This is something I’m very into as well.
Do you have Live? The Max for Live device Step Divider can yield some really funky results.
its just so much fun…
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Hell yes, thanks for making this video. Not much out there right now.
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Getting an itchy trigger finger for this…
https://www.instagram.com/p/CvAfdUAgmZf/
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The sequencers do not have midi out, correct? Still intrigued regardless.
We need some YTer to make some videos on this thing, explaining what they do while they use it. Could be a huge help.
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You could be this YTber!
I’m considering getting this too. Was given an apple gift card that would cover this, but just trying to figure out if I need to buy something more responsible first.
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Treat yo’self!
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LONG POST , sorry. My details after one day of using it.
Bought it a few days ago. I really like it. It is limited but powerful just like a groovebox you would buy. In fact if you approach this like a groovebox that has limitations with creative workarounds (ill illustrate some) , you will most likely love it. $120 is a lot, but if this was a hardware device it would probably be 10x as much since it has a lot of devices and the effects are very high quality.
Incredibly fast to sequence drums on. For grabbing samples fast it pairs well with an app like Sonomyn. You can audition samples and find them in there and then drag the sample from snonoym right into 2020. So its very low friction to do a search in sonomyn, audition some drums and drop them in, then get to sequencing.
For sequencing its super fast since it has this feature called Add that just adds in extra beats. Many of them work really well. You can run it pretty light at under 20% and still take a basic beat and make it busier and always changing. There is also a % of your sequenced drums hitting that you can control. It is not per lane though, it is per sequencer. So if you have a kick/snare/hat going on Sequencer 1 , you can’t tell it to just add hits to the hat. That said, it is a limitation that I do not mind because I can edit out hits I don’t like in the DAW. The benefit is you have an ever slightly changing beat with less effort than even using a Elektron. Plus you have 18 pattern slots so you could have 1 pattern with no additional beats and then another with the % cranked up. Instant B section, especially if you add more FX and modulation to the busier pattern.
Another workaround is based on how the recording is very fast to do. So you can hit the record button and its recording. If you then hit play, it will record into 6 stem channels (it is a Polywave of 12 mono channels, so you have to split them in WaveAgent but that’s a 1 minute process). The maker said he is going to make it so it exports 6 stereo Wavs, but for now it is the 1 polywave, just like a hardware Multitracker does. It’s not an issue for me since splitting the Waves into 12 files is quicker than dealing with Overbridge or grabbing an SD card out of the hardware, plugging in and taking the files off that way. Also the exports seem exceptionally tight (like down to the sample) , so there are no timing or glitch issues there.
The cool thing is that you don’t have to record the 6 busses out, you can change it in the options to just record the master out. Which is also nice because the Compressor on the master out is sick. But also when you hit record and then hit again to end it, the Finder pops up right away so you can see the sample (s). Maybe you can see where I am going with this - it’s basically a super fast way to resample a a cool sound made in 2020 and then drop that into a sampler on the 2020. So basically to resample:
- Solo the track you want to sample and send it through the Master buss.
- Set 2020 to just record the master buss
- Record.
- Grab sample from File Explorer pop up and drag into sampler of your choice.
This is also a cool way to process a kick drum through the master compressor and other effects and then quickly bring that version into the project to be used as the new kick - RYTM style. I would say the “resample” process is as fast on the 2020 if not faster.
Another tip if you are on Ventura is to go to your accessibility settings and turn on magnifying glass mode. You can set a keyboard shortcut but I use the 3 finger double tap on the trackpad. So its mindlessly simple to zoom in whenever you want. I am going to run it on my 27 inch monitor tomorrow too. I look forward to that,
For any of you using it, please pipe in! I am now figuring out how to use the Samplers and would love some advice there. There is a one shot, a granular and a looper. This is where I am at now, and I want to figure out what I can do with it. The chopping is interesting, im not even fully sure how it works yet. It looks like you set the amount of chops where it says DIV. I’m not quite sure how to accurately sequence it, since it seems to play random chops.
There is a keyboard though that transposes every trigger you can sequence in every sequencer. So you could have your hihats play at different pitches, obviously play melodies on the FM synth and also trigger different chops as well. I am just figuring it all out.
Honestly the only real negative I can think of is the lack of quality tutorial content on this thing to walk us through all the details of it. I am really hoping more people discover this so some people make content for it.
That said, I have put about a day into it and have already figured out all the stuff I shared here. So I can see this becoming mindlessly fast to use after a week or so. The learning curve is not as high as you would think from looking at it. It also is pretty fun to just mess with and figure out on your own as well.
I have messed with the FX patches too and that is a very powerful section that I need to spend more time with to accurately explain here. All I can say is I can see this being a very legit option as a groovebox substitute where you craft 60% or so of a track, export the stems and finish in the DAW without much fuss at all.
But I can also see someone who gets really advanced at this make entire tracks inside it. You can do this since everything is mapped to buttons on the keys. So you can quickly mute kick, sample 1, synth…whatever just by knowing the button that mutes them (they are all the bottom keyboard row z,x, c, v, b, n,).
Also the other thing that is awesome is you can have 18 patterns mapped from q-k. So what this means is you can make one pattern that defaults to Q, but if you hit T or W or whatever, it will switch and have the pattern you made in it. So unlike Elektron, you don’t have to copy paste into a blank pattern, all the patterns are filled with what you have made. That makes it super easy to change up the patterns into new varations since you can do a ton of stuff like change the amount FX, randomness, the pattern…etc and it is also super fast.
Finally the sound quality is top notch. FX all sound excellent and everything seems tuned for beats so you don’t have to faff around with the master buss compressor, it sounds great out of the box.
So hopefully all this info is helpful. I wrote a lot because there is not enough out there. I can see this being a secret weapon for dance music producers of all genres though. Hopefully this post bring some more discussion and tips on it from other people who bought.
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How small is the UI on your monitor/laptop? I was ready to bite but held off until I heard more about that aspect.
Thanks for taking the time to write up your thoughts!
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I have a 16 inch macbook pro and I find myself using the magnifying feature every now and then. I can use the UI mainly without needing to zoom at all, so it’s not a problem. I can see it where I could be zipping around on it so easily after a while that it won’t even matter much because I will know where everything is and what it does.
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Same size laptop as me! Glasses? 
No I don’t need reading glasses for it. Maybe one day but like I said you can use that magnifier which is a game changer, and I also have a 27 inch screen I am going to try this on tomorrow too.
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It’s ideal on a 27” screen.
It will be mega on a 32” monitor!
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Nice write up.
I’ve not had much extended time on it recently, but whenever I get 20-30 mins play time I usually come up with something unique and chunky that I wouldn’t typically create in a DAW or an Elektron box.
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Thats what I love. I can see this being a machine I can make a beat on in 30 minutes easily. Once I get it all figured out, that is. I still am figuring out the samplers and how to get them to do what I want. For example the slicer doesn’t seem to do anything for me except play short chops even at a low DIV rate. So clearly I don’t have this all down yet.
That said, for someone who is into making dub stabs, this thing is a monster. I drop a sample into the one shot sampler and tweak and I can get so much variation out of one sound that it is crazy.
I am routing by sending a sound into an FX buss, and then routing it through some effects. I then use the Send effect so I can dial in the reverb/delay and then I have those FX come out of the same bus as the FX chain. This keeps the stems bounced with the FX all one one channel.
Currently leaning towards making 4 drum sounds, 1 synth and either another synth or the bass. The transposer on this thing is crazy.
Anyway, yeah it really feels like piece of hardware that you just turn on and knock a beat out on very quickly. I guess it could compare in some ways to a hybrid of the Syntakt and Digitakt.
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This looks like a good one (provided one can follow the cursor, heh):
https://www.youtube.com/live/-jjjj2KRXkQ?si=Z06uLmFExz4iXJIS
I’ve not even started using the busses really - just been keeping it super simple for now. I hear you on the samplers, as they do seem a bit limited.
I’m going to start using it with BlueCat Connector so that I can route it into Logic.
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Please report back!
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Yeah I think the only thing holding this app back from greatness is the lack of coverage on it. It’s like these guys don’t understand how marketing works. As a result no one is really displaying how they use the machine, there are very minimal tutorials. It’s super underground, but that also makes it kind of cool since I am just discovering a lot of workarounds and ways to use it in my own way.
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