Alesis has discontinued the QS 8.2, it isn't listed on their website product listing, all the on-line stores want to sell them cheap...and I bought one.
What did I get for my $689
I'm not going into the details of the soundbank, its only 16Mb, but after receiving this keyboard I will say, it has 16Mb of very nice samples...go to
http://www.americanmusical.com
they have a very good detailed listing on the QS 8.2. Look it up under Keyboards, I think I got a good deal from them.
My impression; well, the first thing after setting the keyboard up was checking out the tuning status before all else. I found the QS 8.2 that I got completely out of 440 tuning, it was actually tuned to a "D" when playing an "E" a whole step down. Now, this may be real confusing to a novice player. After all a keyboard is suppose to be in tune when you get it...not. So...after dropping the "cents" to -99 and adding a plus "8" on the fine tune, it came up to 440 and ready to jamm. I admitt this was a weird occurence, and do I suppose the guys at the store or someone messed around with my "DSP" (dent&scratch) which was probably a floor model...maybe.
The keybed on the QS 8.2 is nice...a full 88 keys and what I would call semi-weighted. In comparison to my acoustic piano it is slightly heavier action, but it is a lighter action than my Ensoniq ZR-76, the Aleis QS 8.2 is a very playable keybed. The QS 8.2 does not have any frills, its a straight forward playing machine, and the samples are great, I mean you can't take the first sample that pops up in the program and expect it to be the best, and they aren't on the QS 8.2, after spending the afternood with this keyboard I found some very nice pianos, strings, synths, brass, woodwinds, even organs that sounded good, but in comparison to my XK-1 not so good lol. All I have to compare these samples with is my ZR-76, which I might add has awesome samples, the QS is in the heat.
I found "nothing" wrong with my dent and scratch buy, no bad keys, no bad buttons falling off, the QS 8.2 seems to be built tough. This keyboard has gotten so many bad reps on it on all the forums that I wanted to say it is a good buy for a beginner, or intermediate and advanced player looking for the nuts and bolts in a keyboard, plus with the midi you can connect it to your 49, 61 keyboard or modules with those other samples and have a nice set-up with the sound banks you want and a great 88 key semi-weighted keybed. Remember we are talking in-expensive here.
Outside of the "tuning" I found outta wack, the only other complaint I have is the button search function, a knob would have been awesome, other than that all the selections are easy, editable and can be stored in a user bank for a quicker call-up.
Over-all for the price I am satisfied, but hey, I don't need much except a gigging keyboard with the bare essentials, and of course its got to sound good. My Ensoniq ZR-76 weighs in at 85 lbs, so the 48 lbs of the QS 8.2 is considerably lighter (to me). I would recommend the Alesis QS 8.2 for a great buy under $700 88 key keyboard, over a thousand samples (ya gotta dig), its going obsolete soon. I like the keybed, so one day when I get some extra money I'll buy a midi-sound module to really boost this keyboards sampling, or mabe not. If...you need a recording studio in a keyboard this isn't the one, if you need a good playing board this may very well work for you. I am keeping mine.
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