Hello, I just bought one of these. I bought it on faith ... and for all it's features which include... you know... the sequencer, grooves, sample reading, Arpeggiator and I'll use it as my basic studio controller... all for a whopping $695 delivered. I'd have paid more than half of that just for a basic controller with no sounds or features really so I saw it as a bargain.
BUT...
I'm pretty frustrated about finding the new OS for it.. (the GEM site has a dead link for this!) I have the Equinox.lz3 file for the OS now that came with it... Is this the current OS??
Someone from Gem attatched a file to an email called Equinox.lz5 but this caused a warning and aborted the OS update... so I'm sort of confused.
I can't find out anything about upgrades (like the 8mb Battery Backed memory, the SCSI kit, Hardrive kit...)... except for ONE store (Sound Logic) or whatever it is, online that has the 8mb ram for $144!
That seems high, man!
Also I can't believe that there isn't one good piano patch on this keyboard. (The GM1 "Piano 1" is the only piano that even comes close.) In fact hardly any real sounding instruments at all really. A French Horn here and a Flute there, some elec. piano's and organs... but not much "real" instruments to work with. A virtual cornucopia of pads and airy sounding synthy things. The "voice" patches were not good, not choir like. I'd have felt bad if I actually paid what other people were paying for this only a few months ago.
It seems to have plenty of drums sounds and a few more kits than some keyboards. They do seem a little dated as drum sounds go but I think they'll be useable though.
Utilizing the drawbars and the organ sounds might be the way to go with this keyboard.
It seems the other real value will be the loading of new samples and sounds, available in many formats.
For this the hard drive and/or SCSI port would really come in handy.
I'm new to this GeneralMusic world. Can anyone point me in a good direction or input some germane advice?
For instance can I substitute a generic or 3rd party harddrive or scsi kit in this Equinox?? Where can I get the upgrades at all for that matter?
I thank you, Karl

[This message has been edited by BossX (edited 01-22-2002).]