Yeah, I suppose I am being a little harsh. I am disappointed in the feature set, but it does look fun to jam on. Limitations can be creative, but I also expect limitations to carry a certain price point. It just feels like a bit is missing in this price range. Although, I would still like to give one a play and see.
Is there a cheaper sequencer hardware that do similar/the same stuffs that the Play sequencer does?
Oxi one and Torso T1 are both cheaper
2 Likes
Will you…play?
Yeah apparently it has algorithms that will just generate some early 2000s (to my ear) IDM. Kind of not sure how I feel about it.
Benn did a thing where he just pressed the drum and bass button and had a pretty sick pattern in a few seconds. Yeah I really don’t know how I feel about that…
3 Likes
What are the chances that any of these features make it to the tracker? I’m specifically thinking about the reverb and delay.
This is exactly what I’m hung up on as well. On the one hand, it sounds so unsatisfying and unoriginal to just turn a knob to “IDM” or “Techno” and get an auto-groove going. What’s the point of making music if you take the creative work out of it?
On the other hand, there are plenty of times when you’re working on an idea and you wish you could quickly spin up a beat that’s close enough to what you’re going for, and it seems like Play gives you plenty of flexibility to keep editing beyond the auto-generated beat, so maybe if you view it as just an easy starting point it’s not so bad.
I can’t tell if I’m being an old man shouting at the sky, “In my day, Aphex Twin programmed every drum beat by hand after walking 15 miles in the snow!” or if I should be excited about embracing new ideas in music-making. Jury is still out.
7 Likes
The Tracker 1.6 firmware has an improved delay.
Somewhat, yeah. I like the idea of presets.
I like how he subtly (or not so subtly) listed himself in there with like the greatest IDM musicians of all time 
I mean he did fine for himself but he isn’t really among the people he listed. I suppose he was probably just doing it to be cheeky.
That said Benn seems like he has been a big proponent of generation/curation based music more recently so I am not surprised that he loves this thing.
3 Likes
i don’t think he was being cheeky. he’s posted in places saying similar things and wondering aloud why he isn’t as famous or something like that. idk. i didn’t pay much attention to it all. seems like a good dude. ego is a weird thing though.
3 Likes
Haha, yeah. I liked most of Benn’s video, but I did have a laugh when he said he thought it would be priced around $1200.
I’m like…yeaaah, no one thought that.
6 Likes
was pretty embarrassing that 
why do so many of these grooveboxes choose to use master/send effects? i like using sends when i’m mixing down in a daw but i much prefer insert effects when i’m being creative/composing. which is one of the biggest advantages the OT has over DT and many other grooveboxes
3 Likes
You can use it as a starting point and make it your own. Same as you would edit sample loops etc… and if you don’t need it, it you don’t have to use that feature. The sequencer looks perfectly usable for starting from scratch
1 Like
The sequencer looks really fun, but lack of any synth engines means I’ll pass for now. Interested to see what they add post launch.
Personally I think it’s a great device. I don’t need deep synthesis or editing capabilities. The market is saturated with things like that. It’s the sequencer here that is really turning the trick. The controlled random and glitched ratcheted fade type things it does, even the auto beat generation, I think all of that really sets it apart. In loopops video he took different algorithms from different beat types and mashed them together ie -
Hats - breakbeat 1
Snare - Pop 2
Kick - whateverthefuckchillstep 4
I think one could really get A LOT of mileage out of something like that especially when combined with the variation sequencer it has on board as well.
We have so many so-called grooveboxes that don’t groove at all unless you spend countless hours arduously programming your pattern. The concept of a groovebox in my mind is quite a joke really because with all that programming I might as well be editing by hand on a grid in my computer.
Compared to that this box seems a breath of fresh air. I’m a dad, with a job, a wife and limited time to spend entering steps on a grid one by one. This seems to solve many problems I have with the little amount of time I have to spend making tracks these days. And it solves it in a way that seems to be musical and striking a chord with the music I love and loved back in the day. (no pun intended).
It’s in my cart on Polyend, I’ll probably hit the button soon.
12 Likes
Had a quick flick through the Benn video, an awful lot of very generative sounding generative stuff, I guess this is an evolutionary step from preset styles on Casiotones, and later preset patterns on early grooveboxes, nothing at all wrong with that, definitely has its value for some people, just not for me.
I think that things like being able to set sequencers up how you want them, fill options, trig conditions and parameter locks still allow/require a great deal of user input/choice, algorithmic/generative stuff on the other hand (for me) does not, it is too much like using pre-programmed phrases - even though I fully well understand it is more than that, it does not seem that different in the end.
Edit: I’ll counter this by saying that for standard things like 4 to the floor, or syncopated drum patterns etc, I guess it makes sense, but for melodic stuff (for me) not so much.
Edit2: Also I rarely use arpeggiators and chance for similar reasons, I like everything to be input by me, on purpose.
3 Likes
this thing is awesome
2 Likes
Yea i think it would be a lot of fun, and bound to get something decent out of it, even if it’s just reliving all my IDM dreams.
If it wasn’t for me too being a dad and having a wife, it would already be in my cart
1 Like