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Come on, I can't be the only one wondering "why the hell did I ever use THIS thing..." Let's have your (extremely subjective) opinions / hatred / cautionary tales / warnings here, for the benefit of other musicians!

For me, the three top criminals are probably:


Korg N5. Allegedly "made for electronic music" (though I bought it as a general-purpose synth). Really? Why didn't it even have a basic resonant filter of any type, then? Not to mention the super limited effects routing, fiddly editing and weak as fuck sounds. At least the organs were nice. And the pads. Well, until you turned the overblown effects off; then they sounded like crap.


MIDI cables. Seriously, it was a blessed relief when DAWs and such let me go back entirely into software, and thereby not have to deal with any of the infuriating bullshit that came with physical MIDI networks.

But the all-time 'winner' has to be:


Roland MC-303 "Groovebox." When this came out, even at my then young age, I cringed. And then I thought I'd get over my prejudice, and borrowed one from a friend. And then... well. Mediocre sounds? Knobs that don't transmit MIDI? Way more preset patterns (not patches!) than user-definable? Oh, and you couldn't even properly define your own patches, anyway?! Utter shit, knocked up to sell to the hordes of copycats of the mid-90s who thought that all you needed to make awesome dance music was a 303, a 909 and some ripped female vocals.

Crappiest softwares: Protools and Impulse tracker
Crappiest hardware: Mac, Amiga

Autotune ...

There are many tracker composing softwares which have been designed so far away from standard tracker layout (which is FT2 style for me), or even just common sense, that they are a massive pain to use.
Not talking about emu-trackers which aren't accurate to the real system sound (but that you must use for some commercial projects...).

Crappiest softwares: Windows and anything from Microsoft
Crappiest hardware: IBM PC, Atari

this is of course an answer to dubmood "JuvelineShithead" post :)

I had the MC-303 too. Shite on a stick.

But the Yamaha CS1x beats it to the crap-fest. THAT was garbage - plastic, shitty garbage. I returned it to the store after two days.



In terms of the WORST hardware I ever owned/used, the Zoom 1204 wins the prize:



Noise-levels from hell? Check.
Replaceble presets that forgets your settings? Check.
Inputs that break after 6 months? Check.

I think this stereotype exists in vast numbers today, just in half time with louder bass :P

As far as the question, I'd say all of it. I hate all of it.

I owned (and still own sadly!) a MC303, and of course I was fooled likes everyone, but I was young °_°

The worst software? hmmm... any "professionnal" midi software, with piano-roll and shit.

I'm too used to Protracker and I never feel good with midi software :(

Well, of course they are "worst" just for me, I know they are good software after all :)

I had a lightpen for c64. it was the crappiest musical hardware ever. i tried everything (blowing etc.) but couldn't make it sound!!!!1111oneone

Sorry, you're wrong. Autotune is the best invention of the century!

And ehr, the worst software was probably the adlib tracker Zwergzwack and Chicken made (they did their best, but the program was unusable for 14 year ol' lil me) and I never even owned hardware besides a shitty keyboard and two guitars.

(sorry vinc, i still think it's worse than a hex editor)

Crappiest Software: Wavelab 7 Elements. Feels more like a demo version than a software product I paid for.
Crappiest Hardware: Cheap soundcards.

@gargaj: it's a C64 tracker? the screenshot looks very fine :)

Roland MC-303 "Groovebox."
I own one. I agree fully with all the criticism. And still I love it! ;)

In terms of terrible static, the Novation Bass Station was definately the worst I've ever tried.

But I'm also with saga on the MC-303 - MAN that's a synth I regret spending money on. I could really go on and on about the crappy hardware I've bought over the years. All the way from a huge-ass AKAI sampler with 3½" floppy drive and no internal memory (can't remember the model, but it weighed a whopping 16kg and was completely useless!) and to my Yamaha CS1x (have an AN1x too, but that's a bit better)

I do have a really old midi-interface, which I never really got to use, since the manufacturer didn't provide drivers for it, and I had to rely on some homebrewed win95-only driver.

The fun part is, that I actually still have all that crap. It's more and more becoming a museum of crappy hardware - crappier and crappier as years pass by :-) Go ahead and blame me - I'm nostalgic! :-D

It's off topic, but the BEST synths are definately my Roland JP-8080

... my Access Virus C

... and my Novation Supernova


And ofcourse I was happy with my AD/DA setup as well:

Wrong person. :)

But hey, the AN1x rules. :) Especially when used with the right sound banks... :)

gloom: I think you're right about the Cs1x not being a very professional kit, however still it's a nice cheap instant-gratification toy for 100$ or so on ebay..

spike: "gratifying"? In what way? The filters are non-existant, the knobs feel like a childs plaything and the sound it makes is horrible. Only in "performance mode" can you even get something half-decent out of it, and then you limit youself in polyphony. Rubbish :)

punqtured: The Virus is indeed good (I have the same), but the Supernova was never something I liked. I owned one for a few months before I sold it (this was back in 2000-2001). I just couldn't get it to sound good, at all. I just hated it.

gloom: It's still a nice synth to have fun with if you don't have anything else. Like I had for... 7 years.

saga: I disagree. A synth that's a glorified piece of plastic that sounds rubbish is pointless. You'd get FAR MORE just using it as a MIDI-keyboard -- and it even sucks at that. :)

Well, I didn't have proper soft synths during that time as well... Especially while working on a P2-350 this was not feasible anyway.

gloom: agree about the limited polyphony. but still i have fun playing with the knobs etc. also the effects seem to be quite ok i would say. i'd be happy to hear a better alternative for the same bucks (I have a wavestation which ofcourse is much better synth but also takes a lot of time and skill to program, so no instant gratification).

spike: Software.