Yeah. That, and I think it was pretty well communicated that it’s not going to be 1.0. I mean, the Oora video showed the ”coming soon” buttons and all.
That was not communicated when they started taking orders.
3 Likes
But wasn’t the timeline such that from, say, the Oora video, you had something like a month-long wait until anyone got theirs shipped?
They probably didn’t head towards the launch thinking ”oh yeah, initially we won’t implement this and that and the other thing at all, because f the paying customer”, after all – things tend to happen.
Anyway, I don’t think this argument will ever be settled. I just hope that people enjoy their S-4’s and if not, feeling they have a legitimate beef, take it up with Torso. Only way to make the best of this whole situation.
This is far from a success story atm. I imagine Torsos reputation took a serious hit from that failed product launch, cause that’s what it is. I do not think this works as a role model for other companies.
As a user it really is quite the disappointment and miserable experience. Waiting 6 month plus delays for a 900,- bucks device, then recieving a not only incomplete but broken instrument sucks majorly.
There is no excuse for their failed planning, like not keeping enough buffer time in their schedule to account for unforseeable external (and internal) problems. Cause that would have been professional from a business stand point.
They only get cut so much slack because most people know (or hope) that they have the engineering skills to deliver (an innovative looping-sampler) one day.
Meanwhile the S4 is actually already fun to play with, even in its crippled state.
But if you ordered looking for a certain workflow, well then you need to have a lot of patience and goodwill right now or return your unit.
9 Likes
Drambo, Loopy Pro, Samplr are all in the running - looking at videos, what it appears to be able to do with tape loops and granular are both pretty basic at this point in development.
1 Like
I’m very intrigued by the S-4…
That said, how can MIDI sync be so elusive? I’m not throwing shade, I’m actually curious. I profess to know nothing about programming, but wonder if any fellow ‘nauts have any hypotheses about the challenges therein.
Hope Torso get their limbs attached soon!
From Discord:
As some of you might be aware, the S-4 is based on the Raspberry Pi platform, which runs on a Linux kernel. Even though we have optimised it for real-time performance, the S-4 is much more similar to a computer system than the microcontroller-based systems that are often seen in most digital music instruments. The upside of using a full computer system, is that is gives us quite a lot of processing power, allows us to enhance the user experience with rich graphics running on a GPU and can provide us with connectivity to a range of USB devices.
On a technical level, the S-4 is currently using the JACK MIDI driver, which has substantial jitter on MIDI messages due to DSP load (and compatibility issues with USB audio interfaces), ultimately making it unusable for MIDI clock. That is why we are currently in the process of switching to the RtMidi driver, which allows for configuration of which of the CPU cores are used to receive MIDI providing us with more stable timing.
6 Likes
If this were a TE thread, the fanboyism would have already killed any legitimate issues that have been raised here.
I for one love my S4 and like Torso as a company but I can totally understand the grievances posted in this thread as of late.
It doesn’t help that this box costs 899€, ie comes at a premium price point — certainly affects the expectations of what should be available at release or should have been made available shortly after release.
I somehow have trust in Torso that they will deliver, but agree that by now a first patch should really have been released…that midi sync thing for example is sort of unacceptable really.
That said, I love what I can do with my S4 unsynced atm. 
9 Likes
Torso said somewhere the patch will be available mid to late August.
I actually hope it will be available before my unit arrives, because I think sync to external clock has the potential of being a complex problem. I would build this in from day one, because I hate nasty surprises.
And computers do have a history of causing problems with external sync. With some DAWs it took years before they were able to sync reliably to MIDI clock.
Hope that works. As I said, a non-trivial problem.
1 Like
Here’s my example of Torso S4 doing dub chords. This demo is raw and unmastered 
6 Likes
This is insanely beautiful! Exactly the kind of stuff I was expecting to do with the S4.
Such a shame that all the bugs and crashes have convinced me to send it back 
Btw feel free to share some details on what’s going on in the video. I guess live processing the dfam loop?
2 Likes
Thank you so much. To be honest I haven’t had one unintented glitch or bug experienced yet. That might be me not pushing the limits yet. Sorry to hear you sent it back. You might regret that later on 
What you see here in this demo is very simple but driving bassline from the DFAM. Un-synched but tempo matched with DT2 and S4 going straight and unprocessed into the mixer. DT2 does some glitchy drums and one randomly triggering startpoint and repeating chord. You see me zoom in on sample view.
But by far most of the atmosphere is done by the S4. I have a chord sample loop on track 1 with basic mosaic and mostly filter modulation with a lot of resonator doing minor scale. Crunch fx makes those delicate noise sounds and some delay and reverb., and modulation of course. Then track one goes into track 2 for a longer delay.
I feel the S4 has so much depth. And I am pleasantly surprised with using it without being able to sync just yet. Made me appreciate phased rhythms, catching up now and then.
2 Likes
Thanks for the detailed reply Martin, much appreciated.
I’m absolutely convinced I’ll regret it, especially when they will start rolling out the much needed firmware fixings, but at this stage for me is almost unusable. Everytime I used it I encountered a crash/freeze/spontaneous reboot, alongside a bunch of other minor annoyances.
I’m really sad in sending it back, but I can’t really justify all that money for such a rushed out device.
I know that the Torso people had faced a lot of unexpected stuff on their way, but at the same time their intermittent communications and lack of a clear roadmap makes me think that it could be a long way for a proper working S4.
I absolutely wish that’s not the case, but I had to make a decision within the return window and this is it.
Btw, I’ll continue following here with great interest and for all the cool stuff you guys will pull out from that lovely machine
5 Likes
I wish I had gone for one of these (even with its shortcomings).
Instead I got a Tempera synth that is way too complicated for my simpleton brain.
1 Like
Well im officially in the S-4 gang.
I think this thing is great, but as a beta tester for other synth companies i can very much assure you that this synth is still in beta.
I really love the MOD´s, i hope they churn out some more modulation sources, envelope follower, cross track FM, key follow etc.
And they really need to tidy up the envelopes, because they are really sloppy as it is now, the amp ADSR phase out and sometimes land on different start positions on a sample (really bad for kicks!)
The animations are awesome, i love watching the color page twist and turn when it is being modulated.
Audio Rerouting would be awesome (color after space etc)
And then we have the obvious midi functionallity of course.
Im gonna try USB Audio into TX-6 and see how that works
i think with a little patients this is gonna be a really cool device!
11 Likes
this! I yearn for envelope following with the power of a thousand suns.
this too!
4 Likes
I think Torso bit off a bit more then they could chew.
But seeing the work they have done with the T-1, i am very confident that they will get there, it will probably just take a bit of time!
5 Likes
Yeah. I agree. I mean, I’m very tired of the “it’s not ready” conversation – it’s run its course for the time being – would love to just agree that it needs work, still, and move on
Compared to the T-1, this is orders of magnitude more difficult, a huge project. I’m pretty confident, too. I guess the only thing that could hit the fan is something like what happened with MIDI Sync, where they were using a framework(sic?) that was not suited for the timing-critical job, and they needed to rework it from the ground up, which is why the update has been taking more time than expected. Well that, and some hardware issue that might surface, but I guess that would have been found, already.
3 Likes
I’m employed again and got one, I was curious! Seems very beta and unfinished but also fun! We shall see…
5 Likes
I finally had a chance to sit down with it for an hour or two last night without the manual to see what I could come up with. I had some trouble figuring out what exactly was going on at first but things kind of clicked after I got the signal flow straightened out. I just ran some FB-7999 (a Korg DW-8000 VST clone) chords through it and was having some real fun.
If you’re looking to use this as say, a signal processor like a guitar pedal, it works just fine. Having a dry/wet for all the different effect methods in the chain is super useful! There is work to be done, for sure, but just getting it out of the box and toying with it I’m pretty impressed so far.
5 Likes