hope to be proven wrong, but I can’t believe we’ll see anything this year
someone should ask them a simpler question, do they actually have a physical unit on hands yet 
it looks like a render in all promos.
I just heard some things back i made with rings (as a resonator) and beads, and that sh_t sounded so amazing, now I’m looking at this thing again: resonator, granular) 
But I guess it’ll be available at Thomann eventually and the pre-order price seems to be not include a discount.
Btw., website says “Estimated shipping march 2024”
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Looking at this makes me want to sell my KOii and put the money towards the S-4. Not much info out there, but from what I can see, this thing should be amazing for live peformance.
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On paper at least, as a sampler, the S-4 seems like it might be the thing I wanted the Digitakt and Octatrack to be. With the DT, I used it more to create soundscapes and interesting textures than for drums, but for that purpose being stuck with mono sampling and no sample polyphony is an issue. Whereas the OT can sample in stereo, but no sample polyphony and I just don’t like sampling with it (and editing samples) as much as the DT. The OT is amazing for performance FX, but that’s a different use case and not what I’m talking about here. I feel like the S-4 could be what I’ve wanted all this time, offering strengths of the OT, but being more straightforward and enjoyable to use like the DT. Need to see demos of it first, though.
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What is sculpting in Music?
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Subtraction. Although which coast to look from
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this was my thinking too. a sound design machine.
i keep dreaming of what the resonators combined with the particulated grains and modulation will be able to accomplish. i am hoping it can do the sort of things i used to accomplish with ableton stock effects like the vocoder, freq shifter, bp filter, resonator
i cant really imagine how the resonator will be applied here. i love the idea of a filterbank in something like this, but if its implemented in the way the wingie II is, then its not as interesting to me. i think. but as a fine tuned crafting tool for breaking down a sound even further, it sounds like an amazing idea.
maybe this will finally be the non-euro hardware tool that allows me to do things like this outside of the daw
all of this anticipation has me finally looking at the sonicware texture lab seriously though. i somehow doubt that will satisfy what im dreaming up, but the character and polyphony does seem nice
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Anything where you manipulate sounds towards a notion or an idea you have.
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…and addition too. just like the sculpture itself that can be additive (claying) or subtractive (carving)
I’d also add that apart from common metaphor of ‘sound sculpting’, which is often applied to any synth, there’s ‘audio sculpture’ kind of term, coming more from sound art and academic music. this is more about a different type of composition altogether, either working with the physical surroundings, or somehow revealing the space within the time (which music ultimately is/was), but definitely less focusing on harmony, rhythm and so on.
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All we’ve seen so far are renders lmao. Don’t think they even have a working unit in hand yet
What was the point in doing all these promos earlier? Compete with the gr mega preorders? Starting to feel like a kickstarter more than anything
I have the torso t-1 and love it and given their track record so far I don’t doubt that the s4 would be a fine piece of sampler but come on…
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People have been asking Torso about demo videos for a few weeks now and they continue to say “very soon.” I think I’m gonna hold onto my preorder but this response honestly irks me, especially considering the fact that they keep posting about the s-4 on their ig account with the same renders.
The Torso people seem cool and I’m confident that the can make a great device, but I think they could be more transparent about the development of the s-4, and a little more thoughtful with their presence on social media.
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I’m totally on the same page here. I have preordered and think it’ll be a great product but it seems to me to be in poor taste to keep posting the same renders and specs without any proper demos.
It honestly seems an odd choice to tease a new product in this fashion.
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Torso managed to make a piece of hardware in the t-1 that has not been replicated in software, at least yet.
Im curious if this sampler may accomplish the same feat. If so that would be super impressive.
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Who knows? At least they mention prototypes in their discord.
Anyway, I also think their pr-skills are lacking, but then again, they are a super small team of developers, not a marketing agency…
Maybe they just prefer to take their time with the videos to get it right this time?
I’ll admit, it feels strange to open preorders and then have nothing to really show for interested buyers, triggering impatience and speculation. Not the smartest move, public perception-wise, but then again nobody forces anyone to spent money in advance if one is (rightfully so) sceptical about the product…
From their discord:
mads | torso electronics — 04.12.2023 15:35
It went very well. We’re so happy about the reception from all of you and others out there. It’s a suuuuuuuuuper weird feeling working on an idea for years, having intense discussions about it, making countless prototypes and writing gazillion lines of code and then finally revealing the idea to the world and then to have it received so well. It’s given us all even more energy for the last (and most intense) phase of the development
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Somehow I trust Torso to make a good and well thought out product. And while their marketing for the S-4 is admittingly not the best, I like what they’ve shown us so far. If this has the elegance I suspect it will, it will be an instabuy for me upon release.
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If the S-4 will be as thought out and innovative as the T-1 it will surely be a great product. I will still hold out for demos to decide if it suits my needs, setup and workflow though.
I think the key term in here is idea …
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Yeah, exactly this — from all my interactions with the team, I have no doubt that they’re going to ship something really special, modulo any of the usual supply chain hiccups. I don’t know if it’s going to be for me, but I can’t imagine it not shipping.
Re: renders, getting physical enclosures made is basically the last step in the prototyping process. They’re pretty careful with the images they present, and I can totally see them having a bunch of ugly working prototypes and final enclosure cad, and not wanting to show hardware photos until they have a working prototype in the near-final enclosure — certainly, that matches the T1 (and what most other companies do). However, they’re also a tiny firm with only one other product, and enclosures is one of the places where your start spending real money on production tooling. Having capital come in right when you’re ready to commit to that tooling is often a requirement, and we see this happen a lot with kickstarters. Given the way they delivered the previous product, I don’t personal have concerns they won’t ship this one, but the economics for the company aren’t that different.
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Yeah, if I was sure I needed it, I’d definitely have pre-ordered. As it is, I need to see a bit more about the workflow first.
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