sonuus i2M musicport Reviews

3.5/5.0 based on 5 customer reviews

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Customer Reviews

raqcoon
from San Francisco, CA
June 29, 2012Music Background:
creative artist

Impressive, not perfect

Great concept, and apparently very tough to get solid MIDI notes from an analog guitar. But thanks to firmware there’s room for improvement. Nevertheless, even with some of the overtones, especially with bass guitar, the Sonuus creates a sound of its own. Using Reason, MIDI bass sounds unique, a cross between bass strings and keyboard bass, but closer to bass strings, at least to my ears. In fact, some of the anomalies (even after deleting stray MIDI notes), sound really neat, including the transients that Sonuus suggest be avoided. In comparison, I think keyboard bass is too clean, and I’ve spent years using a keyboard as an input device because there wasn’t much choice.

Sonuus opens up a whole new community and the i2M is stellar because it works with guitar and bass, unlike its predeccessors which had two either/or products. Sonuus says the i2M is “future proof” via firmware, and I hope that’s correct instead of being superceded by another device involving expenditure.

Being able to edit MIDI, change tempo, and select different voicings is a big plus over editing audio, which is pretty much WYH(hear)IWYG. Overall, I think Sonuus, analog, and keyboards all have their places in music, at least in my project studio. I’ll use ‘em all, with Sonuus adding an extra dimension of creativity. Kuudos to Sonuus!

Juan
from
June 26, 2012Music Background:
Music producer, singer, guitarrist

Awesome little gadget

Awesome gadget, I've been jamming with it and reason 5 synths all morning. Tracking is really good, not perfect, but definitely the best of its kind, also for the price it's a great investment for any guitar player. Tracking will be perfect if you can cut off all guitar nuances, because sometimes it will read picking and fret noises as notes, but all I had to do was run the guitar through an eq prior to the i2m and then it was perfect. I'm using a pod x3 live prior to it, all I did was set a shelving eq cutting everything from 2.5khz and up (like a low pass filter but less drastic) and that's it. Keep in mind the tracking was very good before the process, so it only got better. Piece of advice, when using with synths be sure to set the pitchbend of the instrument you're controlling to 2, 3 semi-tones tops, depending on your bending strenght and usage.

You probably won't notice its size, but it's about a lipstick big, will fit in any pocket and it's also USB powered, so no battery replacements to keep in mind or anything.

Thomas Hughes
from Kingston, TN
November 9, 2011Music Background:
Musical hobbyist

A great tool.

The i2m is very easy to use, and sonuus provides good software to support it such as the musicport editor and the asio driver which allows you to chain another interface as your output.

I was intending to use the i2m with a bass but I have found that a guitar is better suited due to string physics which dictate latency.

The i2m is most handy for me when writing midi parts in a sequencer as I am more acquainted with guitars and basses than keyboards.

I have found that when using a guitar with the i2m to control a synth it can easily be used as a live instrument; however with a bass the response can be glitchy and delayed so be aware.

I must also commend Sweetwater for having the fastest shipping online.

Dennis DelGado
from New Jersey
June 17, 2011Music Background:
Musician, singer, songwriter

Sonuus i2M Musicport: Very happy so far, but haven't put it through the paces yet

I am very happy with this purchase. The price is very low for something that provides guitar midi conversion. I'm impressed with it's responsiveness. It's important for everyone to know that I haven't yet put it through all its paces, especially fine tuning it with the software.

I did plug my guitar into it and connected to my PC, getting the signal into Cubase 5. The direct guitar sound was fine to my ear and I pumped it through Guitar Rig Pro 4 and it sounded beautiful. I recorded some chords and riffs in Cubase 5 and I'm very happy with the responsiveness overall. I have to play around more with the settings though, since I did find a noticeable delay that threw me off when I was laying down the tracks. This could be my fault though, since I'm new to DAW configurations (I used to have a home studio, but it was all analog tape).

I converted the guitar signal to midi and pumped it through some VST plug-ins I have and they sounded really good, even a concert grand piano. I hope to hell they put out a polyphonic version of this at some point. I would easily pay $300 for that! The sensitivity to attack and volume was impressive.

I connected my microphone and tried singing a piece for the piano and then some other VST's, but even when restricting the notes with the software to compensate for my voice going off pitch even by the slightest amount, the midi note would register a change to the note. Again, I need to play around with the configuration via the software more, but I'm not a bad singer and my pitch is pretty good, so I was a little concerned about this level of sensitivity. I even turned pitch bend off completely and had similar, although less frequent results.

All in all, I have to say I don't regret this purchase in the slightest. Hope this helps anyone.

By the way, a few weeks before I bought the Sonuus I purchased the You Rock Guitar and I have to say I hated it. I hated the feel of the "frets" and neck, I hated the plucking strings' tactile feel, and I particularly hated it's lack of expression with finger picking and inconsistent expression with picking. And I tweaked the hell out of those strings with the latest software. Upgraded the firmware to the most recent version too. I would stay away from the YRG. IMHO.

Hope this helps.

michael Buchbinder
from Rego Park, NY
April 18, 2013Music Background:
Prod. Guitar, Vocals & Keys.

Did Not Work For Me!

It's not really ready for pro use. But I'll keep it anyway!