synth sounds. The 309 is very intuitive and easy to get started using. Play with the patterns or make your own. All real-time tweaks can be recorded into your sequence for later playback!
The 5 part multitimbral feature is the secret to this units power for live and interactive performances. The 5 separate parts are Kick, Snares, Hi-Hats, percussion and bass synth. During your performance you can mute any of these parts to drop the beat or isolate the kick, thus building or lowering the groove and your audiences energy! A plethora of knobs offer quick and easy access to filter and envelope modulation for shaping and morphing the music. The 309 is also well suited for studio work with complete MIDI implementation that includes all real-time controls and knobs.
The 309 is truly an instant dance machine! It sounds great for analog emulation synthesis! It looks pretty cool and comes from a company that knows all about Trance and Techno music. The RaveOLution 309 is an obvious choice for anybody seriously looking to get into dance music with an affordable all-in-one box that will grow and remain useful in your studio and music for as long as techno is still around! It is used by Apollo 440 and KMFDM.
There have been three expansions for the Rave-O-Lution 309 since it was released. The Audio expansion added two audio inputs and two more audio outputs. The Drum expansion added a bunch of new drum and percussion samples plus midi synced LFO's. The synth expansion added a second bass/lead synth (though it requires the audio expansion and they do not have their own 'part' buttons).
If you want a machine focused the ability to mold your own sounds more or less from scratch, go for something completely different.
Of course, such machines are going to cost you a bank and are probably gonna consist of more than one machine (sound module + sequencer + effects + other stuff) and this does have the advantage of being reasonably cheap (I've seen them sold on ebay for as little as 160 euros). Beware though, as always you get what you pay for.
I think it feels very cheaply made and that it was aimed for the "sparetime-musician"-market. Not for professional use.
Not worth the money at all, unless you couldn't give a [beep] about sound manipulation and just want the standard electronic music sounds everyone's using.
Quasimidi products are waaaaay too hyped.
There are 4 expansions: new OS, drums, synths and extra audio in/out. For any you need the rom OS. The drums add more wave forms basically, the synth add more sounds but... it add an extra synth!!! I mean, a extra midi channel.
This drum machine is here to stay, is fun to play, is flexible and very powerful with so many options and the sounds are amazing.