Re: Handsonic

[Mark Sottilaro <sine@zerocrossing.net>]

Hmmm, sounds to me like they mainly expected it to be a performance 
instrument, and the sequencer was a second thought.  I've seen people do 
cool stuff where they seemed to be controlling effects via the d-beam, 
no?

I too have a love/hate relationship with Roland.  They seem to favor a 
billion presets rather than tweakability.  In a way I'm OK with that, as 
a lot are great.  I used to spend hours and hours making sounds on an 
old analog Korg D8000, but I feel I no longer have the time to put into 
sound design, as much as I love it.  There came a time when I just had 
to put more energy into playing.  The short of it is I still wish I had 
the time to do both!

I recently picked up a VX-5050, because the sounds on the GR-30 SUCK.  I 
was plain and simply tired of running them through tons of effects to 
get anything halfway decent out of that  box.  Now it's mainly spitting 
out midi.  Why the hell won't Roland make a guitar synth that's got 
decent sounds?  I just got back from a gig, and my wife said, "You're 
patches sounded great tonight.  I usually cringe a few times because I 
hate the sounds."  I knew exactly which patches she was talking about!

Anyway, I always wanted a  Handsonic.  I've put it in the "if I can get 
a used one for a decent deal" category.  If anyone wants to get rid of 
one cheap, let me know!  (what the hell am I saying?)

Mark Sottilaro


On Sunday, May 5, 2002, at 05:35  PM, Mark Hamburg wrote:

> The Handsonic is very high on instant gratification. I've had a number 
> of
> non-percussionists sit down at mine and have a lot of fun. (I'm a
> non-percussionist as well.)
>
> On the other hand, I have a couple of gripes that seem reflective of 
> much of
> my experience with Roland gear in that the operating system always 
> seems to
> keep it from living up to its promise. Here are the chief issues that 
> come
> to mind:
>
> * The effects are much like the effects from the SP-808 (and other 
> Roland
> units) but the provisions for realtime control of the effects are much 
> more
> limited. In particular, the unit has 3 knobs purportedly for realtime 
> sound
> tweaking but all they really seem to do most of the time is provide a
> slightly faster way to edit kits. I really wish I could do things like
> assign the knobs to the feedback level on the delay effects, for 
> example.
>
> * The sequencer on board is very weak for loop building and actually 
> isn't
> even much of a sequencer. It doesn't let you erase notes. It doesn't 
> let you
> switch parts while recording. The Handsonic with some good MIDI looping
> software in its OS would be really cool. Even just matching some of 
> what can
> be done on things like the MC-505 would be a start. As it is, I end up 
> just
> doing my looping in audio which seems somewhat of a waste since MIDI 
> data
> ought to be more flexible.
>
> As for the sounds, I don't know whether I prefer it or my Emu Planet 
> Earth.
> The latter probably has better sounds but they are harder to get to.
>
> Summary: Fun percussion controller with decent sound sets that falls 
> short
> of what it could be by not having an OS that allows much realtime 
> effects
> manipulation nor easy loop creation/manipulation.
>
> Mark
>