Vic,
How much does that Gem go for? I've never seen them sold anywhere. Is it a reasonable price too. I'm pleased to see the sequencer works like those on standard pro workstations. I have a lot of friends who play pro synths that will be glad to hear this. I think someone posted and said the G-1000 and VA series do this as well. How is the sound quality on the Gem too. I've heard a lot of comments saying the sounds are weak in their opinions....

Squeak

squeak I think the wk8 can be had for around $1700 or so. I think I remember one going for that last pring or summer in the 4 sale section and on ebay. I got mine for $1689 plus tax. I felt it was a good deal for me because I purchased it from a local dealer who gave me a one year warrantee plus I got 3 years from Gem as the original owner never sent in the warrantee card. They're probably going for some what less now as Gem is getting ready to launch a new board at the winter namm. George Kaye or Dan01 could probably advise you on the g1000 and the VA* series. I've heard the Roland arrangers have pretty good sequencers as well. Sounds as you know are always subjective. Probably the weakest sounds are the pianos but in my opinion they work just fine. You can load it with up to 40 megs of sample playback ram and load you own piano samples in a variety of popular formats but I have yet to do that. It comes with 8 megs of sample playback ram from the factory. All in all I'm happy with the board but it's always fun to see what the next generation of arrangers will offer.