Social Entropy Engine (hardware midi / cv sequencer)

[Guest bitroast]

lush

 

http://www.socialentropy.com/engine/#

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9mAc_Fi6fc

 

 

Edited October 10, 2015 by bitroast

[psn 619]

Yeah, seems feature packed as hell! And the interface seems very well thought out and lends itself to muscle memory instead of screen staring, which means it'll reward practice and let you become a programming ninja jammer, like on a proper instrument! Being able to just tap the slide button in real time, for instance, is a quick and fun way of adding expression to a riff!

 

Gotta read the manual and see how it compares to the Cirklon. Ie, what do you gain by paying pretty much twice the price? Fewer MIDI and CV outputs are an obvious difference, though.

 

Having only one CV per channel means expressive modulations must be programmed across several channels and that quickly becomes a bit messy, as opposed to the more encapsulated workflow of the Elektrons (tons of plocks per step/track) and the Cirklon (where I'm guessing the four aux values per step/track can be routed to cv?). The A4 only has four outs all in all, though. And i suppose the aux/plock workflow depends more on a screen type interface, which is what the Engine tries to escape.

 

A very powerful feature of the A4 vs. the Cirklon is programmable/lockable ADSR envelopes (and LFOs) over CV, I'm guessing the Engine won't have that?

 

Curious to see how well the software will be supported in the future, with new features and bug fixes. The support for the Beatstep Pro is a joke, for instance, with basic features such as synch being in a poor state months after the release. My guess is these guys are doing everything right though, their 606 and 303 upgrades are an impressive track record, and this machine is a major investment for such a small company (like the MD was for Elektron the first few years).

Edited October 9, 2015 by psn

[b born droid 20]

God I had to turn that off after 30 seconds. You'd think a company could spring for a little dialogue clean up. His mouth noises are fucking disgusting.

[Guest bitroast]

Yeah, seems feature packed as hell! And the interface seems very well thought out and lends itself to muscle memory instead of screen staring, which means it'll reward practice and let you become a programming ninja jammer, like on a proper instrument! Being able to just tap the slide button in real time, for instance, is a quick and fun way of adding expression to a riff!

 

Gotta read the manual and see how it compares to the Cirklon. Ie, what do you gain by paying pretty much twice the price? Fewer MIDI and CV outputs are an obvious difference, though.

 

Having only one CV per channel means expressive modulations must be programmed across several channels and that quickly becomes a bit messy, as opposed to the more encapsulated workflow of the Elektrons (tons of plocks per step/track) and the Cirklon (where I'm guessing the four aux values per step/track can be routed to cv?). The A4 only has four outs all in all, though. And i suppose the aux/plock workflow depends more on a screen type interface, which is what the Engine tries to escape.

 

A very powerful feature of the A4 vs. the Cirklon is programmable/lockable ADSR envelopes (and LFOs) over CV, I'm guessing the Engine won't have that?

 

Curious to see how well the software will be supported in the future, with new features and bug fixes. The support for the Beatstep Pro is a joke, for instance, with basic features such as synch being in a poor state months after the release. My guess is these guys are doing everything right though, their 606 and 303 upgrades are an impressive track record, and this machine is a major investment for such a small company (like the MD was for Elektron the first few years).

 

yeah. definitely has a mini Cirklon vibe to it. or a beefed up beatstep pro? somewhere nicely in the middle (guess price point is about bang on then).

while it is lacking some features that cirklon has, i actually kind of really dig the stripped back / simple dial it in approach it has. their experience in modding 303/606 seems evident in the layout for this thing. hooking this up to a couple of synths and drum machine would be heeeeappps of fun.

[Guest bitroast]

God I had to turn that off after 30 seconds. You'd think a company could spring for a little dialogue clean up. His mouth noises are fucking disgusting.

 

lol. missing out. worth watching thru imo.

 

here's a different vid, pretty sure talking is coming out of someone else's mouth fyi