Cute youtube/tiktok ready design.
Obviously inspired by the OP-Z in many, many ways (visualizer appā¦).
SEQTRAK User Guide (yamaha.com)
wifi/bluetooth/audio over USB.
Ironically, I think the sequencer itself might need some more work. Only 6 scenes per project? Only one project loaded at a time?
IMHO the EP 133 got a lot of things right in this department, with its scene/commit system.
Iām beyond excited for this. I love these kinds of instruments!
The side buttons are an interesting UI design choice.
As a person who doesnāt really use apps with gear, I have to admit that heavily feature laden devices that lack a screen do irk me a little bit.
Itās a bit odd. One āsongā with 8 āprojects.ā Each project has 6 patterns per track, and you can select which patterns get played for which track independently. In theory that means thereās a lot more variation than meets the eye, similar to using clips in Ableton/Force. I rarely have 6 completely unique phrases for most instruments in a song during the sketch phase, which is when this would be used anyway, so theoretically, I could get 8 songs out of it.
It definitely forces reliance on the app though for project management. Not the biggest negative but a bit annoying.
Later in song mode it says a song has 16 scenes, each scene basically being composed of the patterns mentioned above. I donāt tend to use fog mode generally, but that seemed kind of nice.
Yeah, Iām not the biggest fan of that either. It does have a lot of indicators in that middle column, but on the other hand, you still have to memorize what those four macro knobs do for everything. It looks like a lot of modes share parameters when they can, but youāre still referencing the manual during the learning phase every time you want to tweak something if you arenāt using the app. I can imagine this being a struggle if I havenāt used it for a couple weeks.
Anything you already know how to use is workable, but the learning period often coincides with the ācooling off periodā for a lot of peopleās purchases. The longer the learning period, the easier it is for the overlap to lean in the other direction.
Not that itās impossible or that some people wonāt pick up it quickly, but instruments with some degree of depth but which lack a straightforward UI require extra dedication and for someone who doesnāt use apps (hypothetical person) and is trying to buy something to make music with and not just be amused with their purchase, it could be a little off-putting if the entire UI is based around memorization and a common row of led indicators.
A lot of vintage gear was made without a clear UI and some of it has been super misunderstood because of it, some of that gear is made by yamaha.
Not gonna lie, this came out of nowhere and looks super cool. Very interested in how this one turns out.
They could have just revised the qy-70. This looks cool, but the workflow is questionable.
Now you tell me! This wouldāve been nice to know about 5 years agoā¦
the ice man cometh.
So much of this looks so cool!
Came out of nowhere and got me all excited haha Iāve calmed down and I gotta say, I love the touch sliders for performance effects but I haaaaaate when companies put a label on something like ārepeaterā or āhighpassā that is swappable. Maybe this isnāt so bad but it usually stops my workflow dead in its tracks.
For me it creates cognitive dissonance and confusion.
I AM stoked to see they are swappable tho
Prettay, prettay interestingā¦
Very funky. But Iām moving on.
From October 2023ā¦
now iām curious how this sequencer compares to RM1x.
Manual:
Love this form factor, very OP-Z. Sadly, the sequencer is pretty simplistic compared to the OP-Z. If it had any sort of OP-Z step-component like features Iād be all over it, guess I still have to keep crossing my fingers for the OP-Z field
But will it bend?