Hi guys.
I wanted to record a demo of this thing but I'm lazy and busy these days.
As a consequence you get Youtubes from others. Anyway.
I bought it for 35 € with an extra 5 € for the case. It also goes for us$ 40. A toy then ?
Well it's lots of fun but it's also a serious tool.
It's a much improved new version of a classic device.
I bought it about a month ago and use it everyday. For 5 minutes of fun at lunchbreak, to build live loops, try ideas or practice.
What we have here a is a 1 octave keyboard arranged in a circle with an additional central pad.
It works on AA batteries. The speaker is suprinsingly loud. On the side you have a volume knob and a line out/phones jack.
In bass mode you can play monophonic lines and melodies with a 5 octave range (minus one note, C0 to B5) using the stylus on the circular keyboard. You jump up or down an octave by sliding the stylus across B and C (or C and B if you want to go one octave down). You can play legato if you slide from one key to the next. You can also slide notes up or down as much as you want. It goes very very low, down to barely audible on the speaker. With phones or recording it you get massive dub style rumble.
In drum mode you get 12 sounds to play rhythms. Legato is available just the same, which allows a lot of variations, say when going from open to close hihat.
There is a choice between 4 bass tones and 4 drum kits, labelled Box, Hip, Tec and Rok. The samples sound very good and quite realistic for the acoustic models. They're lo-fi though, don't know the resolution but you can tell it isn't high. It's very easy to make it sound good.
Then comes a 32-step sequencer. Each step can contain one bass note and as many drum elements as you want. You can hold notes and it records bass slides too.
There is a 2 bar 4/4 metronome you can start or stop. A big tempo knob that can go very low, so instead of recording 2 bars of 16th notes you can go with 4 bars of 8ths notes instead. Since it is a sequence and not a loop sample, height isn't affected by the tempo.
There is a limitation for the number of bass notes you can play but I didn't quite understand how it works. You can't play 32 bass notes though. I only noticed it when I tried.
You can start or stop your loop and record it on the fly. The sequencer allows overdub and re-res on the fly,
Using the central pad you can erase portions of the loop or all of it, or even choose which drum element or note you want to kill.
The pattern mode gives you access to 4 demo patterns plus 4 empty slots to record your sequences and alternate between them. It's a volatile memory though. all is lost if you turn it off.
In this mode you also have a slicer to amputate parts of the loop, allowing breakdown and stutter sound effects on the fly. The central button is a simplistic but convincing low pass filter.
Finally, the Transposition mode let you move your sequence along the scale, much like an arpegiator.
The whole thing is a breeze to play. It won't take but a few hourss to get used to the very fluid workflow of this machine. It is absolutely perfect for live use as you can slowly mute any pattern into any other and add accidents to keep things interesting or refine your ideas.
It is an excellent gift and/or tool for any musician.
I wanted to record a demo of this thing but I'm lazy and busy these days.
As a consequence you get Youtubes from others. Anyway.
I bought it for 35 € with an extra 5 € for the case. It also goes for us$ 40. A toy then ?
Well it's lots of fun but it's also a serious tool.
It's a much improved new version of a classic device.
I bought it about a month ago and use it everyday. For 5 minutes of fun at lunchbreak, to build live loops, try ideas or practice.
What we have here a is a 1 octave keyboard arranged in a circle with an additional central pad.
It works on AA batteries. The speaker is suprinsingly loud. On the side you have a volume knob and a line out/phones jack.
In bass mode you can play monophonic lines and melodies with a 5 octave range (minus one note, C0 to B5) using the stylus on the circular keyboard. You jump up or down an octave by sliding the stylus across B and C (or C and B if you want to go one octave down). You can play legato if you slide from one key to the next. You can also slide notes up or down as much as you want. It goes very very low, down to barely audible on the speaker. With phones or recording it you get massive dub style rumble.
In drum mode you get 12 sounds to play rhythms. Legato is available just the same, which allows a lot of variations, say when going from open to close hihat.
There is a choice between 4 bass tones and 4 drum kits, labelled Box, Hip, Tec and Rok. The samples sound very good and quite realistic for the acoustic models. They're lo-fi though, don't know the resolution but you can tell it isn't high. It's very easy to make it sound good.
Then comes a 32-step sequencer. Each step can contain one bass note and as many drum elements as you want. You can hold notes and it records bass slides too.
There is a 2 bar 4/4 metronome you can start or stop. A big tempo knob that can go very low, so instead of recording 2 bars of 16th notes you can go with 4 bars of 8ths notes instead. Since it is a sequence and not a loop sample, height isn't affected by the tempo.
There is a limitation for the number of bass notes you can play but I didn't quite understand how it works. You can't play 32 bass notes though. I only noticed it when I tried.
You can start or stop your loop and record it on the fly. The sequencer allows overdub and re-res on the fly,
Using the central pad you can erase portions of the loop or all of it, or even choose which drum element or note you want to kill.
The pattern mode gives you access to 4 demo patterns plus 4 empty slots to record your sequences and alternate between them. It's a volatile memory though. all is lost if you turn it off.
In this mode you also have a slicer to amputate parts of the loop, allowing breakdown and stutter sound effects on the fly. The central button is a simplistic but convincing low pass filter.
Finally, the Transposition mode let you move your sequence along the scale, much like an arpegiator.
The whole thing is a breeze to play. It won't take but a few hourss to get used to the very fluid workflow of this machine. It is absolutely perfect for live use as you can slowly mute any pattern into any other and add accidents to keep things interesting or refine your ideas.
It is an excellent gift and/or tool for any musician.
