Cre8audio NiftyBUNDLE

In terms of value for money this package is pretty much unbeatable, however if you have very high expectations for audio clarity and build quality you may want to spend more.

The case itself is sturdy and attractive but the wooden end cheeks feel a bit lightweight and the screw rails are clearly machined to a budget. If you consider that a nice case from a premium manufacturer can easily cost more than this entire package then that is perfectly reasonable. As an entry level unit, or as a second unit for portability it's perfect and I'm nit-picking.

The in-built power and USB/MIDI facilities worked well for me. It's no hardship to supplement them with additional front panel modules if you decide you need more features or power in future so I see no negatives here.

The Cells unit is just brilliant. It's a slick and strange sequencer that does everything I wanted it to. The touch sensitivity is great and you can quickly create and tweak sequences. I couldn't ask for more and I absolutely would buy this separately.

The Chipz module is the one slightly weak part of the package. It was designed to sound gritty and 8-bit but actually just sounds harsh in a fairly unpleasant way. The controls don't sweep smoothly but sort-of jump from waveform to waveform sharply with little blending and the LFO jumps from slow to fast very quickly. It's a huge shame because there are so many features packed into this module that it really could have been the best part of the deal. Cre8audio might release a firmware update in future, it has a micro USB socket on the back for this purpose, but they have not announced any plans to do so.

All-in-all a great entry level set-up with wonderful features, however I strongly suspect most people will quickly want to upgrade the Chipz module to something with a cleaner VCO and more linear LFO.