Hi All
As a user of the Pyramid for a long time, I’m fond of polyrythmic capabilities of the pyramid.playing with tracks with different time signature
As far as I understand in the HAPAX the time signature is fixed for each project, not by track
I guess it is not possible to create polyrythmic music with the HAPAX.
Is it correct ?
Is there any chance that time signature be set by track in the future ?
many thanks for your answer
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I was literally just looking this up. All I could find was that I could change the track elasticity, but that’s a bit more abstract than what I was hoping for.
It’s not too bad with elasticity, but I don’t think it’s per pattern, which was pretty nice on the Pyramid. I also quite liked how the Pyramid makes weird polyrhythms a breeze. Might have to put in a feature request. Will see.
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Hi Heckseven
Many thanks for your reply
May be one solution could be for a samba like rythm to use one track in 100% elasciticty and the other one in 125%, The result should be the same than one track in 4/4 (100%) and the other one in 5/4 (125%). Do I ‘m right ?
IN this case, you will have probably to remember this difference for setting the length of each pattern to remain stable together
Do someone try this already ?
I havnt’ received the Hapax, so impossible to test yet…
It is right that pyramid is more convenient for complex rythms, for example african ones which are fully polyrithmics with complex time signature, far more complex than samba one
My dream would be a pyramid able to handle MPE for playing live with my ROLI Seaboard and work on records to improve this live performance…
Finally, I’m not sure to keep the HAPAX if polyrhimics is really so poor and may be pyramid is the best choice. with may be 2 pyramids working together with one handling MPE like information by using tracks CC ?
indeed , the Pyramid and Hapax take a very different approach to polyrhythms.
the Pyramid had polyrhythms/polymeters at its very heart… when it was released, Id say this was its USP, and frankly IF this is the most important aspect to you - I’d say the Pyramid is still the best (polyrhythm) sequencer out there!
the issue is, it confused SO many users (endless topics on this forum about it, or related ‘issues’).
as most users often just wanted simple polymeters (so to set the number of steps), and setting time signatures to get what they wanted just was overly complex (for thier use-case).
SO… we saw Squarp move away from this with the Hermod, and now the Hapax, to a more ‘conventional’ sequencer approach, that (frankly) suits more people - one that is more focused on polymeters.
but indeed track elasticity gets you polyrhythms, albeit by a different means.
and some have made some good suggestions, and hopefully feature requests… that perhaps the elasticity could be aided by expressing in ‘ratios’ rather than %, so help this a bit more.
overall, Id not say the Hapax as ‘really so poor’ at polyrhythms, rather it’s a different approach.
tracks running at different ‘speeds’ is a different way of looking at polyrhythms… rather than different time signatures…
so, can you get the same with hapax, as the pyramid? …sure , if you do a bit of maths (*)
could Squarp add Time Signature per track to Hapax?
thats something you will have to ask them, as a feature request via the contact form
I guess in an ideal world, they could do this, and somehow keep the reduced complexity that Hapax/Hermod have brought for the simpler use-cases.
but again, IF this is your #1 priority then Id say carry on with the pyramid, at least until it becomes clearer if this may change on the Hapax or not. (**)
(*) this is where we can see the focus shift… on the pyramid , you had to do a bit of ‘maths’ to get certain polymeter combinations… now you have to do a bit of maths on the hapax to get polyrhythms 
(**) given the maturity of the Pyramid, and the new approach taken by the Hapax.
its inevitable, that the Hapax does not have every feature of the pyramid (of vice versa), some will no doubt come in future firmware… others are just a different approach, often due to feedback from (pyramid) users.
Hi Mark,
I’m really pleased by your answer that is very clear and sounds logical.
Sorry for " the so poor…" regarding HAPAX polyrithmic capabilties.
You are right, and I would say that coming from the pyramid and playing with its amazing polyrythmic capabilities, it is a bit disappointing when reading the specs of the HAPAX on this point.
In a near future I will have both pyramid and HAPAX. No doubt that I will do my best to use the HAPAX at is maximum for polyrythms and I’m really not afraid by maths calculation to achieve this.
The HAPAX has MPE capabilities and this is important for me.
So let us see how it goes in the future with HAPAX.
Philippe
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Agree with everything said. The math isn’t usually too bad until you get into like 15/16 or something. The biggest thing for me now is that the elasticity is per track and not per-sequence, but not a huge deal. It’s a limitation I can work with. Thanks.
yeah, I think there are a few things, I like to see move into ‘per sequence’
e.g. bpm, time signature, track elasticity and pScale.
I was think about this before… and think pattern is not really where we want these,
rather its a ‘set of patterns’, so, I think it would make sense for these to be on a per ‘Section’ level.
eg. define different pScales per section (aka group of patterns)
anyway, all day-dreaming really, its not a major issue for me… and not likely to start raising a feature request at this time.
but again, a good reason, to let Squarp know what use-cases you have via their website.
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Hi All,
I continue to imagine polyrythmic songs with the HAPAX before receiving it. Sorry if my question seems stupid to advance users, but I can’t test, and I hope that users can help me.
It seems that the horizontal 16 pads represent one Bar for any time signature.
Do I’m right ?
Many thanks for your reply
Philippe
yes and no…
so when you start a new project, it will default to 4/4 and one bar pattern, and zoom x1.
which indeed means it showing 1/16th notes, so horizontal pads = one bar or 1/16th notes.
but zoom in/out, and this obviously changes.
also if we now change the length of the bar to say 9 / 16. by default, it will now show 9 steps, so indeed one bar.
but in the settings you can change its behaviour (“Split Bars”) so that its seen as a continuation, e.g. step 10 = bar 2, beat 1 … so as it behaved on the pyramid.
I actually like split bars = on (default behaviour) alot, it makes working with polymeters much more intuitive than it was on the pyramid.
anyway, this is one area, you can choose it to behave as you prefer
I can understand that…though, id say its not an approach I tend to use.
my approach to new instruments is rather, once I get them to let them ‘lead me’ to the workflow they encourage - I find this much less ‘frustrating’
I see Hapax as a new thing, rather than a Pyramid+.
Squarp have used their experience (and user feedback) from the many years of Pyramid dev (and later Hermod) to create something new.
its natural some things have changed, polyrhythms have been approached differently because it was causing issue for many users.
of course, some users were perfectly happy with them (on the pyramid) , but you cannot just add ‘everything’ to a new product, it’ll become a Frankenstein mess of a UI.
and honestly, I think for many track elasticity will make more sense, esp those with less music theory.
and as above, I personally see this as an opportunity to look at polyrhythms in a different way.
(i.e. as stretching/shrinking time, rather than thinking of time signatures)
will Squarp add back different time signatures per track? you’ll have to ask them.
I guess technically its possible, I think the harder question is…
does it make sense? and can it be done in a way that does not confuse the UI?
(e.g. how would track elasticity and time signatures work together)
anyway, I do understand if you are thinking about buying… important to know if it can cope with your use-cases, but I guess important to be open to new ways of working?
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I agree completely with your approach, when I will discover the HAPAX I will explore all possibilities.
Thanks for sharing
Just to clarify what I understood from your technical remark
you select a time signature of 9/16, and split bars option, is it what you selected ?
In this case, in zoom 1, the first 9 pads are belonging to the first bar, and so on untill the total number of bars of the track is reached.
Is it right ?
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No, I said when the bar length is set to 9 (beats)
on say a 4/4 pattern. So a polymeter pattern 
I don’t know off hand what happens if you set a ts of 9/16 ( or if you can ;)) as not tried it