Synth Site |  Alesis |  QS 7

On the back of the synth you'll find both built-in PC and a Mac interfaces, four sound outputs and an optical ADAT interface if you're fortunate enough to have one of those.

What else? 64 polyphonic voices, an piece-of-cake operating system and four versatile effect units. You'll even get a free CD-ROM with a nice selection of computer software - like a copy of Steinberg Cubase Lite and lots of other goodies.

The keyboard is the only thing I'm not quite happy with. It has 76 semi-weighted keys, but they feel rather plastic and cheapish. The clumsy pitch bend and mod wheels seem awkward and old-fashined when compared to the slick combined Korg joysticks.

But all in one, the QS7 is one powerful and inspiring music platform, and at this price range possibly the best synth I've ever tried.