midi controlers

hey so whats a good cheap midi controller?

Gear Lust- Evol Audio Fucifier

This device by Evol Audio called the Fucifier is a distortion synth and sound shaper.  It looks like the distortion effect in Reason, but in boutique hardware form.  This is the sqrt hard on maker box.  Then you see the $2k plus price tag, and you realize that you aren't making love with that hooker in the window tonight.

Hardware Lust

I've got it pretty bad.

Picked up one of these this week:

... mostly because I'm scared to spend the money on what I really want:

and wanted to start out somewhere.

Who else has the fever? I almost considered picking up a soooooper cheap used Roland R-8 as well. Ae used one, so hey, it can't be all bad, even though the built-in PCM sounds are pretty crap. It's one of those ones you need "ROM cards" to expand the palette with, though. And that is totally gay.

A synth might be a better option, but... everything out there (that's less than $500) seems kinda disappointing. I know TWH loves his MicroKorg (or used to), so... what pieces of sound-generating hardware have you known and loved, and possibly still curl up next to on a stormy night? sqrt, this is your opportunity for an entertaining MC-303 story. Saw one of those, too, btw, but $150 was a bit much to go for on nostalgia alone.

Lust with me. You know you want to.

firewire audio interfaces

i've been thinking about trying to find a decent, portable firewire audio interface for when i (eventually) start playing shows again. i have my 828mkii, which is great, but it's racked in my desk right now and i just want to have a super-small, lightweight setup. ideally i'm thinking my setup would be something like: laptop, launchpad, nanokontrol, audio interface, period. so the motu kind of doesn't really work for portability, and is overkill anyway. the cheapest small motu's are in the $500-$600 range, which is more than i want to spend. m-audio has some ~$200 joints, but i won't buy anything from m-audio that's mission-critical. i saw that the presonus firebox is pretty cheap now, and i seem to remember hearing good things about it when it came out. all i really care about is that it's small, low-latency, durable, has 2-4 outs, and can have a separate main and headphone mix. it seems like the firebox has all of that covered. anybody know anything about this unit, or have any other suggestions?