Hey Rain,
Nothing to say re guitars - they're all just different colours of the same thing to me, but nice to see you back here. Still living the dream?
I think that was supposed to be the idea as the walls were just bare concrete block before. The other guys were convinced that everything sounded better but in reality most of the time the guitarist drowned everything else out anyway.
I also once spent a weekend glueing those things to the walls of our practice room, which had been a small milking parlour in a previous life. A false "ceiling" was then made out of an old RAF parachute. TBH I had no idea why we did either, but it looked cool at the time.
I haven't had need to contact them for some time, but usually they are among the very best in my experience so it might be worth checking to see if something has gone astray.
I forgot about them - probably because in my head I've already written them off as being too flimsy and toy like (like most of the other brands in fairness to Akai). The Advance just seemed more robust generally.
Yep, they seem to have struck up an exclusive deal with the button pushers union.
I thought the advance was quite a nice controller, but lacked faders and like many a larger 76 or 88 option which seems to be almost essential to get the best out of Kontakt and Omnisphere.