Thanx for elaborating. I wasn‘t aware that the granular engine on s4 is so much ahead.
The saturation is indeed nice, thought tonverk as many option in this regard.
Just to add another perspective, I sold S4 just before Tonverk came out because I was tired of it’s bugginess and felt like it was too niche for me to keep my money and desk space tied up in it. I saw what Tonverk had to offer and bought it, even though S4 soured me a bit on hardware. I find it way more useful and engaging and productive. There’s no denying S4 is deep, and while different in many ways I feel Tonverk gets me 80% of the way there in terms of mangling and discovering and yes “sculpting” new sounds from sampled material, but offers myriad sound design, composition, and arrangement opportunities that of course S4 lacks. For me at least S4 lacked any sense of “playability” and I always found myself saying “ok now what”. I tried sequencing S4 with T1, op-xy, and ableton but never really got anywhere satisfying, whereas TV’s sequencer just seems to work for me. I hesitate to invoke notions of “productivity” or similar tropes (this isn’t my work after all, it’s play!) but it’s undeniable for me that I can just sit down and jam out some ideas quickly and get to interesting places with TV, and that’s worth a great deal to me. S4 didn’t get me there.
Also, for me S4 had a tendency to start to sound same-y on everything you apply it to – maybe that’s my own shortcoming but many folks point this out. TV has its own problems as well but my experience has been way smoother, less buggy, and I’m more productive/engaged in it as an instrument. I’ve used Tonverk almost daily since I got it in September whereas S4 (purchased August '24) sat idle for months at a time after the initial novelty wore off. YMMV and all that, it obviously works for some people, but it clearly was not for me. I frankly have more faith in TV (and Elektron) in terms long term viability as an instrument.
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I returned my Bento the day TonVerk got the granular update. Bento also too buggy for me atm.
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Is someone using S-4 together with TV and want to share your experience?
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I do. What you want to know?
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You can do this - the range is two octaves up or down.
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The workflow, routing and what you like about it
Routing for now nothing special. Each sampler has his own mixer input and they are not connected between. Maybe in future will input the S4 on the TV for some master fx, but actually not needed. I have some projects on the Torso, most ambiance, field rec, soundscapes, bizarre things and i’m incorporating TV to give them some more sens, some direction, adding sometimes drums, or bass, or sometimes a melody, speech or chords. Also adding some sparkling with the ‘granier’ machine. My aim is to go live, so I’m trying to have some kind of template, where , on Tonverk, 3 first tracks are for percussive elements(subtracks divided low/meds/highs), the 4th is always ‘granier’, 5th always bass, next one is for something played live(multisample usually) and the others chords/pads/what else, or not yet used…That way will be easy to remember in concert situation. Each ‘song’ is one pattern, and need to see how transitions will be done. I have a Soma Cosmos that I think will be used for that. It is kind of an ambient/dub/dark no genre set. Regarding midi, S4 is providing sync/play/stop via 5pin, all ok, but maybe will change later, will see in live situation what is best. I like the flexibility and the quality of sound of both boxes. Hope that helps.
Here an example, sorry for the rough/fast recording/mix( just done to show you something, not finished yet…)
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Amazing explanation, thank you! And amazing song. I’m sold! I wonder if it’s update in the hardware with the new white S-4? I had three black S-4 with all encoder issues…
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No hardware update, just color… It seems that new firmware will finish with encoder issues and clicks mayhem… 
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From the Torso Discord.
“We have looked into the jumpy behaviour with the SELECT encoder and we have found a solution from the software side to tune the encoder so it doesn’t jump values as seen in the video.
We are pushing this in a firmware release as soon as possible.”
Lets hope for the best
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Mmm how?
100% agreeing with this, I also sold my S4 and replaced with a Tonverk. The only feature I miss is the 48-band resonant filter bank. Aside from the obvious bugs what mostly frustrated me is that there is practically no sequencer in the S4, but tempo synced loops/time stretching didn’t work correctly either. I don’t remember the exact problem, but timing sucked and things started drifting which was crazy frustrating. The other problems was the clicks and the audio dropouts when you have too much going on.
The last nail in the coffin was reading about the jumpy encoder issues others had. Somebody on Discord replaced their faulty encoder and said that it was a nightmare due to the S4’s PCB design. A software workaround is fine, but I didn’t want to deal with hardware that’s too hard to fix even for someone with proper equipment.
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Tune parameter, on page 1.
That’s acting on the sample, not on grains, or am I missing something?
True, though isn’t the audio effect essentially the same?
No, it acts on grains and not among the whole sample
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Don’t have an S4, just pointing out that pitch adjustment is possible on TV even if it doesn’t appear to work the same way.
it’s the general tune of the instrument you’re talking about, like the main sample player that’s feed into the granular effect. in my message i explicitly said “pitch of the grains”, which is smt that exists in most -if not all- granular devices mankind had ever seen.
this is like saying “i just wanted to point out that those are in fact burger buns” to someone complaining the pattie doesn’t even exist
This is a really solid analysis of the S4. I’m using my octatrack to sequence it and find I can create remarkable soundscapes very easily.
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