ALESIS ION
Jan 1, 2004 12:00 PM, BY JASON BLUM
Synthesizers with keyboards attached can be a tough sell these days. In this age of supercharged CPUs and high-powered plug-ins, one might think that the market for stand-alone hardwarelike keyboards is dwindling, and as a matter of fact, that's not too far off the mark. A lot of “old boy” manufacturers — Akai, Roland and Novation, to name a few — have released virtual versions of their hardware in an effort to reclaim the throne from virtual upstarts like Native Instruments and Arturia. What's going on here? Have the days of lusting over that shiny new keyboard in the music store passed, only to be replaced by a longing for the next software update?
There's no doubt that the virtual counterparts to hardware synthesizers are key elements in the modern producer's studio. They sound good, play nice with sequencers and do away with the annoying need for that thing called MIDI that musicians have developed a twisted love/hate relationship with throughout the years. Yes, virtual synths are here to stay, but don't count out the real deal just yet. A lot is still to be said for the feeling that comes from getting your hands on a hot new piece of gear — a feeling you won't get with a box of software.
It's nice to have a fresh piece of gear brightening up the studio, but is it really worth it to pony up your hard-earned cash for a stand-alone keyboard? Alesis seems to think so, and the company is wagering that the Ion has the specs to back it up — all for a price that will leave more than lint in your wallet.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS
You know that the most important thing about music gear is the way it sounds, but I'll admit that I have a soft spot for good-looking stuff. One look at Roland's SH-32, Korg's brushed-steel Trinity or the diminutive microKorg, and it's clear that designers are getting as tired of boring black boxes as everyone else. The Ion is no exception.
Before the Ion showed up at my studio, my expectations were not exactly sky-high. I had worked with Alesis keyboards in the distant past — think back to the QuadraSynth and the QS6 — and although both were adequate and easy on the bank account, nothing was particularly impressive about either one. The Ion's $999 price tag didn't give me much hope for solid construction or quality components, either.
However, once I picked up the Ion's box, I had a sneaking suspicion that my prejudice might be ill-founded. The box wasn't all that big, but it seemed heavy for its size, and once I cracked it open, my skepticism evaporated. The Ion is hands down one of the sturdiest and most attractive keyboards on the market. The chassis is solid steel with racy red highlights on each end that contrast with the matte-silver metal casing. A forest of knobs and dials — red, black and translucent — stud the surface along with flat metal buttons and a rainbow sprinkling of LEDs. The Ion is beautiful, a study in future-retro design with clean lines and minimalist appeal — perfect window dressing for an Ian Schrager hotel and a beautiful complement to any studio.
HOOKIN' UP
The Ion's rear panel is well-stocked with the sort of I/O that you'd expect from a keyboard in this price range. Two sets of balanced ¼-inch outputs are provided, one main output and one set of auxiliary jacks — adequate for a synth that is only four-part multitimbral. The Ion's software offers the option to “mix” between outputs; a patch can be sent to the main outs, to the auxiliary outs or to any balance of the two, a convenient feature if you're looking to use the Ion in a live situation or with external effects processors.
A pair of ¼-inch input jacks feeds into the Ion right before the filter section, allowing you to bring your own external sound sources into the Ion for processing through the filters and effects section. A headphone jack with ample output is provided, and MIDI In/Out/Thru offers connectivity for sequencers and other keyboards. Power is supplied through a removable three-prong cord.
The only thing that is missing on the back panel is a digital output. It seems like a no-brainer for Alesis, the company that popularized the ADAT Lightpipe digital interface, to include some sort of output for forward-thinking users who like to keep A/D conversion to a minimum. Alas, it is not so with the Ion.
FORM VERSUS FUNCTION
The Ion is an attractive piece of gear, but form needs to follow function with a tool like this, and I'm pleased to report that the Ion's functionality is every bit as elegant as its design. The 31 rubber control knobs are nearly an inch high and generously spaced to facilitate heavy tweaking. Buttons on the front panel are all flat and nearly flush with the synth's surface, and most are backlit with LEDs of varying colors that make it easy to identify them at a glance. The buttons are rather stiff and make a satisfying tactile click.
The knobs are one of the slickest features of the Ion. All are endless 360-degree pots — you can turn them and turn them, and you'll never reach a point at which the knob physically stops at a low or high position. This means no annoying “jumps” when editing parameters. The knob simply increases or decreases whatever value is stored in the software.
By far the most revolutionary inclusion, however, is the 12-bit resolution offered by each knob. You may be more accustomed to hearing bit rates thrown around in the audio I/O realm, and you're probably aware that higher is better. The same goes in this case. Most synths offer controllers that conform to MIDI specs and offer a value range from 0 to 127, but the Ion trumps them all by offering resolution 32 times better than a standard MIDI controller! The Ion's software handles all of this extra data beautifully, and that means frequency cutoff sweeps and other real-time controller tweaks are 100 percent free of those undesirable “stair-stepping” artifacts that are common with controllers employing lower resolutions. If you hit a key, close your eyes and tweak the knobs, you just might forget you're working with a digital keyboard!
The keyboard itself is a bit short at only 49 keys, but that's more than adequate for large chords, and it makes the prospect of using the Ion at live performances far more palatable. The action is quick and just a touch on the flimsy side, but it doesn't feel shoddy at all, and it isn't unpleasant to play. All keys are velocity-sensitive.
The Ion remains in touch with you through its 160×160 graphic LCD display in the center of the front panel. The “home page” displays pertinent information like patch name, part name (the Ion's way of dealing with multitimbral setups), MIDI channel and tempo. Turning a knob brings up a number of related items on the LCD, so reaching nearly every parameter via the Ion's mercifully shallow menu system is never more than one or two button presses away. It isn't quite like having a knob for every parameter, but the synchronicity between knob and display makes patch editing quick and easy and keeps the front panel from becoming too cluttered.
GO WITH THE SIGNAL FLOW
The Ion's signal path is set up to mimic a traditional subtractive analog synthesizer. Sound is generated by oscillators, colored by filters and shaped by an amplifier. The concept is straightforward and has stood the test of time since the dawn of synthesis. Simply leaving it at that, though, does a great disservice to the raw power seething under the surface of the Ion's cool steel chassis.
Every patch in the Ion can call on as many as three oscillators, each with a full complement of sine, saw/triangle and square waveforms. These waveforms can be shaped to enhance specific harmonics, and a wide variety of FM and oscillator sync options further expand the sonic palette. A separate noise generator is provided for dirtying up the sound or spicing up the standard oscillator output with a bit of snap and sizzle.
The Ion is bursting at the seams with a wide variety of filters to help wrangle the oscillators. All of the old standbys are here in abundance — 17 of them, in fact, from the good old highpass and lowpass to the more esoteric options like comb and vocal-formant filters. A number of classic synth filters are modeled, most notable the Moog 4-pole lowpass, the Oberheim 2-pole filter series and the quirky 3-pole lowpass from the Roland TB-303.
The standard filters all sound great. The Oberheim filters beautifully capture the smooth round character of the Matrix-series synthesizers, and even the TB-303 filter, notoriously difficult to model correctly, sounds pretty good. The formant filters sound a little weak, but the overall effect is interesting, and they sound really cool when used in conjunction with a phaser from the effects section.
IN THE MATRIX
Analog synths are all about tweaking. Thick oscillators and fat filters are all fine and dandy, but the really good stuff happens when you get crazy with the knobs while the sound is playing. Unfortunately, you only have a limited number of hands, so you have to leave the bulk of that work to the synth. You do that by throwing modulators in the mix, and, fortunately, the Ion has plenty that can be routed to just about anything you can imagine.
The Ion relies on a modulation matrix to handle this automated tweaking. Virtually any modulator can be routed to any destination, but there are few limitations. Think of it as a set of 12 virtual patch cables that you can mix and match to your heart's delight. Want to use one of the illuminated mod wheels to control filter cutoff? No sweat. How about using an LFO to control portamento rate? You got it. While you're at it, you can sync the LFOs and sample-and-hold modulators to MIDI Clock so that your textures can throb and pulse in time with your music.
Using this modulation matrix, you can create just about any sound you can imagine. There are more than 30 modulation sources and destinations, and as many as 12 can be configured to interact with each other in a patch. Many of the complex textures in the Ion's presets make extensive use of the modulators to twist and morph sound over a long period of time, producing intricate sonic landscapes that you'd expect to hear on a $3,000 workstation, not a $1,000 analog-modeling synth.
I don't normally get too excited about arpeggiators, but the Ion integrates a pretty slick one with 32 preset patterns that all sync to MIDI Clock. Some of the patterns are really cool, and they vary from standard up and down patterns to complex “minisequencer”-style variants with varying note lengths. I think that arpeggiators are best used for inspiration while browsing patches, and the wide variety of patterns gave me a lot of different perspectives on the Ion's presets.
I was a bit disappointed to find that it can't be programmed with custom patterns. On the upside, however, the arpeggiator will send notes to the MIDI Output, allowing you to use it to drive other keyboards that may not have one built in.
SOUND QUALITY
So the specs are great, the level of control is remarkable, the design is hot, and the price is certainly right. But does it sound as good as it looks? Absolutely. As I mentioned previously, I wasn't too keen on the sound of the older Alesis keyboards, but the Ion is a radical departure from those earlier synths. No, it doesn't have the unmistakable sonic fingerprint of more expensive units like the Clavia Nord Lead, but it does offer a pleasant and well-rounded analog character that sounds great.
The Ion's 512 presets are all expertly programmed and make the most of the synth's comprehensive filter and modulation structure. There is a bit of repetition after a while, but, frankly, that's common with a library that large, and there's actually a lot more variety in the stock patches than I expected. The patches run the gamut: From deep and rich pads to screaming leads and twisted sonic textures, the Ion delivers — all while exceeding my expectations for a sub-$1,000 analog-modeling synthesizer.
Pads and textures are by far the Ion's realm of expertise. One patch in particular, Shader, had a wonderfully deep and subtle sound that works great as a supporting pad. Another padlike patch, Rounder, has a perfectly round attack with a smooth, warm, tapering release that's perfect for lilting upper-end melodies. The sonic character of both of these patches — and many other pads on the Ion — reminded me a lot of the warm and robust sound that I used to get out of my old Oberheim Matrix-6 and further cemented my opinion that the Ion's emulation of analog technology is spot on.
The basses sounded fat and punchy, with quite a few rattling my windows when I ventured below C2. The Ion's lead patches were the least impressive and needed a little editing to cut through a mix but still sounded good and were quite usable with a little tweaking. Kicking the patch into unison mode helped pop the leads to the front a lot more. Overall, I felt that the Ion excels more as the glue holding a mix together than as a soloist's axe.
All in all, the Ion sounds spectacular. Its only unfortunate drawback is the anemic eight-voice polyphony, and because the Ion is such a stellar performer when it comes to pads, voice stealing can become a major nuisance when working with patches that incorporate a long release time. It's disappointing when you're playing four or five finger chords on a pad sound with a long luscious decay, only to have the tails of your previous chord chopped off when you move on to the next. Even two more voices would have made all the difference.
ION? I'M IN
I've used a lot of Alesis products in the past, and although they've always been solid workhorses that got the job done, none ever performed with much flair or pizzazz. The Ion's a lot different. Alesis did a bang-up job with the Ion, clearly spending a lot of time giving it a pleasant sonic character and a sexed-up modern design along with solid construction that puts it squarely in competition with analog-modeling synths weighing in at twice the price. It might not have the sharp, biting tone of a Nord Lead or the thick and creamy pads of a Virus, but when you can get quality analog sound for half the price of those competing analog-modeling synths, that's not a bad return on your investment. Furthermore, the Ion also supports software updates via MIDI. A few of the most recent updates have included additional filter types and extra features.
Sure, there are a couple things to complain about. The lack of a digital output is a bit of a bummer for those who want pristine digital sound, and the eight-voice polyphony isn't exactly generous when you're playing complicated tunes. If there had been some way to double the Ion's polyphony with an expansion module, that would have been swell. The effects are a tad on the skimpy side, too, but at the end of the day, it's hard to hold these minor quibbles as a grudge against a keyboard priced less than $1,000.
If you are looking for an inexpensive yet capable analog-modeling synthesizer that will no doubt improve your studio with authentic analog sound and outstanding control, you owe it to yourself — and your pocketbook — to check out the Ion. You won't be disappointed.
Product Summary
ALESIS
ION > $999
Pros: Beautiful design. Excellent sound quality. External input. Four-part multitimbral. Modulators sync to MIDI Clock. Vocoder. Attractive price.
Cons: Limited polyphony. No digital output.
Contact: tel. (401) 658-5760; e-mail info@alesis.com; Web www.alesis.com
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