Dave Smith Instruments SYNTHESIZERS

> to program the 250-odd parameters in the evolver using any commercially
> available programming hardware device, you need to setup pages of 
parameters
> on the programming device!! if you are going to do that, you may as well be
> switching pages on the evolver front panel!!

Why would you want to control all 250 parameters?  For programming, yes of 
course you just use the evolver's great interface.  But for actually playing the 
synth you can't tweak two parameters at the same time on the Evolver.  Hell, 
you can't even access the lowpass & hipass cutoffs from the same row!

I've never used a midi knob controller but I'm leaning towards buying a 
Kenton Control Freak Live so I can do some of these things.  It also seems 
very useful to be able to assign the Control Freak knobs and buttons to send 
combinations of different messages or constrain values within a certain range.

> Lately, I've started to like setting up patches and finding a way to play
> them, depending on the feature of the patch that I want to highlight in a
> particular piece of music. In that instance, having *all* parameters
> available is unnecessary, and in fact a bit of a pain.

Yeah, that's what I'm talking about, actually playing the synth.  With the 
evolver a control surface would come in handy for this.  It's not a programmer 
but a performance tool.