Xpand!.... First impressions

[macr0w]

Has no one found the little + and - buttons beside the patch name? You can use those to scroll.

[Ray Lyon]

Has no one found the little + and - buttons beside the patch name? You can use those to scroll.

Is there any way to link these +/- buttons to the keyboard? Also, if you click on the dual box icon next to the +/- buttons you can recall a folder and easily audition patches using the up and down arrows.

[LSW]

I just installed it and I must, say, this is what I've been looking for. It seems to fit with Digi's solution-based philosohy - making it part of a basic setup gives one pretty much all that's needed to start making music, instead of fussing around with this and that.

I was really looking for some good drums sounds and found em. Reason has some, but I don't need that whole rack, and it was a pain just to load kits or sounds. I never liked assembling kits anyway, but xPand makes it so darn easy to do.

As far as synth sounds go, my XP80 is still better on a lot of them, but, I was pleasantly surprised at xpand's pianos which are better than the XP 80s. I like the basses as well. All in all, the sounds are great as is - I don't think they'll need much tweaking - at least to get song ideas down. There's plenty of tools in the synth as well as effects that can be used in mixing.

I give it 3 1/2 our of 4 stars.