I record all my stuff without quantization on the Pyramid, and the use the Quantize effect with some Humanizer flavour to snap notes into place. It’s definitely one of the more organic sequencers I’ve used. With some subtle Swing fx on that too, you can get very groovy results without necessarily taking the plunge into Aphex Twin territory.
1 Like
Yeees.
Ya right. Humaniser is nice, specially with chords.
They only have one left now. I’m going to miss out this time, just sold some gear on eBay and need to wait for $ to clear
That’s going to TEST my GAS…;-))
myself, I’m ultimately glad I’ll miss out on this batch. although the device looks terrific and very promising I’m still a bit put off they ship it whilst the OS is still in development, promising all sorts of goodness in future updates… the whole idea of preorders and selling oh-point releases instead of one-point-oh at start - that’s just unfair towards end users. people wind up GAS-buying stuff and expecting features which arrive late or never.
Wonder if that’s why there are virtually no in depth reviews of the Pyramid
The gents at Squarp might call it zero-point-something, but it still beats the crap out of anything out there, except perhaps the Cirklon. I had the Tempest for two years, it’s in 1.4 now, and the Pyramid runs circles around that thing when it comes to funky sequencing. So it doesn’t feel like you’re part of a beta, but rather a 1.0-thing with developers that have very high standards.
As for reviews, I’d imagine they have no Pyramids to spare. They’re scarce, they sell them faster than they can build them, so every single unit counts to their revenue to further develop the instrument.
Or so I’d like to think, though I have no idea, of course.
Haven’t even thought of that. I don’t hear much about the Blofeld, but looking at the specs and listening to it, I wonder why. It sounds great, has tons of power, and it holds samples up to 60Mb.
Isn’t that like spectacular? What am I missing?
Haven’t even thought of that. I don’t hear much about the Blofeld, but looking at the specs and listening to it, I wonder why. It sounds great, has tons of power, and it holds samples up to 60Mb.
Isn’t that like spectacular? What am I missing?[/quote]
It is not perfect but VERY powerful and cheap.
In a nutshell:
[ul]
[li]Knob encoders are buggy in early versions.[/li]
[li]Interface is not super friendly especially multi mode.[/li]
[li]Multi mode is limited by DSP[/li]
[/ul]
http://www.elektronauts.com/t/anyone-tried-a-blofeld/748page:2
Well, the jury’s still out on the Octatrack or Pyramid question for me. After a few very intense days with the Pyramid, I’ve returned to the Octatrack to look at it from a different perspective. Can’t keep’em both. But they’re still both beautiful.
Never sell a winning horse, have some patience , save your cash and have both ?
Interesting… is the OT looking more attractive now?
seems the OT would not have the sequencing capabilities/flexibility,
but has sampling?
are you missing the sampling?
or is there something about the Pyramid thats not fitting with you?
Never sell a winning horse, have some patience , save your cash and have both ?[/quote]
Mm, maybe. But I like it slim. The Pyramid feels designed to run several instruments, not really intended for a minium rig, whereas the Octatrack can without hassle play an entire set, be an entire album, be your studio, if you treat it right.
So even if I paired the Pyramid with like a Virus TI or something, which would be sufficient for years and years, it’d still be - just the Virus and the way it sounds, and not much else.
The Octatrack is whatever I pour into it and that’s powerful.
But I much more prefer to work with the Pyramid, it inspires new kinds of songs.
So we’ll see. I think I can hold out till Namm, see if something comes up. The Pyramid and an SP404SX would be interesting, for example. But it’s an aging sampler, so some kind of new hardware venture that rivals the SP or Octatrack would be cool.
Interesting… is the OT looking more attractive now?
seems the OT would not have the sequencing capabilities/flexibility,
but has sampling?
are you missing the sampling?
or is there something about the Pyramid thats not fitting with you?
[/quote]
It’s noway near as capable as a sequencer or builder of songs, compared with the Pyramid.
But it’s a lot of other things. So what I’m finding out is if I really need all what the Pyramid can do.
If I ran a larger hardware rig, then the matter would be settled, though. The Pyramid, hands down. But I don’t. I run a micro rig. Tiny tiny tiny. And I like it like that.
But we’ll see.
1 Like
Interesting… is the OT looking more attractive now?
seems the OT would not have the sequencing capabilities/flexibility,
but has sampling?
are you missing the sampling?
or is there something about the Pyramid thats not fitting with you?
[/quote]
It’s noway near as capable as a sequencer or builder of songs, compared with the Pyramid.
But it’s a lot of other things. So what I’m finding out is if I really need all what the Pyramid can do.
If I ran a larger hardware rig, then the matter would be settled, though. The Pyramid, hands down. But I don’t. I run a micro rig. Tiny tiny tiny. And I like it like that.
But we’ll see.[/quote]
ah, I see… yeah, if you don’t have much other gear to drive then I can see the dilemma…
how do you think the pyramid does with composing ‘on the fly’?
is it good, or something you tend to ‘plan ahead’ with…
Ive a Spectralis, which I really like, but there are a few areas to do with taking existing patterns and modifying them that i don’t like e.g. copy pattern, double its length, modify it… its really not possible ‘on the fly’, like it is on Push/Ableton.
… but Im kind of considering a hardware solution. mainly to sequence my Spectralis and Virus… so Ive been kind of watching how the Squarp develops.
Once you get to know it, which doesn’t take long, it’s very friendly for quick ideas, spontaneous whims and iterations on iterations. It’s a great tool for just trying out things.
For reference, I think the Octatrack is too, once you learn it. But not everyone agrees with that. So that’s where my mindset is. My all time favourite for just going with it, is the Tempest, though. An extremely spontaneous and inviting instrument for just putting stuff together, going with the flow.
Once you get to know it, which doesn’t take long, it’s very friendly for quick ideas, spontaneous whims and iterations on iterations. It’s a great tool for just trying out things.
For reference, I think the Octatrack is too, once you learn it. But not everyone agrees with that. So that’s where my mindset is. My all time favourite for just going with it, is the Tempest, though. An extremely spontaneous and inviting instrument for just putting stuff together, going with the flow.
[/quote]
Hi there,
nice to hear your enthousiasm. I’m glad you mention the Tempest, the only reason that kept me of it is the sequencer. So I guess it becomes a really interesting instrument in combination with the Pyramid ??? Can one use the pads easely to place trigs in the Pyramid ??? ( because it seems a great interface )
Once you get to know it, which doesn’t take long, it’s very friendly for quick ideas, spontaneous whims and iterations on iterations. It’s a great tool for just trying out things.
For reference, I think the Octatrack is too, once you learn it. But not everyone agrees with that. So that’s where my mindset is. My all time favourite for just going with it, is the Tempest, though. An extremely spontaneous and inviting instrument for just putting stuff together, going with the flow.
[/quote]
Hi there,
nice to hear your enthousiasm. I’m glad you mention the Tempest, the only reason that kept me of it is the sequencer. So I guess it becomes a really interesting instrument in combination with the Pyramid ??? Can one use the pads easely to place trigs in the Pyramid ??? ( because it seems a great interface ) [/quote]
Well, the Tempest is a mixed bag. Or maybe not mixed, but very much an acquired taste. Its sequencer, for example, is very good - funky, playable and with enough features to make killer tracks. But it’s designed to play the Tempest and nothing else. There is a way to sequence external gear with it - one monophonic midi channel - but for that, it’s so bad, just even bothering with it is more annoying than it never being there in the first place.
The Tempest could be used as a controller right into the Pyramid, and the Pyramid could then pick up what you recorded and play it back, so you could make a nice little eco system right there, if you like. Since the Tempest is polyphonic, but its sequencer is not, you can use it to record polyphonic data into the Pyramid and then have it played back into the Tempest as such. Which gives you a lot more options just in terms of creating music.
However, I’d advise anyone who’s considering a Tempest to think twice, until you’ve done your homework and tried one. It’s a very specific instrument, filled with solutions and implementations that are all part of its unique character, but not suitable to all. The envelopes, the voice stealing, the lack of reverb or delay, such things - these matter. In this case, more to some than others. To me, ultimately to the point where the Tempest became one of the instruments I sold.
Had it been slightly more fleshed out, I’d kept it as my only piece of gear instead of the Octatrack. I enjoyed playing it so much. But in the end, its limitations compared to the almost endless possibilities of the Octatrack, made me choose the Octatrack. I don’t regret it.
1 Like
hmm, this thread has re-awakened my interest in the pyramid 
(did they reduce the price slightly, for some reason I seem to remember it being a bit more expensive when it was announced?)
going thru the user guide, the editing features look really good (i assume they can all be done without causing odd timing glitches)
but theres a couple of things I cannot see… (and I’m used to on the Speccie)
- playback direction, fwd, rev, random etc
- probability on steps
can you also confirm, if you copy a range of steps, and paste, will the pyramid automatically increase the sequence length.?
also if you are adding notes (step mode) with an external controller, will it sound the note immediately (i.e. forward the midi) when you program it, or only when that step is ‘arrived’ at by the sequencer?
funny, the online manual is great, but hard to imagine how it works in practice.
A few of these I can maybe answer…
The price is around 700e, check that you’ve counted in tax.
-Playback direction not implemented
-Step probability not implemented, I think I saw someone mention Squarp is looking into it.
Very good questions, the copy/paste and the ext. controller one.
I don’t have the latest OS, but as far as I can tell, playback is only forward. Given the nature of the Pyramid, 384 bars and so on, this might make sense or not. But looking at Squarp’s road map and their general attitude towards sequencing, it wouldn’t surprise me if this feature is in the works.
There’s no probability, but this, I’m almost sure, they have on their radar.
When you copy a range of steps, you can’t paste them into a void and create a natural continuum. If the section isn’t there already, you need to create the space in where it should go. This is easy, though. Extending and shortening track lenghts is done by one push and the turn of a knob. I copy and paste all the time and have no problem with this. You can also choose the zoom rate if your copy and paste, which means you can copy large sections of complete bars with just one push, if you want to duplicate sequences way longer than 4 bars, for example.
When you add notes, they don’t play back until the sequencer has triggered them. But you can do this in real time, so essentially work on your track as the sequencer is running.
1 Like
yeah i certainly think that a lot of that will be implemented, one way or another. Another thing - there is the MIDI Randomizer effect. You can do parameter-lock style edits to CC data, so you could effectively change the MIDI randomization per step on a sequence and get similar results.
The Squarp people seem to be more focused on making a sequencer that lets you write easy, rather than a sequencer that lets it write for you. Probability, sequencer forward/backward/random etc. seem like lazy shortcuts imo … the rise of modular has also led to a rise in people wanting to plug in gear, and have it make notes for them, which is fun but not necessarily productive. the pyramid seems to be more focused on productivity, and all the OS changes are still fleshing out the potential as a concise song writing tool; there are certainly hardware sequencers to fill that random bleep bloop niche. Future Retro Zillion comes to mind.
If you want to get into generative/algorithmic MIDI, or anything that deviates too far from the norm, learning puredata or max/msp is the only way to be fully satisfied with your workflow (which no hardware enthusiast wants to hear, but there is a reason ableton just slapped Max into Live rather than keep inventing new requests for users)
1 Like
well, damn. this escalated quickly, and i got one!
One simple question: How do I fast forward or rewind in the sequencer? 
If I have a 384 bar track, it’ll be a bitch to wait for 380 bars just to overdub the last note…
I must have missed something simple.