IK Multimedia Uno Drum Ultra-Portable Analogue & PCM Drum Machine

I really can't fault this synth. A brilliant little analogue synthesizer for peanuts. I have some top end gear & bought this as a toy. It certainly isn't a toy. It's a very capable piece of gear & sounds great.

In the past lots of people hav e complained about humming and buzzing noises, especailly when powered by usb. I've just bought this product, and it's obvious that the manufacturers have istened because the problem has now been completely eradicated. This synth is small and very powerful - much better than you'd expect for the price. Downloading the free app onto my ipad was easy, but I can't see how I can possibly get it to talk to the synth. Instructions are non existent apart from a bit of paper in several languages. The writing is so small it's completely unreadable without a magnifying glass. Even so it's a great buy and I can see the potential for lots of fun.

Easy to use. Head phone socket and it runs on batteries so it's easy to take where you want. Good for messing about with and trying to learn how basic synths work.

This is a small analog synth - yes it has some faults but balance that against the price I think you can’t go wrong.

I purchased this from Amazon for £109. That's £36 cheaper than a Volca Keys for much more synth. At this price I don't think there is another product that comes close.The lightweight, plastic case might not be to everyone's taste but if portability is a factor then it can be seen as a plus point. The synth architecture is similar to an old fashioned entry level mono synth such as the Moog Rogue. The sound is good with non-ladder filter delivering a lot of low end frequencies. It sometimes feels weird to hear such beefy tones from a toylike box!PROS - very portable, very affordable, patch memory and a useable keyboard.CONS - susceptible to noise, requires software editor for deep patching, possibly fragile. The factory presets are not great but you can download plenty more via the editor.It took some experimentation with audio and USB cables to eliminate the digital noise from the output. The software provided is Windows or Mac only though the editor runs happily under Wine on Linux.Overall, I'm very pleased with UNO.

Initially, I'd really enjoyed my Uno Synth. Granted, it sounds amazing, is really small, light and portable, it is phenomenally cheap, and with the editor offers some big features... however, the more I use it, the more frustrating it seems. Given the portability aspect, the need for an editor has become an irritation, as has the step sequencer, which at 16 steps maximum is virtually useless (the suggested workaround of using patches and manually switching between them is pretty weak IMO and adds further complication). I was hoping for a firmware update fix for the latter, but given that it's been mentioned and not addressed in IK's forum since the Uno was released, I'm not going to hold my breath - odd since the Uno Drum comes with a 64 step sequencer! Add to that the fact that IK have just announced the Uno Synth Pro, which fixes the two aforemention issues, but is larger and vastly more expensive, and I think it's unlikely they'll be releasing any firmware that might improve the original's features. Yes, if you're just going to have this on a desk, hooked up to your DAW and running the VST then it's a great hybrid solution, but if you want to use it DAWless and particularly as a mobile solution then it's a pain. The ground noise issue that many have mention is really annoying, and although it can be mitigated by switching to batteries, it is still a nuisance.

Had this a couple of weeks now and have barely scratched the surface of what this Synth has to offer. 100 programmable sequences; of which 20 are presets, (which you can’t alter) with multiple options per sequence. It has two independent analog VCOs with a variable wavelength and a noise generator, plus Arpeggio and Sequence buttons.The LFO waveform options include sine, triangle, saw up & down, square, random, sample and hold. It comes with downloadable software and also works with other plugins. It has a 27 key multitouch keyboard and also a dozen scales to choose from. The UnoSynth is impressive and I wish that I’d come across it a couple of years ago, when it first came out. If you can’t utilise USB, it takes 4 x AA batteries, which lasted 3 hours before I had to replace them.

If i was you don't get this the drum sound are not bad if you use it with just the batterys its ok but when youconect it to your computor to use in your Daws it hums so bad it just pist me off i should have taken the other pearsons advice and not got it