1Posted on 08/05/2010 at 09:25:21Comments about the review: Miniak On The Floor
After having repositioned Alesis on the market, Numark seems to have entrusted Akai with the fate of the synth/drum machine product range. The Miniak is the first Akai synth "in the modern era".
You did miss some important things with the Miniak, though :
heavy aliasing on classic sync-sweeps when playing not so high pitched notes. Sync algorithms are not optimized (at all)
the so-called "FX balance" is an aberration. It would have been far better to make FX1 (mod) and FX2(delay/reverb) fully separated, each one with its "overall level" control
so-called "chorus" FX is useless : too subtle. Flangers do a better job (chorus and flanger share the same principle)
8-part multitimbrlty with an 8-voice polyphonic synth ? Pointless. Even Korg did not make that mistake with MK/MKXL and R3
Apart from that, I have to agree : it's a nice synth !