To all those who were or are willing to get Akai's SynthStation - don't do it. It sounded like a promising little workstation, but the way the interface is organized is just awful... you have to jump to various screens via the top menu, which sometimes has two levels, and those screens are not arranged in an easily understandable way. And you can't preview the sound you're creating with any of the synths because there is no onscreen keyboard. The graphics are very un-stylish and, in fact, badly executed if not ugly.
I have no idea how a company like Akai could create such a low-quality product in terms of the user interface. It needs new graphics and much, much more logical workflow organization. Very, very bad work.
My recommendation would be to stick to Argon and BeatMaker. Argon gives you a great VA which you can sequence and turn into a sample within the app, then get into BeatMaker, which is way easier than SynthStation as an MPC workstation.
Akai SynthStation - a major disappointment
- piaknowguy
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Re: Akai SynthStation - a major disappointment
If that was the only issue, I would take your advise
But the interface is crap, seriously. There is no visual consistency there, you don't see the structure of the workstation and can't navigate easily from one part to another. And I can't even figure out how to create a clean project, or even clean a pattern or initialize a synth patch... Why should I bother with such poorly designed software when there are much better tools which don't give me a headache? I want my $10 back, Akai
But the interface is crap, seriously. There is no visual consistency there, you don't see the structure of the workstation and can't navigate easily from one part to another. And I can't even figure out how to create a clean project, or even clean a pattern or initialize a synth patch... Why should I bother with such poorly designed software when there are much better tools which don't give me a headache? I want my $10 back, Akai
- secret Roland agent
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