Yeah, you only get 64 MIDI clips (“tracks”), and 32 mute groups (confusingly called “sequences” in Pyramidese) that you can launch manually or chain together. Each or all of those 64 tracks can be up to 384 bars long (maybe great if you want to write scores on the thing), so there’s plenty of memory in there – it’s just been designed to be used in long, dense chunks, rather than possibly many small chunks (Elektron’s patterns) that can be looped and chained flexibly.
I’ve advocated for a while now (e.g. here) to Squarp’s developers to learn from Elektron in this regard, specifically from the OT’s Arranger and from the control the user gets in the OT over how memory is allocated. (The 80pt font troll you mention didn’t seem to like my suggestions or enthusiasm for Elektron products.)
Anyway, I have a Pyramid and an OT, and I find that they work well to complement each other’s strengths and weaknesses. I do wish it were all contained in one box to minimize overhead. I use the OT as my primary sequencer, and slaved to it is the Pyramid, which I use 75% as some kind of MIDIpal on lots of steroids and 25% for sequencing polyphonic parts and >8 bar-long automations.
OT is still much better than Pyramid at:
- Making arrangements out of smaller component parts that loop
- Monophonic sequencing, in general – plocking and editing monophonic steps’ note length, velocity, pitch, simultaneous CCs, etc. is much easier on the OT, and you can’t even disable/mute steps on Pyramid without destroying the note information
- MIDI LFOs and the LFO designer, which together can be used for intertrack modulation and producing very complex, evolving melodies in the league of Cirklon, Numerology, and modular stuff like Rene and Metropolis and analog shift registers. On Pyramid, any modulations have to be deliberately parameter locked or drawn with the touchpad, and you can’t adjust their playback speed, send them to multiple destinations, or “sample and hold” (as in Elektron’s HOLD LFO mode) from automations that change throughout the course of a step
- Programming synths with CC messages – unlike the 10 assignable encoders per track per pattern on the OT, on Pyramid you get 9 assignable controls (5 encoders, X axis on the touchpad, Y axis on the touchpad, and 2 CV inputs) that cannot have multiple destinations and whose assignments cannot vary between tracks or sequences
- Easier and faster to ratchet notes
- Track lengths running at divisions or multiples of the BPM (not a Pyramid feature)
- Transposing all incoming notes (e.g., if playing from an external keyboard)
Pyramid’s much better than OT at:
- Polyphonic sequencing (nice chord modes, DAW-like piano roll, easy to add and edit overlapping notes, no practical limit to polyphony)
- Recording or parameter-locking CC automations over arbitrarily long tracks and multiple simultaneous MIDI channels, with great visual feedback and none of the headaches and limitations of the OT’s “CC direct connect”
- Creating >64 step “patterns” if you want to
- Time signatures without having to do workarounds and mental Elektron-math
- Parameter-lockable tricks for spicing up incoming notes, like velocity-modulated MIDI delay (like on the Yamahas), plenty of scales to quantize notes to, step/gate probability, microtiming-level randomization, note-to-CC conversion (if your synth doesn’t have keytracking modulation), etc.
- I/O integration, including some iConnectMIDI-like MIDI-thru features and some really interesting CV => MIDI capabilities
- Handling Program Change messages – you can plock them (as you could on the MD, but not on the OT), you get good visual feedback about their sequencing, and you can get some crazy things going with note-to-PC conversion and CV-to-PC conversion
- Playability – the pads in live mode have some nice tricks and are very useable (much more so than the mini-keys on the A4 or the chromatic buttons mode on the OT), and the X/Y touchpad is fun
Some other remarks I have on the Pyramid:
- Swing, rhythmic quantization, stick-to-scale, and “harmonization” (read: the 4-note paraphony available on every OT step) are treated as “MIDI effects” along with the more exotic stuff like step probability, note-to-CC, and delay. And you only get 4 of those per track, so it seems (based on the volume of feature requests) that many owners are feeling they’re underutilizing its potential
- The Euclidean sequencing mode kinda feels like a party trick at this point, because you can’t parameter lock length or fill (you need to use up more of those 64 tracks for that!) and you have the choice between (a) all steps in the track sharing the same note or (b) randomizing which note is played per step. It’s handy for exploring new rhythmic ideas, though, and then recording them into another sequencer like the Rytm
- You have to get used to playing Finger Twister on it, as there are some 2-3 part combos of buttons and encoders spanning across the panel that you have to do for routine operations. It’s not great and honestly an RSI risk – while the OT has more arcane button combos, Elektron at least reserves them for the less frequently utilized functions and offers double-tap alternatives
- The “note2cc” MIDI effect allows me to select Rytm patterns on arbitrary rows of the OT Arranger by translating those notes into Program Change messages (like the Multi Map feature on A4/AK). So, it solves some headaches in keeping the OT and Rytm synced throughout arrangements