Elektron Musical Instruments

> 1. are they all of the same instrument sound?

yes.

> 2. big question: since my MIDI sequencer will be triggering notes on one
>    MIDI channel, how does the SidStation allocate the 3 voices?  Does it
just
>    turn off the first of the notes and start playing a new one?

I think that is the way it does it.

> Finally, I love all the old c64 tunes which obviously have percussion and
> bass and lead all at once.  Is it a real nightmare to write one of these
> using a MIDI sequencer, because there's only one MIDI channel?  (I'd buy a
> SidStation right away but I'm concerned about this...)

Yeah, this is done by using "tables", it sort of a mini-sequencer that
control how a patch should sound. personally I would recomend to do the
bass line, drums and lead separately and then sample the drums & bass
and use the sid-station for the lead alone (so one could tweak a bit).

The sidstation is fun, but a very diffrent instrument - I personally use
it alot (in almost all my tunes) but often in a sampled fashion. The
filters in the sid is remarkable, but for at least, a bit hard to handle.

cheers,

mga