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What sort of things you want to hear about? There are too many things to mention. Out of the box - the patterns are pretty good, you can create your own. Very easy to work with - very much like the Roland x0x style pattern sequencing or you can use "extended" mode - allowing you to mix scales in the same pattern. The pads are not touch sensitive, but you can accent any specific step. (I hear that if you control it from MIDI, then it can accept the velocity values - will try it later).
Creating your own patterns is very easy. I havent' explored all the sounds and patterns yet, however, so far - it's good. I wish it had more trance/ambient oriented patterns but I guess the beauty is you can make your own. Patterns range from very good to "bleh". Some of the sampled sounds are a very grainy and dirty - good or bad, you be the judge. I personally thought that the grainy sounds sucked... They could work for some old-skool/experimental type sounds.
Some complaints - all of the knobs are off-axis. Meaning: as you rotate them the knob itself does not stay perfectly centered. Furthermore, knobs do not have any notches on them and if you're in a hot club and got sweaty fingers, manipulating those knobs will be a bitch. I guess you can try to find some replacement knobs and put them on. Also, the knobs are positioned too closely - if you're tweaking in the live situation you can accidentally move nearby knob. The display is color red and does tire your eyes after staring at it for an hour or so. The display is not always easy to read and values that contain "6" or "8" tend to appear the same. Toms and snares are not deep enough as I expected them to be but I haven't messed around with any of the FX or modulation parameters and I am not done investigating all the kits/machines - so that could be just a lack of my experience on this machine. Take it with a grain of salt.
Manual is VERY good, teaches you step by step. After the first few lessons you can pretty much figure the thing out. Overall impression -very neat - I'm happy. I have a pretty long wishlist but I am spoiled. Overall, it's a pretty decent machine - if you got the moolah get it - it's the best drumbox you can buy for $1250. Sure, 909 can probably be found for about $900 but it's not as capable and doesn't have a full midi implementation. I'm thinking of shelling out for an MPC 1000 and Korg KP2 and hooking them together into one surreal sonofabitch. 
So, my overall rating for Machinedrum would be:
Quality: 7/10
Sounds: 8/10
Ease of use: 10/10
Value for the money: 8/10
Coolness factor: 10/10
Reliability: 9/10 (looks and feels solid, works flawlessly so far)
If I could only find it cheaper... BTW, if you're interested, I think there's one on e-bay now with SID station going for $1650 - nothing to write home about but saves you about $100 off the list.
more 2 follow l8r.

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Proud member of the "Filthy Zionist" coalition
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