I’m more of a synthesis guy trying to dip his toes into sampling, so I’m not sure about the workflow yet, but ideally I’d use the S4 and the DTII to fill each other gaps: textures/sounds generator and poly samples player for the S4, and beats sequencing and S4 output sampling on the DTII.
I can eventually use the S4 to send other instruments into the DTII for sampling or live playing, thanks to its USB expanded I/O.
But you can also do the opposite and send DTII outs into S4 for added fx/processing… I guess it depends on the kind of music you’re going to make.
Maybe that’s a topic for its own thread? Like Torso S4+DTII routing and workflow options?
I dont think this has to do with the perform mode.
But just with the dynamic changes of parameter the encoders and buttons have with each different page.
I have been searching and opening conversations about Scenes and Perform mode, but no one has a clue or idea i guess.
Only thing i have read on discord (mentioned by dev) is that the scenes will listen to midi programchange.
Hopefully they will tell something about it in the q&a next monday in the discord.
First impressions, I love the potential of the S-4. Just from some initial playing I can see how powerful and lovely it sounds. Very excited.
In it’s current state however it’s far from perfect. Buggy is an understatement and some seem to develop over time whilst it’s powered on and being used. For example I was getting a noticeable hum on Track 1 when it was set to listen to incoming audio. I started to write a support email fearing the S-4 would have to be shipped back. To record the hum I unplugged the S-4 to place it next to my audio interface. On powering back on the hum had gone (thankfully). Very odd.
Also I was recording input from my OP-1 and everything was going great and suddenly it would just create a constant feedback when recording. Nothing had changed. Again a reboot fixed it. Phew!
One thing which is quite annoying is you have to fully power down (ie: switch off and then remove the power cable) before connecting any USB audio device. Otherwise the S-4 glitches and stutters the audio (think the bad days of Overbridge 1). Hopefully that can be improved as it’s meant to be class compliant which means plug and play. EDIT: though this doesn’t happen all the time, for example it works fine currently with audio going from the OP-1 to the S-4 (but not with audio from the S-4 to the OP-1) with a simple plug & play. Weird.
But overall, a very inspiring machine with a huge amount of potential. Nice!
I just got my S-4 yesterday and have been playing around with it all morning. As @KidYoshi (and others) have said, this thing is buggy, but it sounds lovely (especially with parameter modulations) and the ux is very thoughtfully designed. Also, the ui is the most beautiful I’ve seen in a hardware device. It’s a quality instrument and the vision is there, it just needs more time to cook, which I’m hopeful will happen.
Im particularly excited to see how the perform and temp buttons work. If they’re anything like the t-1, then I think we’re in for a real treat. But I’d honestly be happy if the only new things to come were bug fixes and a slicing feature.
Just couldn’t see dropping nearly a grand to be an unpaid beta tester, so I cancelled my order. Looking forward to seeing how it improves over the next year or so. In theory it seems like it could be a great instrument.
buttons are clacky, confused why the knobs and buttons don’t match the feel of T1. Seems like a massive misstep for their instruments to not have the same feel. Perhaps they wanted a very fast / nonresistance feeling
screen is very nice - perfect size. Layout is nice overall. I’m right handed
ui is glorious - didn’t need manual, so visually crisp and gorgeous. Way more intuitive and exploratory than any other sampler I’ve used.
mod section is so good, breeze to apply and adds even more to the exploratory nature. Once they add Euclidean / step / quantizer might not need a controller at all.
love all the texture - turned looping hihat into a more complex fill with granular hits and then subtle noise and compression to give it some dynamics.
filter section is sick, created a melody on top of a looping techno kick with some random modulation shifting the cutoff bands subtly. The waves in the secondary section then gave that melody an interesting phrasing. So cool.
deform section is very cool, but very digital to my ears. Also bc deform follows the filter if you apply it lovingly to more than one track - everything sounds like shit. Could be a good thing, ha.
at first listen reverb is decent, delay lacks character
mix sections filters have way too much resonance. Not usable for me atm.
only section that is going to take some deeper thought is the track send section. There is a signal flow diagram on that page which tells me hopefully you will be able to reorganize
sound is VERY digital overall.
I def feel like this could easily be an iPad app - atm with current firmware state nothing about it is saying this is a unique piece of hardware. Hopefully once the scene / perform / temp buttons come into play this will feel more like an instrument. ATM it’s kind of a slow exploratory (sculpting) thing - nothing about it feels fast / deliberate to feel like an actual instrument or something I’m performing with in an uptempo way.
hopefully the algorithm sections get STACKED. Hard to say how fast any major updates will be. Just start porting over all mutable instruments stuff for now would be an incredible and fast jumpstart.
very curious if this will sing as a master mixer / effects with other devices if the usb IO expansion is a real thing.
Spent another hour today with it messing with the sends section, some thoughts…
Knobs still have no resistance which is frustrating everytime i use it.
Messing with start / length / rotation and the mosaic mode reproduces MI clouds quite effectively and then some.
The send section is incredible! Basically made a 3 channel clouds all parallel processing. Once copy and paste is integrated it will be much easier to set baselines and even pitches. It’s a bit hard to get everything in pitch across multiple tracks as there several tonal / pitch controls across all the sections.
It’s very easy to get lost in the sauce, find something great - but then just as easy lose it.
I don’t understand why some values like speed for instance jump to fixed values - while others don’t.
Pressing CLEAR and an ENCODER sets the value back to 0
as speed changes pitch, you have the option to quantize it to different scales.
you can also set it to free. Choose the scale/free by pressing the encoder.
You get those options when a parameter has that little list icon next to the name
That’s sad. Maybe they’ll develop some resistance over time
I wonder if they are using computer keyboard switches (like the Elektrons or the Cirklon)? Some of the modern low-profile optical switches can have a quite clacky feel to them.
Do you find it’s a problem that both reverb and delay share one parameter for damping, and that damping only affects high frequencies, but you can’t eliminate bass from the effects?
Maybe scenes will provide some kind o snapshot feature?
The manual says (pg. 18) some parameters are marked with - in that case you can click the encoder while turning it to select the “mode” for that parameter.
Yeah it would be nice for both sections of vast to be independent, but then again if you really need independent control you could turn 1 track into reverb and another into a delay send, each with different filtering. I’m hoping they remove the severe resonance from the mix filter or make it an eq option, this would greatly help.
On the one hand, I can understand the existing criticism and in many places it feels like a beta version of a device (maybe even alpha)… on the other hand, I enjoy the existing functionality so much that I can hardly keep my hands off it.
The workflow corresponds completely to my approach to ambient pieces. It feels to me like a modular in a box designed specifically for ambient. I usually only find these enormous modulation options in plugins or modular.
What I find amazing is that you can literally feel the potential that this box will have once it grows up. The current state feels like an appetite stimulant… and I REALLY like what I’m tasting and am looking forward to the meal being finished.
Are there any videos up of someone using it as a live looper with some 4/4 techno? I’d like to find something that I can send a loop from a Digitakt ( or Syntakt etc) , mangle the loop as a transition then fade a new loop in. I know the Octatrack is probably the best bet but it’s just out of my price range at the moment.
- in that case you can click the encoder while turning it to select the “mode” for that parameter.