Torso Electronics S-4 (sculpting sampler)

This seems very powerful and versatile.

Just turned it on for 20 minutes and have no idea what I’m doing at all but in terms of sound it sounds beautiful.

Managed to save my first official project I randomly transformed a dog bark sample into a heavenly melodic ambient harp.

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Now I want one for walking in the park.

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I put my headphones on to listen to this but it is a damned image

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apologies, my terrible sense of humour after a sunny beer in the garden :rofl:

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Nope! I ordered in March though so it’s likely I’m not in the first batch.

this is some pretty beautiful stuff going on !!!

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For info, just received this response from Torso :slight_smile:

Hi Paul,

I’m very sorry for the late response.

The 6 min sample buffer is per track.

Thanks for reaching out about this, and making us aware that this should be clarified.

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Looks very much like a raspberry pi compute module

very nice, thats very workable

This device seems to be the perfect pairing with an OT. Having the cue outs from the OT routed to the S4 and the stereo out of S4 back into the OT allows it be many different things at once. You could have it as a send fx for any of the OT channels or use it to extend sampling voices by having 4 other loops/tracks playing on the S4 or even just as a sampling sound design side cart - mangle samples on the S4 and resample then back onto the OT for further sequencing. Or all of the above at once!

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Is the sensitivity of the encoders going to be adjustable? I don’t think they are optimal.

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Returned mine. I’m sure it would work for someone in this state, but it’s way too raw for me so far.

Why:

  • no metronome
  • no sample trim
  • no zoom
  • fx do not sound convincing to me, i could live with the filter and grain engine, but I really do not like deform. Had fun modulating delay for semi-tape effect though.
  • crashes
  • occasional lags (seems like maybe optimisation for cpu needed)
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could someone send a new discord invitation? thanks!!!

Meanwhile on Reverb - it’s scalping time!

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That’s my plan for it as well, pairing with the Octatrack and modulate all the things. I’ll need to wait a little longer, but the S4 looks super fun so far.

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thanks!

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its really fun and super relaxed to use it. great UX design imo. hope they realize its full potential by making the firmware more fully featured!

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From the time I spent with it, it was definitely cool but it also seemed like not 100% there. That said, they did design it in such a way that it seems like expanding its capabilities was baked in.

Having the T1 sequencer, it seems like they learned from their experience and are planning to add a lot more to it in the future, we’ll just need to be patient.

Assuming they put in the same effort to improve the S4 as they have with the T1, the S4 is going to be a secret weapon for a lot of people.

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