cons: I cannot stand for the crappy model logo on the front panel. i dislike the LCD and the inner interface that it presents. It is illogical at times compared to the great s5000s. The low budget graphics and text within make me question the exagerated prices e-mu charges. It just looks plastic from the outside..sounds good in important areas though thats it. a typical company..

I know people who've had good careers in dance music, using little more than this box (in fact, even the non-ultra version), an ST, a compresser, and some basic FX.

You can do your straight-up sampling, like, take a funk loop/whatever, & play it back faster... or chopped up, but it's the synthesiser possibilities which are the most amazing. With enough work, you can build instruments out of anything. I built a drum'n'bass style evil bass sound out of a radio presenter's 's' sound last night.

If you've any concept of how a synth (analogue or whatever) works, the cords shouldn't pose much of a problem. The way everything's organised is pretty intuitive once you've learnt it (doesn't take long). If you don't fancy tweaking around with numbers, you can set midi CC's to control whichever parameters you fancy, & then just use an external fader box to manipulate the sound, old synth-style.

The FILTERS are fantastic! So many of them, and so tweakable. They were my reason for buying the thing, and i've never been disappointed by them.

The standard FX *are* a bit weak, and not 1/2 as flexible as i'd like, but they sound ok overall.

Overall, if you're looking for a non-computer solution, and don't wanna go down the ultra-tech kurzweil route, this is a fantastic, fantastic machine.