The matte finish is prone to prints, but it really depends on light and watching angle how visible they are. Easy solution: just sticker-bomb the device 
Thereās a difference here in that the unit was unfinished and specified by the devs as having a specific feature set to be added and sadly they didnāt allude to the fact they hadnāt properly thought through that their implementation might have to change how the current functionality worked which is whatās ruffled a lot of feathers. Had it been a case of buying it with a hope of something never mentioned being added e.g. that old chestnut of Syntakt adding sampling as an example, then thatās much more on the buyer.
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I have the same problem. In most cases it doesnāt loop properly, or have a different lengthā¦ I need to adjust the tempo parameter to the tempo of the project.
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I completely agree
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the octatrack can be used easily free.
uninspiring does not come to my mind thinking about the OT.
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Testing scenes, is a very very powerful feature, a whole new dimension for the machine, but I miss naming that scenes. Otherwise you get lost when you have a bunch of them.
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How do people think this would go as an accompaniment to a 6U 104HP rack (Make Noise REsynthesizer)?
Would be cool to be able to add some drums, use as sample storage for the morphagene, resample into infinity, and arrange things.
Any demos out there of people using T-1 and S-4 together? Would love to see the Torso ecosystem in actionā¦.
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I could use a little help right now. Thomann hasnāt sent my unit yet, so I might be able to cancel the order. After watching the YouTube demos and reviewing what the v2.0 manual says, it still looks promising. However, I joined Torsoās Discord and have never seen so much negative feedback about a device before. It kind of reminds me Should I pass on this, or is the overall negative sentiment exaggerated due to a small amount of unsatisfied users and not representative of the 3,000+ users on their Discord?
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Agree too 
I meant Elektronās precision can easily take you down paths where it can feel clinical.
Of course, you donāt have to go that way, the LFOs, envelopes and how they reset (or not) can take you to some very interesting places.
What I would say about the S4 is the modulation really gets you to some wild places with very little effort and the fact you can modulate everything from a single source is quite a revelation.
Soā¦ are you tempted? 
fair questions @tubefund and hard to answer well for you.
I find it to be very unrefinedā¦butā¦the creative possibilities are exciting enough that I canāt imagine not having it at the moment. All said as someone whoās had it a week, encountered a range of issues but also had a blast.
If strange behaviour, crashes etc are something you can put to one side because this does things a way that excites you too then great. Otherwise you could wait and see if that refinement creeps in over time or look elsewhere. The community should be highlighting issues, there are plenty, but I rationalise at least some of intensity around it as excitement for it, love of āthe potentialā etc.
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Only you can judge this.
But from looking at the discord, a few things jump at me. First is that thereās a standard thing in spaces where users think theyāre getting a direct line to manufacturers that some people get super histrionic thinking this is the best way to get their pet issues or changes or feature requests prioritised. Second, and related, Iāve seen a tendency for a kind of weird parasocial relationship with developers, more concerned with policing ācommunication with the communityā than what the machines actually do. Iām seeing some of both there in the same way Iāve seen on this board and elsewhere at various points over the years. And when itās going often tends to make the most noise.
Finally, the understandable criticism is that there were major changes between versions in how the tape machine works. So people who liked the previous way or were used to it are unhappy. Whether this will make a difference to you depends on how you want to use it. But new users coming in at 2.0 wonāt have the same issue of getting used to one way and things suddenly being another way. Fwiw Iāve also seen other posters on more measured boards I read saying that they converted their previous projects to the disc machine with minimal fuss and seeming pretty happy overall. But I think this is the core issue getting people exercised, bugs etc. seem to be less prominent.
But thatās just my read - the thing is to cut through the noise and assess what it is in its current form, what it does and whether itās for you.
Re Octatrack - I think thereās also an issue of cognitive overhead when you try to use a subset of much more complex device. Iām weighing this up on Push - it can do all the same stuff but Iām not sure itāll be as streamlined or direct or playable.
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Things to consider:
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If the device in its current firmware does something you like it doing, then itās worth getting, in my opinion. It has limitations, it has occasional bugs, and donāt buy it because of what it could be, only what it is. Be sure to get the device from a seller where you can return it immediately if thereās a hardware issue. But I think what the S-4 does is truly special in its 2.0 firmware and itās exceedingly rare that I feel a new piece of gear is this inspired and this unparalleled. I recorded an album with it without even meaning to. As a piece of hardware, itās a revelation to me.
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The Discord has a lot of long-time supporters of Torso and the S-4, and they have been using the S-4 in a certain way for a long time. The 2.0 firmware fundamentally changes that way of using it, and many of the users feel like theyāve lost their device and their workflow. Thatās a fair feeling, Iād argue. For me, itās a non-issue, because 2.0 is exactly how I want to use it and if they never update the firmware again, Iād still be happy.
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Torso seem to be really quite poor at communication, and poor at fostering a community, so instead you have a ācommunityā Discord without any input or contribution from Torso. Iāve left the Discord because of all the discord (the irony), and because itās pointless to be part of a community where the developers donāt actually communicate anything. But ultimately, this is all peripheral to the gear and the experience for me. Maybe it matters for you, though?
Ultimately, I love the S-4 and have no need for future updates or community related to it. If that works for you, go for it.
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hm. tempted for sure.
but: I do not like companies who act like they do, not having the basics in mind.
my max patches can be glitchy, stuff I misuse like cassette recorders can be glitchy, my self built contact mics etc. but not a device which is selled for being an instrument. that is a high quality product class, isnāt it? with extra requirements in terms of reliability.
it looks to me, it is much more the great concept which I would like to have, but unfortunately it is not available as finished product.
I also cannot belief that all the super-youtubers out there advertising these things and not saying any word about problems or anything (check the torso website ā¦ ).
it is clear to me, at this moment in time the company has not the ability to make a real product. the product development is not able to realize the great concept as a reliable product.
tempted, for sure.
but, what was really great, is to listen to your bandcamp albums! like both of them very much.
looking forward to hear more from kidyoshi!
are you living in tokio?
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you are maybe the only youtuber who mentioned something about problems with the device in your description of the s-4 clip.
I really appreciate that!
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Hey man first i would like to give you credit for your video. Amazing work!
I agree with you this machine is a joy to work with but i belong to the user base that is very much disappointed by the fact that the altered fundamental things of how material devices work.
Being a veteran Octatrack user I will describe the analogy of what they have done which in my opinion is merely stupid.
When implementing the scenes they had to reduce the amount of time a tape machine will use and from the 6 min limit per track they made it 30 seconds. This choise is totally understandable if you take into account that they give you per project 36 different buffers used by the tape machine that can be used distictintively in each scene. S4 has 128 scenes so it can hold 128 different samples playing per track for a given project. The limitation is that only 36 buffers can used in a tape machine per project. This limitation does not apply in the disc machine where samples being used there do not count to the 36 limit.
All good in my head till now. Other users were pretty frustrated because they wanted the 6 minute per track limit for their recordings and overdubbings.
So where does the stupidity lies in??
The new tape machine is a whole different story compared to the one from firmware 1.2.2. They took the old tape machine, they transformed it into a disc machine puting a bunch of other limitations due to the fact that the samples are streamed directly from disc. So the disc machine canāt overdub properly, canāt use xfade in long samples because crackles appear and has a linked modulation type in the start and length parameters of a sample. That is to say before that, you could easily modulate start with a 1/8 resolution and the length with a 1/16 up to 1/128 resolution. Now you can only go up to 1/64 but start and length resolution have to be linked to the same type. for eg 1/8.
All the above are pretty logical limitations due to the fact that samples are streamed directly from disc. What someone would expect is to have a tape machine streamed from RAM with no limitations that the disc machine has. However the wiseguys of Torso went and completely destroyed the tape machine functions by removing the start parameter, the xfade parameter, they changed the sample rotation parameter and they removed the ability to save the recording. In short they created a different tape machine.
To get you back to the octatrack and for those that can understand the analogy, it is as if when Elektron introduced the Static machines which are identical in functions to flex machines with limitations deriving from the disk streaming, at the same time they would transform flex machines to something completely different without any solid technical reason. It is obvious that ram streaming is far more cpu efficient than disk streaming and they had no reason to mess with this.
Sorry for the long post.
My point is really to say that if you are a fresh user the V2 OS of S4 is quite stable, has many killer functions and you wonāt even bother for the changes they made. They are issues with the midi clock and the midi control when using clock along with various freezing scenarios, but the machine is usable.
If you an existing user like me and although i only used S4 for 2 weeks, I am really mad with their decisions to completely change the workflow without an obvious technical reason and without Torso giving warning or any feedback on why they did that.
I managed to make some around 10 projects in S4 only to realise that all my drum parts are fā¦ed up because i was modulating start and length with different resolutions. There are other users that prefer the old tape length of 6 minutes. This leads me to remember how efficient were the Elektron programmers when they allowed you to allocate variable ram to your flex machines in order to lengthen the recording time!!!
Sorry again for the big post.
Wanted to share a technical side of whatās happening in Torso discord and why there is a big fuss going on there.
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Maybe the next firmware will come with a āclassicā tape mode option so users could pick?
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I guess that they made the changes on TAPE to accommodate the new scenes mode, but in my opinion itās a bad idea to change the behaviour of a machine when it worked perfect. People paid for that tape module, not the newer. I must say that the old tape was the best.
Iām sure they want to move forward and make a better machine but changin one thing that works (and graphics, the old performance graphics were awesome) isnāt the best at least for me.
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The only change I could techincally justify for the accomodation of the new scenes is the 30sec limit of the tape machine. Torso never explained or warned why they ditched the old tape machine.
What worries me about this machine is that demo tracks that i hear around kinda all sound sameyā¦ they maybe sound interesting at first , but really nothing new sound wise though and very similar and predictable. After hearing those musical examples i kinda know with great probability how another one might sound and thatās a bummer tbh
I know that big part of it is ppl using it the same way but i canāt not think that itās a two and half trick pony at best 
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