It works fine but definitely more limited than I’d like.
Can any one report on how solid the midi clock
Sync is? Is there any drift at all?
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From faceboook
It’s official, RK008 update with track polylengths and BLE support - on top of the already impressive list of features. If you want to see it in action, check our W450 stand next week at @superbooth_berlin
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Why would one choose this over say a Squarp Pyramid or Toraiz Squid for not much more? (or about the same used) Genuine question, as it does not look to offer anything that the Pyramid/Squid does aside from being smaller/fiddlier and a lot less features, correct me if I’m wrong.
Well just size, maybe ?
If you play regular gigs and have, say, 5 machines to carry around, having a very small one for sequencer duties can be handy?
Your back will thank you.
For me at least, size has recently become a strong parameter in selecting machines. I just had a kid and my pleasure room suddenly changed into a baby room, so being able to easily carry my setup around is helpful (BlastBeats + Razzmatazz + BlueBox at the moment).
And If ever I have a gig, a small suitcase is more than enough. The M8 being on its way (to replace my BlastBeats when on the go), I should be able to fit everything in the pockets of my coat in the future.
So, yeah, a very small battery-powered sequencer with rather powerful features can make sense in this nomadic era.
I love my 008. But I don’t make music. I just like the size of the unit. Now per part tempo is cool. I would rather have a Hapax for a studio and the Pyramid was a lot more powerful.
expense aside … size, workflow and simplicity.
but hard to ignore the expense!
Maybe it makes more sense if you have a need for a midi recorder rather than a midi sequencer ? And most people here are already firmly in the land of midi sequencers.
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I have not thought that I’m in the minority, but now you’ve got me thinking
That’s the key feature of interest for me too.
Plug whatever MIDI keyboard, drum pad or whatever into it, and it records what you play in real time, with your own hands. That is what the Retrokits website means by “unquantized recording”.
I guess the Pyramid and Squid also have a real time recording mode. Whether you should consider either of them over the RK-008 depends on if you want their features over the 008’s. Some people really don’t want or need the features of either enough to justify spending the extra money.
Smaller size is a justifiable factor in the buying decision too.
One thing I like about recording MIDI to SunVox is you can record without specifying a pattern length. It will set the pattern length for you when you stop recording. This saves time I would have had to spend calculating how long I need the pattern to be, which is one of my annoyances with dealing with other sequences.
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Oh it’s great. I have a Roland drum pad midi to one input and a Hydrasynth into another and outs back to both. Works great.
Yup, that’s the only reason I got it.
Discussion and a bit of demo of version 2.0 firmware
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I like the immediacy of devices like this, but I’m baffled as to why they’d limit the memory to 64K in the age of MPE MIDI data. Especially at that price point.
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It’s actually 64K memory per Song, with 16 Song slots.
I didn’t design the thing so I dunno why these specs are what they are.
I have been playing around with my new RK-008 for about a week. Here is my experience and observations:
The thing is smaller than I imagined it would be. I wonder if all the people who reviewed it have small hands!
I have consulted a lot with the short manual. Personally, I would prefer a “button by button” explanation about how to do certain things. For example, I got hung up on entering song steps. Typical newbie stuff. The RK-008 is not that deep, in terms of menu diving. My goal is to get to the point where I am only thinking about music composition, not button presses and menus. Shouldn’t be too difficult with this device. I can only imagine how confused I’d be with a new, full-featured sequencer.
I decided to try the file transfer. I had to download Chrome browser (it supports serial-through-USB) connections). But then, it seems, a driver, only available to Mac and Windows, was also necessary. There is probably a Linux workaround. I haven’t figured that out and may need to rely on my wife’s Mac if I ever upgrade the firmware.
The non-destructive quantization is a great feature, but I am experiencing a tiny downside to it in the following use-case: I wanted to create an intro section composed of the last 16 beats of a preexisting, 64 beat part. So I copied the part to a different part number, then set the length of the new part to 16, then selected “keep end”. Everything worked perfectly, except the first bass note in the new, abbreviated part, was not playing. This is because, I’m fairly certain, the bass note was originally entered a smidge before the beat and therefore got cut. So, maybe the answer is, in a future update, the option to apply destructive quantization to a part.
My first song was only about a minute of music with five tracks, not a million notes, no CC data. The screen showed 5% of the memory allotment for that song. I am pretty confident that, for my personal use-case, the memory limitations of the RK-008 will not be a problem. But, yeah, I understand why some people are miffed at the 64K per song memory limitation.
I am curious why the ALT+number key combinations require holding down of the ALT key while pressing the other key, rather than simply pressing the ALT, releasing it, then selecting a secondary function. The current key behavior is fine. Just thinking out loud.
I am, generally, quite happy with the RK-008. I think the price is reasonable, considering that it’s a niche product, made in small numbers. The battery life, so far, seems really good. The buttons are very firm. Trying to think of another device with a similar button feel…the firm buttons allows me to place my hand/fingers on the unit without accidentally pressing a button.
I will follow up this post in a few weeks/months. First impressions, good or bad, are not always super useful.
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Interesting … while I don’t own one of these, I’m very interested and I thought that there was some kind of “render” feature that did exactly that, took all the non-destructive changes and made them permanent.
EDIT: the merge button maybe ?
[3] MERGE
Mixdown Track MIDI Modifiers (e.g. quantize, velocity, channel, … ) and/or merge multiple Tracks to one. After merging, modifiers are set to default.
Duh, I figured out the solution. Applying “Mixdown” to a track applies the modifiers (quantize, length, velocity) to the track.
I haven’t bought one of those batteries yet for mine. How long are you finding you get out of the Nokia battery?