It’s super fascinating! The speed of it is the really interesting thing in my mind.
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Jonas is a friend and I had a blast last night in the studio where he showed me the T1’s basic functions and I got to play around with it 
It’s a very impressive and fun machine with its immediacy and it can get really deep. I was surprised by the many cool features they have added - like Control-All, where a parameter can affect all tracks just like the Elektron machines but also they have added exceptions for whichever track you don’t want to be affected by control-all (unlike Elektron machines 
) And there’s the possibility of adding randomness to every one of the knob’s functions - and it will all stay in the scale you choose.
I think the T1 will go very well in hand with Elektron machines since it has the same hands-on control with all its knobs and buttons and we don’t have an auto midi generator like this in our machines. It can be both a composition tool and a powerful performance sequencer. I want to use it for slow gentle auto generative ambient and for fast beats and arpeggio sequences.
The controlled random midi sequences this is going to offer will find many uses and since this is a midi sequencer you can change the sounds you are working with or go nuts in tweaking sounds once you’ve made a cool sequence.
And of course you can always record the midi notes it spits out into your DAW or into the Elektron sequencers 
I think the T1 is going to be fantastic 
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Great insight. I think this machine will be tremendous in my own setup, so I am very much looking forward to the kickstarter!!
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That’s awesome to hear 
Do you have any thoughts on how “menu divey” it is? It looks like there’s a fair number of shift functions, but I’ve had mixed experiences from “very intuitive” with Elektron’s UI, to “how did you make this a nightmare to use” on the Mother-32.
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Not really since it was just the basic functionality that I played with. But using shift functions is not really menu diving is it? I don’t think there are deeper layers where you have to go several layers down in order to do something important. It has so many knobs + knob presses and it uses the buttons lights to indicate the parameter value so that still makes it immediate to use I think.
I’ll keep it in mind and ask next time.
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Menu snorkelling?
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Possibly 
It doesnt have a text screen – hence no menu. So surprise – you can’t menu dive.
Without a menu, the analogous question could be – is the command structure deeply modal ?
Look carefully at the chart with the labels, both the functions and the alternative functions, and note the separate sections. Then keep that in mind, and watch the video. Mostly you can follow what is being done. So you then can answer for yourself, if the command structure is deeply modal.
I say no.
The T1 will be good at generating rhythmic and harmonic sequences to save. And it’s good in performace at taking sequences you’ve generated and making variations. It’s doesn’t seem, so far to me, intended to start from scratch and both generate a patch and perform live at the same time – though i’m sure that can be done.
And as i said earlier it has a place it likes to live with it’s voicings and styles.
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I think it’s cool. I’m not confident it fits in with the kind of music I mostly want to be doing, but it’s so compact and tactile and immediate, I’d buy it just to mess around. That price, though, is going to be a dealbreaker for most of the just-mess-around crowd, and others, too, which is unfortunate.
My big question is this: is there an iPad app that provides about the same functionality? Piece-wise, I believe so, but I mean all in one app. On a nice, big iPad, such an app would feel fully as immediate and almost as tactile–and would cost like $10. And since it’s MIDI-only, there’d be no degraded performance on an iPad. As opposed to something that oscillates, filters, and wavefolds, I don’t see much advantage in executing this device in hardware vs. a multi-touch, screen-based app. What am I missing?
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Does anyone have a sense of what can be done on the T1 that I couldn’t do with my Pyramid? Obviously the T1 has more encoders and dedicated controls–I guess maybe it’s more for live performance/improvising?
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You could say the same about the OP-Z and OP-1, honestly - they were designed for the “mess around” crowd, and people still bought it at that price.
Be more user-friendly for performance?
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That’s why I’m interested in it anyway. I’ve been using pyramid which is of course one of the deepest sequencers there is. What interests me about this is how it could work in the context of fully improvised sets. The pyramid works for that too but this seems fun.
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Yes, the OP-Z is annoyingly expensive. For me, super-portability was the must-have selling feature, and it’s a fully self-contained groove box with multifaceted capabilities. This Torso T1 can only be a tool to supplement your MIDI modules, so I don’t see as many mess-arounders jumping in at the price.
What’s more, this Algorithmic Sequencer’s functionality is 100% reproducible in iOS, as far as I can tell, and in many ways an iPad offers more interactivity, tactility, and functionality than this new device. Am I missing something?
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Honestly? Some people thrive on limitations. It’s not counterintuitive, it shapes your possibilities (assuming a good workflow.)
So you limit yourself to running one app on an iPad and thrive like a mf.
You also limit yourself to a $20 expenditure if Torso reproduced this box as an iPad app. I mean, Synclavier could do it, and Torso is only dealing with processing MIDI, not optimizing audio quaity.
Well, everything is reproducible on a computer and in a DAW, if you want to be reductionist about it…
Some of us do prefer knobs and buttons over a touchscreen though - if you’ve played in a dark, sweaty club or warehouse before this might be a hard lesson learned
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It would be reductionist to characterize this concrete comparison as reductionist and abstract, but not as reductionist as unthinkingly repeating the “limitations-are-good” canard–we choose our own limitations.
Same with the comparison to buttons in the dark: an iPad lights up. The only material difference is that the Torso box’s points of interaction are 3D, which is an attractive feature our highly tactile, multi-point touch screens don’t do.
Lol.
I didn’t make the “limitations is good” comment, might want to fact check that.
And my comment was not about lights in the dark, it was about touchscreens.
Maybe don’t jump to conclusions?
There are quite a few more videos, older than this one at the Torso Youtube Channel. Most of them are just a minute in length. They show it controlling a lot of different hardware, including one with a Digitakt.
It’s too early to really judge how well the T1 will compare with other hardware sequencers like the Squarp Pyramid or software sequencers as well. We should get a lot more information at the Kickstarter unveil in a little over a week. I guess as it most often does, it will come down to taste and personal preference.
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