Yamaha SEQTRAK

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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.

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Iā€™m beyond excited for this. I love these kinds of instruments!

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The side buttons are an interesting UI design choice.

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As a person who doesnā€™t really use apps with gear, I have to admit that heavily feature laden devices that lack a screen do irk me a little bit.

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Itā€™s a bit odd. One ā€œsongā€ with 8 ā€œprojects.ā€ Each project has 6 patterns per track, and you can select which patterns get played for which track independently. In theory that means thereā€™s 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 donā€™t tend to use fog mode generally, but that seemed kind of nice.

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Yeah, Iā€™m 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 youā€™re still referencing the manual during the learning phase every time you want to tweak something if you arenā€™t using the app. I can imagine this being a struggle if I havenā€™t used it for a couple weeks.

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Anything you already know how to use is workable, but the learning period often coincides with the ā€œcooling off periodā€ for a lot of peopleā€™s purchases. The longer the learning period, the easier it is for the overlap to lean in the other direction.

Not that itā€™s impossible or that some people wonā€™t pick up it quickly, but instruments with some degree of depth but which lack a straightforward UI require extra dedication and for someone who doesnā€™t 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.

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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.

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Now you tell me! This wouldā€™ve been nice to know about 5 years agoā€¦ :upside_down_face:

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the ice man cometh.

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So much of this looks so cool!
Came out of nowhere and got me all excited haha Iā€™ve 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 ā€˜repeaterā€™ or ā€˜highpassā€™ that is swappable. Maybe this isnā€™t 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 :wink:

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Prettay, prettay interestingā€¦

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Very funky. But Iā€™m moving on.

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From October 2023ā€¦

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now iā€™m curious how this sequencer compares to RM1x.

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Manual:

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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 Iā€™d be all over it, guess I still have to keep crossing my fingers for the OP-Z field :slight_smile:

But will it bend?

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