One of the difficulties of these threads is that people are comparing very different sorts of tools. MPC versus the Cirklon?
The RPE sounds interesting. I’ve never encountered anyone who has actually used one. Specs and demos just don’t cut it (imo) when you’re talking about a sequencer…
I’ve used an awful lot of them, and I come from the basic vantage point of wanting something modeled on the analog step sequencer experience. Of course, midi can take you much further in different ways - multiple tracks with some degree of independence, live recording, polyphony, algorythmic options (the cirklon is great for this) - but midi also has severe limitations. With a good analog sequencer, you go way beyond the limitations of midi tempo for instance, and even play the cv as audio when you go fast enough - controlling the waveforms with the knobs/faders, etc…lots more immediacy usually with an analog sequencer - individual step gates, various ways of clocking from various analog outputs, etc…
Brief comments on some of the midi sequencers. Of course, these are mostly subjective, and I’m rather opinionated.
Octopus - really powerful, and easy to use for the basics. But the lack of a display means that you have to remember lots of esoteric key combinations, and they are very easy to forget. The manual sucks pretty much, so it can be hard to find stuff. the manufacturers basically bailed on users a few years ago, so I’m not sure if there is any support available now.
Nemo - a downscaled Octopus, but to the point that you can’t drill down for the kind of overarching info you can get on the octopus. MUCH harder to use, therefore. I had one for a day, and returned it.
Schrittmacher - in many ways my favorite. I didn’t have any midi gear for awhile, so I sold mine, but wish I still had it. It doesn’t have stuff like chords, live recording, song structures, etc - but has tremendous flexibility with timing and intertrack modulation - in some ways more flexible than the cirklon.
cirklon - all in all, the most powerful, but I don’t care about song structures and some of the overhead that you have to deal with, so I preferred the Schrittmacher. But I’d like to try one again at some point. Great things you can do with modulation, probability, accumulators, etc.
hmmmm - can’t think of others right now. Obviously this isn’t the thread for true analog sequencers…