alt Hacker NewsDownsides immediately jump out at me, it lacks real DIN MIDI ports, having those irritating 1/8" jacks instead which require an adapter. Built in battery, hopefully not too difficult to replace. I vastly prefer AAs for this use case like the Volcas use. It has a fan, that's not good at all. It looks cheap (look at the bottom photo here https://www.m-vave.com/product?id=fm-1) and not sturdy. Similar to my Elektron Moden Cycles and my Polyend Tracker, a bit flimsy and cheap.
I feel like the Chinese have made and sold enough music gear on behalf of other manufacturers over time that they can technically make the products, but I don't think they understand the market so they will be flawed and toy-grade for a while until they hire some consultants and carefully study the various portable MIDI gear that has succeeded over time. I'm not sure what the electronic music scene looks like in China but I would suspect most of the people involved still use non-Chinese gear and software.
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It looks cheap because it is cheap—something like $60 US. As for understanding the market, they appear to be doing an okay job of it; lots of people are buying three or more of these.
No comment on the general criticisms, but jacks for MIDI is unfair, I think. I probably get more annoyed at connecting DIN MIDI with the mix of equipment I’ve got since most of it uses jacks, not DINs, especially the things I’d connect to a M-Vave. I’m resisting the temptation to buy one right now.
> toy-grade
This thing is absolutely worth the $$$ once you install Sloop on it but I regret having bought one only because I'm getting way more mileage out of using a small game pad to drive the iOS port of Dirtywave M8 (and am probably going to buy a hardware unit when they restock). Personally I enjoy the tracker workflow and chopping samples infinitely more than doing the sequencer thing on a tiny screen but I can't argue that this unit is very powerful for how cheap it is.
> It has a fan, that's not good at all.
I think that's actually the built-in speaker?
You are criticizing a piece of equipment that created a minor revolution in the music market. Think about that. Sure it has flaws, but it brought vibe music firmware to the masses.
You are out of touch. All sorts of compact gear (even very expensive sequencers like the Oxi One) use 1/8" MIDI jacks because modern consumers prefer compact. People are also used to charging with their laptop via USB, not easily done with AAs, which are also more bulky. It looks cheap because it is cheap, it costs about $60-80, which is half the price of a Volca.
There's a lot of excellent gear coming out of China. Behringer has their factories there, Donner has a range of recreations (not clones) of various classic Roland analog synths, and also make a wide variety of controllers, pedals, and other gear. Ashun Sound Machines makes the Hydrasynth and a few others, one of the most highly regarded digital synths on the market.