I spent most of last night cleaning the dirt, dust and soda off of the Ion I picked up last night (thanks Chris). It was in good shape functionally, with the exception of a broken F key. Something must have dropped on it and broke the loop that prevents it from rising up too far. The thing was definitely rising up too far. A little Scotch tape and we’re back in business, a replacement key already in the mail. I was delighted to find that under all 30 of those thick rubber rotaries the pots were all secured to the metal case top, and not to the circuit boards themselves. You can lean right into the thing and not worry about snapping anything. I cleaned the top panel as best I could and put the knobs back on.

Those knobs spin 360° and cover 1000 values per parameter, which sounds fantastic. Liquid smooth. A nice little feature I found while getting to know the controls was the Release Hold. Perfect for droning atmospherics and noise. I zoned out and probably listened to the same patch evolve/devolve for a good 25 minutes before deciding to commit it to memory. I had used both hands and as many fingers as I could to move as many dials as I could at one time and was met with flawless execution, ugly results maybe, but no hiccups or stutters. Proper edge of your seat sound creation.

Nice drive effects. Lots of chorus options. Routing options for days. I think I’m going to be able to coax some really interesting stuff out of this machine.