I have no compatibility issues with this synth except for some strange reason both of my waldorf plugins do not play well with my macbook keyboard in ableton 8. Sometimes notes play and sometimes they don't. When I plug in a real midi keyboard, there is no sign of this. I have not needed to reference the manual as this is a very simple, stripped down synth. Yes, the general configuration is very easy and all the functions are right on the front of the board with a few buttons that open up sub menus. SUITABILITY/PERFORMANCE Besides the the laptop keyboard not working well with it, there are no other problems and the synth seems to work great in all other aspects. So far no crashes and none of my presets have been lost. It also remains exactly how you leave it after closing in a session. With an actual midi controlling device, it seems to work great. I give it a 10 out of 10 for performance as the laptop keyboard thing is really just a gimmick and I never use that for performance. I have been using this synth for about two months. OVERALL OPINION What I like most about this synth is that there are some really great soundscapes/effects to be pulled out of this synth. None of the presets have a real name (they are all named Factory '84 #) which is pretty lame but it is fun to run through them all to get an idea of what this guy can do. What I don't like about this is there is really nothing new or special about this synth. Some of the sounds are cool and tweaking is easy but there is nothing else to note really. I guess if I had gotten this plugin earlier before I used so many great soft synths, I would be more impressed, but really, it just sits most of the time. I only use it when I get bored and decide to randomly pick a preset and tweak it in hopes of a cool noise or something. I paid $100 for this and two other plugins. Not a bad price but I don't really use this enough to warrant the money. Precision and quality of sound is good, but it pales in comparison to some of the monster synths like Rob Papen's stuff, absynth, etc.... I would probably pass on this synth knowing what I do now only because it is nothing really new and doesn't really bring much to the table.
