Pioneer Toraiz SP-16

This may be the worst take of the decade.

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I have to agree with you l just recently pulled mine out of the closet dusted and updated it because of your comments. I have been playing with my Force for awhile and enjoyed it but the sp16 is a joy to use because of it’s simplicity.

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It’s da shit. I’ve spent most of the evening live looping stuff through a Tonal Recall straight into the Toraiz, coming up with all sorts of lovely albeit unusable textures :sweat_smile: when you slap on a bandpass filter with the lo-fi fx, slam it in reverse and play the slices while pitching up and down, you’re almost in Blooper territory.

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The SP-16 has been my favorite drum machine since its arrival in my studio. It is so simple and fun to use.

As stated by others, the main improvements I would appreciate are polymeters, sample layers and zero point crossing. However, I accepted a long time ago that the product would not receive further updates, and to work around its shortcomings via other means.

With that said, I usually pair the SP-16 with other drum machines, such as the Roland TR-8S, to expand further rhythmic possibilities.

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Yes, I feel the same (though I’ve been on it for just three weeks, as compared to your years :slight_smile: ).

I somewhat do lack polyrythms, conditionals, different time signatures and streaming, the first three mainly to make one pattern more interesting rather than split it up into multiple patterns just to get that longer, organic vibe I’m usually going for. And streaming well because I ran out of memory yesterday, and realised that streaming would’ve been nice :slight_smile:

With that said, this doesn’t bother me. Still keep loving the damn thing. Its pros are far superior.

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Desktop sp16.https://www.coveruppro.es/producto/soporte-stand-toraiz-sp-16/

I dont have the sp16, but this seams nice to work in a desk.

Where did you get this info?

You guys who own and use an SP-16, how do you track its multiple outputs? I routed 1-2 through my SSL Six into the two channel eq and compression on the SSL, and then the 3-4 and 5-6 through the SSL SiX ins, and summed everything through the SiX bus compressor.

I ended up not sure if I liked the result any better, it was just different, since the SP-16 sounds pretty good as is. Obviously, we could go down the route of user error here and say I don’t know how to wield my SSL properly, but let’s assume I do and share ideas on how you’re using the multiple SP-16 outs and for what purpose.

I’ve considered multi-tracking options into a Tascam Model 12 or into a daw, to get access to the tracks I could split up this way, but again, I don’t see the point. It sounds good as is in the SP-16, and whenever it doesn’t, that I can prescribe to user error.

So what are your scenarios here?

Using the additional outs only for insert fx in a live setup (only experimenting now thanks to your input earlier in this thread). Have a patchbay, so technically I could also split out signals for post processing in the DAW, but as you say the SP16 sounds great so I haven’t felt the need to do that.

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Been sampling on the Toraiz all weekend. Will make a detailed post on my observations but so far it’s a winner.

Quick question, not sure where it is in the rather convoluted manuals/addendums: can you load an individual track or scene into different projects? I’m doing a ton of sound design on each track of the sample bank I’m creating, but of course when writing a song I would want to start from a new project and import an individual track (sample with all track sound parameters) into it.

If I had to I would load a whole scene into the project and copy individual tracks from it into other scenes and then delete, but that would be less than ideal. Has anyone done this?

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Yes, for external fx it’s very flexible, for performance and just resampling the outputs. When I had the Blackbox, just running its outs through the SSL on its own added quite a lot of space and body. I don’t feel this is the case with the SP-16. It doesn’t need it.

Scenes, yes. But it’s hidden :blush: you go into the projects menu and then you got export and import at the bottom, if I recall correctly. Don’t think you can do this for tracks, tho a messy workaround would be to import the scene with the track you like, copy the track from the section where you can copy, paste and move stuff around, and then bring that track into whatever scene you want it in.

Yeah ok I thought it might be something like that :slight_smile:
But when you delete the scene does it leave all the other samples from still loaded from it in RAM?

As far as I can tell, yes. I’ve been spoiled by samplers that stream for a year or so, so I’ve hit the memory wall with the Toraiz twice already. Throwing out some samples and trimming what’s left has resolved the problem, including just deleting an entire scene or two that wasn’t any good anyway.

Possibly here ?

Doesn’t look the most legit :slight_smile:, but I guess dealers will know…it was to be expected, only this has been claimed before.

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Yep it’s not 100% clear and that Pio forum is so badly supported its virtually useless sadly .

Will be good for the second hand market if it’s true

Well, it’s that Alto place again, it’s the only source I’ve heard say this is so. There’s no shortage of SP-16’s around here. However, the price drop seems to stay, so it could mean they’re selling out stock.

Usually, both devs and dealers are pretty upfront about these things, though. And it’s not like the Toraiz isn’t fleshed out as is now. Not sure what the argument would be that Pioneer doesn’t care about the customer base. What is missing in the Toraiz, which is reasonable to expect and not just something you’d want cause it’s cool if you get it? We’re not talking a Tempest foul here, are we?

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So who else is obsessed with the Lo-Fi fx? I use that on everything!

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This was subsequently refuted by one of the PioneerDJ forum mods.

That said, the Toraiz-related communication in that forum is so poorly managed there’s a chance the left and right hands are well outta sync.

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