I got the mpc live 2 a couple months ago and received the Circuit Tracks this week. Even though the MPC can do allmost everything in a way that the Circuit Tracks does its still a great addittion. Its more hands on with the 32 knobs when I sync them up with volcas and the microfreak. Thinking about the SP404MK2 for in the future, but for now im glad I got the Circuit Tracks. the 32 knobs feel great to play with.

You can definitely use this as a MIDI controller to control all your software and DAWs, but if you want to use it without a computer hooked up to it you'll be stuck with Arturia's sounds.

there are plenty of sound demos on other channels, but the KO II isn't really about sounds. It's a sampler primarily, and it's about spontaneity and composition. We haven't played the Seqtrak but I think it's similar -- the point is the interface more than the sound. Neither is a particularly deep sound creation engine.

We stopped wixaxing in the studio. Too much mess.

Great board. A few years ago our reviewer Jim bought an 88 key workstation. He bought a Korg Krome, but only because he was replacing a Triton and it was the easiest transition. There's no doubt that if he didn't own a Korg already he'd have gone with the Juno DS.

I'm a hard core synth player-DSI Rev 2 16-voice, Prophet 6, Novation Summit, Deepmind 12, Wavestation, JX-08 boutique, SE-02 boutique. But when I gig live with cover bands I use a 76-key Juno DS and a 61-key DS. They are light, reliable, and have more than enough sounds and "tweakability" to do the gigs.

@@majorsynthqed7374 You're right about reliability. I was packing cables up after a gig and pulled the one from the DS. It was unplugged but it snagged the corner somehow and yanked it of the top tier of an APEX stand (a good four foot drop). It hit the floor pretty hard and I was so freaked that it wouldn't work. The micro USB flash drive came loose but that's it. Been using it steadily for the last three years since then with no issues. I accidentally damaged the ribbon cable for the display on the Di to change a scratchy volume pot. Since I knew where all of my favorite patches were in the banks I was able to play it in "Stevie Wonder mode" through a few gigs with a dead screen.

and u double price if u want to edit sounds for sw licences

We'll do that one in the next few weeks!

@@BattleOTheBrands-ef8go Awesome thank you great content

The Seqtrak is arguably more powerful, especially if you don't care about the drum pads. We bought the KO II before Seqtrak came out and enjoy it for the quirkiness.

I think this is a legitimate criticism, though I've used Analog Lab for a decade and have never felt the need to buy the full V Collection. I have unlocked a handful of the individual synths and been perfectly happy with that. There are so many presents, and you can typically tweak the envelope, filter, and effects with the default macros. On each voice the sound designers picked the parameters that they felt would be most rewarding to tweak. On a few choice synths I want to go deeper, but for the most part I'm never lacking for sound creation possibility even without the full collection. It's certainly a unique way of doing things. Personally I find the limitations make that many presets easier to navigate. Then again, the reason I prefer hardware synths is because I typically don't tweak presets, I typically start from scratch (init patch) and that's basically impossible without unlocking the synth or buying the whole collection.

I would feel pretty disappointed blasting $1500 on a synth, and not being able to edit or create sounds in full. Very expensive preset machine. Compare with paying $50 (Black Friday) for the same thing as a plugin. Perspective! On the other hand, I am sure we will see a lot of interesting "business development" around this machine, in the near future, and I am sure Black Friday will have the V Collection covered for lunch money if you own the machine...

Like Roland, with their synths available in the cloud and on a serious number of different machines...

yea omni synth will kill rest of brands easy

I think that's a fair criticism, but compare it to the cost of a good controller and an expensive laptop and this comes out much cheaper. It's not going to be everyone's cup of tea. I think for a lot of bands who just want to add a small keyboard this could be overkill. I really like the Yamaha MX49 for that. But this is next level.

@@BattleOTheBrands-ef8go the mx 61 is way cheaper! Arturia sounds might be a bit better, but the mx is way more flexible on stage! Also before you go on stage!! No aftertouch, though!! For me, the thing is forcing people to buy the software to tweak it!! That's a bit unfair, i think!!

@@BattleOTheBrands-ef8go but with midi and pc u can edit all u want ,and not just play presets that most of time sux ,vs this super expensive useless crap

It's definitely a decisive synth, but I think if I were just starting out and didn't already have a workstation I'd be seriously leaning into buying one.

I really like Arturia's "wood" stuff, even when it's not real wood.

this would be pretty powerful on a two-tiered stand with a Nord on the bottom!

We've been very impressed by the Volt line. We'll be sure to include it in our next series of interface shootouts

Honestly these two are different enough that there's probably room for both in some setups

For the consumer yes, but not for the people.

That's awesome! It's new enough that there's not a lot of direct user feedback yet. We bought the EP-133 when it came out, and I'm glad we did because I feel like I would have scooped up the SEQTRAK instead -- the sequencer is in my comfort zone and the drum pads on the KO II aren't. But now I get to learn the KO II AND maybe I'll buy the SEQTRAK anyway! WIN WIN!