https://www.pioneerdj.com/en-us/product/production/toraiz-squid/black/overview/
“Running direction”
&
“speed control” (/2 or x2 for a pattern)
= features that I would have loved to see on the Pyramid…
“Groove Bend” interesting feature…
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SQU(arp pyram)ID.
hmmm.
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coincidence?? I think not!
I did read through the squarp manual and the polyrythms for the different tracks seem to give you a way to do that. So I’m trying to see the point in add that feature.
Seems to me the layout is geared to short 1 bar loops ?
I tried everything … I couldn’t find a way.
Would you explain me how this could be achieved?
I don’t like this 4x4 layout for sequencing
and the squid is limited to 4 bars (64 steps) wich is a bit limiting
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I’ve only read the manual, haven’t had a chance to use a squarp yet, I’ll see about that later this week when mine arrives.
64 steps is a fundamental limitation. Sorry . Too many sequencers have this limitation and this is why the squarp and a couple of others are on hallowed ground as far as I’m concerned.
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ah ok… I’m almost certain it’s not possible!
except for Euclidean Patterns … wich doesn’t help too much
I’ve purchased a Toraiz Squid which is now sitting next to my Pyramid and I wanted to report on how it compares. I won’t go into the details of its GROOVE CONTROL capabilities as I personally couldn’t find any use for them – it’s certainly impressive to be able to scrub the sequencer playhead but I don’t see myself using it, personally.
Besides the limitations mentioned above already (mostly the 16 tracks max and 4 bars track length – although workarounds e.g.TRIG PROB make this arguable) I think that the 2 units share a fairly level playing field. The Pyramid is generally more capable in many respects (imho, that is) but I found myself wishing the Pyramid will borrow these interesting SQUID features:
- Large library of chord progressions - the Pyramid has quite a few but we are talking 18 sets of progressions, for a ton of different musical styles
- A real time harmonizer (take a root note and add musical harmonies based on a list of presets, e.g. m7 or aug9 etc) - these DO NOT result in chords being written on the pattern, which makes it a nice real-time non-destructive performance tool
- Pattern direction: this is HUGE. Imagine recording a pattern and then being able to play with 48 different combinations of playing direction, in real-time. PLEASE Squarp, do this! It’s an amazing improvisational composition utility that for me makes the Squid almost worth keeping.
- several layers of UNDO
- Time warp e.g. recall the last few bars of non-recorded material (great when finding a solo as you can recall it from the “buffer” history which is always recording). I think the Pyramid has something similar already but I haven’t tried it yet, so apologies if that’s the case. Still, the SQUID has a dedicated button for this which makes it really handy.
Now for the things that I found annoying on the Squid, in no particular order:
- you can’t simply “delete all notes” in a pattern without losing the pattern settings (e.g. scale/key or pattern length). The workaround is that instead of deleting the pattern you should select all triggers in each page individually and delete them at once. Pretty annoying, however the UNDO function can mitigate this in most situations
- You can’t play chords and scales at the same time (e.g. the CHORD mode takes over the SCALE mode)
- You can’t set SCALE or KEY globally e.g. you need to set it on each track
- If you have a SCALE set the Chord sets sound pretty weird as a result of the notes being transposed to their nearest in-scale values. Hard to explain this but I found most chords in a progression to be basically the same (so instead of 16 variations, depending on the scale you’re in, the actual amount of chords is 3-4)
All in all I think I will return the SQUID as the Pyramid comes out as a winner but there are some great features that I wish the Squarp folks will take into consideration for future upgrades! Fingers crossed.
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Thanks for sharing . Agree hopefully Pyramid will add some additional features on chords and direction play etc
On squid pretty straight forward to play perform triplets etc
Sorry I’m late but to get a “pattern multiply” or “divide” cut the pattern from 4/4 to 2/2 or 4/4 to 8/8 or 16/16
You’ll have to set lengths on your own and if you have an existing sequence of notes, they’ll be distributed throughout the track according to where they were before the adjustment, so don’t expect the time sig change to do it all for you.
Also zoom is your best friend for getting in there.
i understand what you’re saying … but it only seconds what I’m saying … this doesn’t playback a sequence in any other speed.
You still have to do that manually.
Oh you want it to be like a performance, on the fly. Just create a pattern with the different times and switch?
I honestly just want pattern direction. The squarp is hands down the best sequencer, it opens up all my other instruments to so many things
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no I usually liverecord a sequence and then I want to experiment with different speeds
the bpm effect would do it , but as its tempo is an absolute value it’s useless for me.
It doesn’t record anything but incoming notes. No CC, no aftertouch, just note on/off. I’m not impressed. Pyramid for the win.
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