I am sick of my laptop with software DAWs and effects, latency issues, driver/OS compatibility, interface boxes and cables, etc. Thinking of going old school with hardware sequencer arranger Yamaha QY100. Any gotchas to warn me about?

Feel sort of weird buying something new that is decade-old technology. But then again, you can still buy new that 2-decade old Alesis drum machine.

1. LCD is not backlit: That’s fine, I’ll duct-tape an LED booklight to the side of it.
2. Media is old SM card: No problem, you can still get 128MB SM cards online and my PC card-reader still works with SM cards.
3. Keys are not velocity sensitive: That’s fine, I won’t be “playing keys’ on it in real-time, just entering chords in step-recording mode.
4. It’s not portable once you add a controller: Yep, I don’t see any way around this. If Korg made a 3-octave battery-powered version of the microStation, I would get it. If Alesis/Akai made a battery-powered version of their Micron/miniAK with a sequencer in it, I would get it. But they don’t, so I won’t.
5. The XG sounds are OK, but they are not those super articulated voices like the ones from the arranger boards: Yep, I don’t see any way around this either. If Yamaha made a midi tone-generator with all those great super articulated voices, I would get it. But they don’t, so I won’t.
6. It’s a button-click menu-diving type of user-interface: No problem, everything is that way unless it has mouse input or touch-screen. Old school navigation is fine with me - I can complete a song using my old Ensoniq TS-10 sequencer faster than on any of my newer software.
7. It burns through batteries: That’s fine, all my battery-powered gear only goes a couple hours unplugged. I’ll plug it in if AC is avail and only go with battery when necessary.

There's nothing wrong at all with old tech if it fills your needs better. Like you said that Alesis SR16 has been around for over 20 years for a very good reason. It still does the job well and doesn't require anything special to use it. Actually I REALLY like that drum machine. It was great back in 1990 ... and it still is.


Sure it's nice to have a state of the art sound engine. But the bottom line is if you play well people like it no matter what sound set you are using. It's all about the performance not the technology.