Bravo! sbenno. You are involved in the development of the X76 Media Station and yet you have the gumption to speak your mind when it comes to changing and or improving the Design and even the features of the Lionstracs. This is really an eye opener. It means that if so desired the Lionstracs can even be changed now before the production process begins - if domenik is willing to do so. Perhaps domenik and the other Hardware designers can indeed change the location of the Mod/Pitch Bend Wheels before production ramps up. I feel the Floppy Drive is also non-essential but perhaps having the ability to use an 'external' Floppy Drive (by way of USB connection) for those occasions where a Floppy might be needed. Such as this one, as an example:



High-speed 2x floppy drive Technology
USB powered – no AC adapter needed. Reads and writes standard 1.44 MB floppy disks at twice the speed.

Simple to connect
Industry standard USB connection gets you up and running in seconds.

Package Includes: • Floppy Drive • QuickStart Guide • Installation CD

sbenno said: "How about playing a 2GB chromatically sampled piano with 16 layers pedal up/down directly from disk with no polyphony bottlenecks and this while your other full arrangment is played by the style player or MIDI player ?

Polyphony is a word that a Mediastation X-76 owner will quickly forget.

See ya at the NAMM to verify that my claims are not hot air :-)"

How wonderful to have a product that won't be constrained at all by Polyphony issues. Also some of the sounds produced by the X76 should be absolutely stunning in realism. Of course only time will tell if that is really going to be fact or just fiction.

In regards to the price of the Lionstracs I have this to say (again); With all of the features and innovations (and hopefully great sounds) of the X76 I think the asking price is right about where it should be really. I mean, just LOOK at all of the features (Hardware, Software, Innovations, etc.) and you quickly realize that this is indeed the Ferrari of Workstation Keyboards.

As a comparison look at this Synth Keyboard and you will begin to understand that $5,000 dollars is in the ballpark for X76. Read on:


The Hartmann Neuron is this year's darling of the electronic-music world. It features a unique user interface and unprecedented hands-on control of instrument modeling parameters.

"High on the desirability scale is the most expensive synth on the list, the Hartmann Neuron ($4,995). It's also the most unconventional design, as evidenced by its outward appearance (see Fig. 2). Its striking elegance invites you to sit down and play. The Neuron has only 9 traditional knobs, but it has dozens of buttons and indicator LEDs, 5 joysticks, 13 backlit LCDs, and 14 wheels with LED ladder displays. All knobs and wheels are of the infinite-rotation variety. You switch on the power by pressing a huge illuminated orange button on the rear panel, which is otherwise unoccupied. When the power is on, you hear the whisper of fans cooling the internal 20 GB hard drive.

A beautiful pale wood panel covers the Neuron's right side. All its connections to the outside world are grouped on the left panel: six analog outputs, two analog inputs, a pair of coaxial S/PDIF ports, a stereo headphone jack, three control-pedal ports, three MIDI ports, USB, and an IEC power socket. The USB port enables connection to external hard drives and CD burners as well as computers. The six unbalanced ¼-inch outputs are assignable, and they're labeled as outputs for 5.1 surround sound.

You control pitch bend and modulation with a self-centering, translucent orange plastic joystick, which feels just a bit fragile for such duties. Additional left-hand controllers are the Master Volume knob, an assignable Control knob, and an assignable wheel. You can easily reach all four without lifting your hand.

The Neuron's appearance isn't its only remarkable feature; its sound and architecture are likewise out of the ordinary. The Neuron resynthesizes sampled sounds and then lets you select from a list of Models. You sculpt the sound by manipulating whatever parameters appear most suitable for it; exactly what parameters are available depends on the Model you select. Because the choice of parameters depends on the nature of the sound itself, many of the front-panel controls are, by necessity, reconfigurable.

The Neuron is organized into sections that correspond to traditional synthesizer modules. Nonetheless, Neuron users will need to learn a new nomenclature that reflects Hartmann's fresh approach to sound synthesis. Instead of oscillators, the Neuron has Resynators, and the filter and insert effects are lumped together in a section called Silver (because, Hartmann says, they add “a lustrous shine”). Some of the name changes seem unnecessary: the LFO is called Mod, and ADSR EGs are called Shapers — so much for standardization. Your first stumbling block in learning the Neuron, then, is acquiring a new vocabulary.

Changing the name of the oscillators makes the most sense, because the Resynators do much more than simple oscillators. They are the sound source and its environment, as well as direct access to parameters you use to change their various characteristics. The modeled sound source is called the Scape, which corresponds to resonating strings or vocal chords, for example. Controlling the Scape allows you to govern the attributes that form a sound. The environment from which the sound originates is the Sphere; this might be a violin body, a singer's chest and throat, or the room in which a sound occurs. Because using computer modeling to re-create a stringed instrument is so different from using it to re-create, say, wind and rain, each Model's Scape and Sphere have a different set of parameters.

The Neuron allows you to manipulate the characteristics of the Scape and Sphere in real time, using buttons and joystick controllers, called simply sticks. The sticks are shaped so that you can grab them either with your forefinger and thumb or with only a fingertip. In the corners surrounding the sticks are four LCDs that show a parameter name and its three-digit value. The parameters at opposing corners are opposite characteristics, such as Simple and Complex, SmallBdy and LargeBdy, or MtrSoft and MtrHard. They can also be opposite ends of the same spectrum, such as 000StrTensn and 127StrTensn.

You can record your stick movements to modify parameters in real time and then play them back as a sequence. More often, you'll use an ADSR envelope to modulate parameter values. A button press quickly switches the four displays from Scape to Sphere parameters, and a Parameter Level button switches among three parameter sets for each. Located between the two Resynators is the Blender, which lets you fade from one Model to another, so you can morph from a Hammond B-3 to a bell, for instance, or even from crickets to fire. You can control the transition manually with the Blend wheel or automate it with a Shaper.

The section labeled Silver comprises a resonant multimode filter and two multi-effects processors. As with the Resynators, you control four reassignable Silver parameters with a stick. At least the filter parameters are familiar: cutoff, resonance, mix, and feedback. Accessing the filter menu lets you specify whether the filter type is lowpass (with a choice of three slopes), highpass, or bandpass. Silver's effects are divided into Frequency and Time types. Frequency effects include EQ, compression, distortion, ring modulation, and the like. Time-based effects are stereo spread, delay, phaser, flanger, and chorus. You can use Silver's stick to control an effect's two most important parameters in real time. You can also use it to control panning when the Neuron is in Surround mode.

As I mentioned previously, the three Shapers are ADSR EGs. As with other synths, one envelope normally controls filtering, another controls amplitude, and the third is assignable. For more complex contours, you can combine two Shapers to create an envelope with four levels and four time values. You control each stage's value with wheels on the control panel. Although fine-tuning envelope values with the wheel is easy, I usually prefer sliders; I seldom need to tweak attack time, for instance, by only a millisecond. (Envelope times aren't calibrated in milliseconds, though, but in a range of values from 0 to 127.) Flanking each Shaper wheel is an LED ladder that lets you conveniently view envelope values at a glance. You can control envelope depth with Velocity or Aftertouch.

The section labeled Effects applies delay and reverb to the Neuron's outputs. The stereo delay has a tempo tap function for matching delay time with tempo. The reverb is definitely of the highest quality I've ever heard in a synthesizer, and it's in large part responsible for the sumptuousness of many of the Neuron's factory sounds.

The Neuron ships with 286 included Models, with enough locations for 512. They run the gamut from Ambientpad and Tapestring to Paper and Exhaust; instrumental Models range from Tuba to Telecastr. As I mentioned, each Model has a different set of parameters; one level of the B-3 organ Model, for example, provides the parameters Warm or Cold and Planar or Tubular for the Scape. You can also create your own Model using the included ModelMaker software (Mac/Win). The selected Model also determines the Neuron's polyphony, which maxes out at 24 notes.

The Neuron is 4-part multitimbral and has memory locations for 1,000 sounds, though it currently ships with only 190. Whenever you select a sound, it takes about a second to load — sometimes more and sometimes less, depending on its length and complexity. Many of the sounds are steeped in atmosphere — unidentifiable sources with gradual attacks, awash in heavy reverb. Other than a few acoustic guitars, synth basses, electric pianos, brass instruments, and string ensembles, emulative sounds are in short supply, but I don't mind leaving those duties to other synthesizers. Most of the Neuron's sounds are subtly beautiful and even awe-inspiring. They sound electronic, yet very organic in nature. The Neuron really is like no other instrument I've ever heard."

PS: If the Lionstracs MediaStation X76 or even a X61 MediaStation (61 Keys) comes close to the functionality, features, and sound capability, ie., - (respective to Synth vs more traditional Acoustic sound Workstation/Arranger in the X76) - that the Hartmann Neuron posesses, then yes; I think the price they are asking would be justified imo. Unfortunately by keeping the price in that range they have ultimately shut out the 'vast' majority of Gigging and other Keyboardists. But that's not to say they won't sell any because if all the hype is true they most assuredly will. And I may end up like Terry (trtjazz) and seriously consider getting one myself.

Best regards,
Mike