Emu XL-7 & MP-7 User's Group

Im really surprised the XL-7 shipped with the 1.0 version of the OS I 
found it very counterintuitive and almost impossinble to use. I have 
since upgraded to the lastes version and I couldn't be happier. It's 
very self explaintory and easy to use. If I had the newset version in 
the beginning I would have only had to refer to the manual for 
reference. 

So why did I choose this piece of gear? I wanted something off the 
PC, I'm really tired of Windows problems and conflicts with software. 
I also have a hard time getting into the creative swing by staring at 
a screen and only moving my right hand to click and drop notes on a 
sequencer. In the beginning, when I still had my XP-30, I was 
considering buying an Korg M1 for a drum machine and step sequencer. 
These things are $400 and I figured for three more I'd get the full 
sound bank, 16 filters, sequencer, arpeggio patterns AND synthesizer. 
This thing is called the command station, and it couldnt be more 
right. You can design a studio around this piece of gear, which is 
what I intend to do. I sold the XP-30 to purchase the XL-7. It has 
allot of great sounds that I'll miss, but for three years it sat 
while I tried to hammer out meager tunes on fruity loops.  Now in two 
weeks since I've had it I haven't turned the computer on once except 
to download the OS upgrade and read the manual. 

Someone said somewhere that all the XL-7 is is just fruity loops and 
reason, why pay so much? I could go into petty differences, but some 
people are just visual people and others aural. Some are hardware, 
some are software..  But the thing I want to do is focus on writing 
music; I'm not a sound designer. I dont want to sit and tweak 
softsynths for a day or two so I can begin writing. I wanted 
something that will control all my gear, I love to mod the hell out 
of sounds and 16 filters comein very handy for that. 

So I plan on adding a sampler and controller keyboard along with my 
Korg Poly 800. And I think that will keep me quite happy for some 
time. Maybe in the future a ROM or two..