I'm looking to expand my HARDWARE options for expanding my synth/rhythm/sampling experimentation. I guess I'd liken the style I'm getting into to Radiohead or Tortoise or something (mixing electronic and "acoustic" instrumentation).

I've played quite a bit with REASON, but I still prefer the off-the-cuff feel of hardware. I've been looking for a relatively cheap price range of $200-$400 at things like Korg's EM-1 & ES-1, Yamaha's AN-200 and Roland's D2.

Can anyone recommend one of these or another device that's a good box to really tweak up sounds with? Ideally, I'd love an audio input. And at the end of the day, i don't want something tweakable enough so that the sounds are nothing like the audio presets they began with. Basically, I want to have the flexibility to REALLY alter what comes in the box.

It's a tall order, but any help or opinions on the above devices would be helpful. Maybe there's just a realy great combo that I'm missing... like a synth module + outboard effects box.

A note on the ES-1... I had one and sold it 2 months later. I will say that it is neat and you can really get some cool sounds using its FX but I didn't like the sound quality. It seemed too thin. I think I read that it uses 22khz or lower sampling rate which might be why. Anyhow, I wanted it to make rhythm tracks and ended up using the drum sounds from my Yamaha CS6x synth instead because they were much fuller and thicker sounding. That's my 2 cents on the ES-1.

STAY AWAY FROM THE D-2

McDonald's won't even put the piece of @#$! in their happy meals

Thats my 2 cents on the D-2