Sonicware LIVEN Texture Lab

If you love the sounds of the amazing Tasty Chips GR-1 but balk at the cost or if you like the price of the Bastl Microgranny but find the sounds harsh and disappointing then this might be for you. Packed with features and elegantly designed. Seems well made: Although the case is plastic it's really solid and all the pots and buttons feel decent quality. My only criticism is that there are quite a lot of things that require you to remember various different modes and shift+key combinations. I guess that's the price you pay for cramming a lot into a modest box. And for the money it seems like a bargain.

I've had this for one whole year now. It's sat on top of my Roland Fantom, between a Model D and a Monotribe. Every other week I switch it on, twiddle the knobs, once I even recorded some sound I'd recorded in the street into it and twiddled the knobs again. But... ???

I've watched all the tutorial videos. Read and re-read the manual. Printed out cheat-sheets to describe what each knob means.

But it's no use. I have no idea what I'm doing. I have no idea what this thing does, or is. Maybe thats my fault? I like old FM synths with six buttons to manipulate seven hundred editing functions, so it can't be that I'm incapable of grasping the rudiments of electronic sound-making gear.

And yet... it keeps drawing me back in with a promise of sounds no other device can make. Its not a random 'makes cool noises all by itself', nor is it a one-trick pony where everything it does sounds the same.

So, forgive my low rating review - I concede that it could well be me that is at fault*. I was thinking of selling it until BadGear made that video making it sound like the Most Epic Device Of All Time.

*Except for the build quality. To call it Fisher-Price would be an insult to the utterly indestructible build quality and ageless industrial design of Fisher-Price toys. It gets two stars only because none of the knobs has snapped off yet.