I was a hardcore Hermod user for years, until I moved away from modular as the center of my setup. Since then, I’ve been using an Akai Force as the “brains” of my setup, but it’s been frustrating that I can only see 8 tracks at a time, because I have 11 synths that I’m sequencing. Hapax looks like it will give me that Force/Push style “clip launcher” mode (Hapax pattern mode) but with 16 tracks, which is huge for me, because I hate scrolling
FWIW, my workflow is almost completely improvised. I play everything live and loop it. It has to be super-easy to start and stop recording of a clip, set loop lengths in advance or on the fly, and start and stop different clips in different tracks. I’ve made a bunch of posts in the Hermod forum talking through workflow optimizations, many of which were actually made for Hermod, which I hope are reflected in Hapax’s workflow.
The biggest question is how the Hapax workflow will feel. Hermod was very easy to use, which I loved. Pyramid felt more powerful but less “immediate” and felt like it required more work to do similar things. However, I also do audio looping in Force, so I’m not sure how to reconcile that, since Hapax is just a MIDI sequencer.
The main reasons I switched to Force from Hermod was because it offered more than 8 tracks, a Push-style grid of clips in tracks, and also audio looping. Given Force’s less than stellar handling of MIDI, including stuck notes even in the latest 3.1.3 firmware, and my positive experiences with Hermod, I’m pretty psyched to give this a try.
Considering what I do is fully improvised sets of live-looped MIDI, and Squarp’s superlative handling of MIDI, this may very well replace Force for me. Granted, I’ll need to figure out the audio looping bit… again
Not to mention that Squarp has always been very responsive to my and others’ feedback, and really evolved Hermod to be much more powerful than when it launched, so I have high hopes there.
I’m also curious to hear why others are ordering Hapax.
I have few days left to give back my Pyramid and get the Hapax
The interface seems so much more comfortable
2a. The dual colourful screens
2b. the pads, esp. want to try drawing automation with it!
The workflow that it suggests seems more practical than the Pyramid (which is fine enough though)
3a. so much better overview of what’s going on on live & while composing
3b. the drum mode!
3c. song mode seems soooo much better than the seq in Pyramid
As for the MIDI effects, they seems really nice but I’m not really using them much.
Dual project architect is the tipping point for me. Being able to load a new project on the fly while the first project is running is the biggest issue I was going to have to sort out for playing live with Pyramid. Now it will all flow uninterrupted, and I can change up the track selection for my set in the moment.
64 tracks on Pyramid is nice but overkill for my personal workflow. 16 is right in the sweet spot for my current gear setup. More concerned about only having 8 patterns per track (16 would be ideal), but even only having used Pyramid for a couple months, I’ve never come close to needing more except with drum parts. But hoping that now having a dedicated drum Track on Hapax, I can deal with that issue if it arises.
Also really like some of the other changes I’m noticing in the manual, e.g., Euclidean programming now being a dedicated MIDI FX for entire Tracks, rather than a persistent Step mode state that could only affect one note per Step. And Algo feels like it will be to generative programming on Hapax what Euclidean mode was to Pyramid.
Would have been good to know this was in the pipeline before i spent $600 on Pyramid two months ago . . .
This was a no-brainer choice for me to order. It almost feels like they took the parts I liked from a number of existing devices I have (or had) and mixed them together into a near perfect sequencer. Looks like something that will really support both live performance and song creation, and pulls the best parts from multiple devices I currently have, so it will likely replace them.
I also placed my order this evening! Several features caught my eye, but one that really stood out was the MPE compatibility. I see that it’s still being implemented (in the manual)
I have been curious about the Force after using the pyramid for the about a year but I relate to the Pyramid so much.
Doesn’t the Force have touch sensitive keys?
Does the Hapax?
