I'm so tempted to buy this

[Panopticon]

I've never heard one, but here's what I would be concerned about: 72 (!) controls. I worry about anything that looks like it might turn my quality studio time into useless hours of knob tweaking. When you mic up a drum kit, for example, as soon as you settle on mic positioning and gear settings, you commit to a somewhat "static" sound. During mixing you can manipulate this, of course, but you're still sculpting from an original sound with some knowledge and theories of how it should be treated. Does this limit you sonically? Of course. But does it demand that you use your resources and proceed in a linear workflow? Yes.

Don't get me wrong, this thing might be really great, but I'm constantly looking for ways to make my workflow as efficient as possible, so I'm not sure I'd like to incorporate something with so much room for redundancy. On the other hand, if you were putting together a sample CD and wanted flexibility, it might be just the ticket. I make my living making *music*, and as such my criteria are different than many people's.

This is probably not the reply you're looking for, I just finished most of a bottle of Pinot Noir over dinner, so I'm a bit fuzzy at the moment...

Speaking of which, I wonder how Merlot's feeling today???