Ive been checking hapax videos out a lot and its amazing …if it had been available in stores already, i probably woukd have snapped at it.
However, the more i look at it and in comparison to similar , i think the song mode / arranger is huge let down.
Its so amazing at everything thing else, automation, io ++++++ but i think its very dated in this area.
Its similar to akai mpcs in this area, amazing units, easy to use and packed full of greatness …but again song arrangement is laborious and requires being calculated, basic and ultimately taking stems back to the daw or to mpc own daw.
Im not not sure what others think , or maybe that side isn’t as important … but if to be billed as dawless …surley that would need to be improved ???
for me, especially playing live and wanting to fully utilize dual projects, it’s kind of essential. if I had more patterns overall I could make the current pattern launch section iteration work but it’s still gonna be a chore. don’t need a full DAW functionality in a box but… likely going to have to switch to Deluge before price goes up again in April.
would vastly prefer not to reinvent the wheel again with another sequencer, and will hang on to Hapax to see what future developments bring (Pyramid didn’t have patterns when it was initially released, but weren’t implemented until later in the life cycle than I can really afford to wait for here). stinks because Deluge doesn’t do the MIDI side of things (FX etc) nearly as deep as Hapax from what I can tell but the trade off to have arranger mode and instant loading of songs while the current song is running means I can probably make it work
(and this is not a specific criticism to Squarp but also generally observing the resistance by a lot of manufacturers not named Synthstrom to the fact that songs as songs are actually linear with starts and ends remains baffling. every sequencer before DAWs worked that way but for some reason that idea has been abandoned almost completely with current hardware)
i feel the same , its one thing that annoys me about the MPC one — or even MPC x
they are amazing at so many things but song arrangement is similar to HAPAX ---- like an old 90’s yamaha qx1 or an onboard song arranger on an all in 1 keyboard .
because of this i tend to use the MPC as multi timbral synth / sampler - or extract loops from it to the daw etc -
Im think maybe oxi 1 might work better for this reason — deluge same but what you said, then your missing out on all the amazing things HAPAX can do…
its a shame - MPC (like HAPAX) if it did this side better there could be a real argument for daw- less — whilst i agree , we dont expect them to be on par with daw features , but song arrangements its fundamental
i need to sequence the full 16 tracks that Hapax offers for multiple synths/samplers (and which Deluge at least has 16 MIDI tracks available) so Oxi-1 was out for me on that basis.
from what i understand you can do up 32 tracks on oxi - i haven’t played with it but watched a few videos + read
you can switch one or more of the sequencer tracks to multi sequence tracks , each giving you 8 each - so 32 in total that way - each track within the multi track can be either CV/gate or midi but monophonic in that mode ---- so drums - and mono synth sequences - sample triggering it would be
yeah, at least when i was comparing a year ago v. Hapax it was the mono v. poly distinction that felt like was going to be too limiting. didn’t want to muck about with trying to steal tracks if i need something to be polyphonic when Hapax already had 16 fully poly tracks that i could just assign and always know what track is routed to what device across all given projects (which is actually perfect for my setup, so that part has always been great)
I get what you are saying - i prefer the hapax in so many ways but likewise , all that power to be let down by a poor arranger - just like the mpc - but luckily the mpc can act as a sampler / instrument and have multi audio outs over USB - so very useful
im similar to you in that im trying to sequence without the aid of the daw so much - otherwise i can just use the daw with external midi and midi to cv for euro rack - but id prefer not to.
theres so many sequencers out there and all limited by one thing or the other — its a shame.
deluge - ive also looked at as well — but i don’t really want it - i just want a sequencer that can arrange tracks /patterns better even at the expense of less effects ---- features
I’ve been through a lot of different hardware sequencers over the past 25+ years. The closest I got to a DAW-like linear sequencer was the Yamaha QY 700. A lot to like about it - instant on, up to 48 tracks, 20 songs, etc. If you had some music theory knowledge you could do a lot with the arranger type functions for chord changes and such. Also have/had more pattern based things like the Notron, Cirklon, MPC 60/3000/5000, MAQ 16/3, Schrittmacher, OXI, Deluge, Pyramid, sequencers built into gear like the Elektron stuff, and probably more that I’ve forgotten.
All have upsides and downsides. It comes down to finding the tool(s) that let you work quickly to capture an idea and also allow you to take time and work on/expand that core idea. So far, I have not found a single hw sequencer that can replace the power you find in modern DAWs so I don’t try.
I’ve been very happy with the Hapax so far because it lets me do easy things very quickly. The menuing is shallow for the basic stuff and there’s a lot of obvious hands-on controls.
If anyone is in the US and considering selling their Hapax, I’d be up for buying a second one to dedicate to my modular/cv gate stuff.
Ive merge two topics, as essentially they are discussed the same thing… is the song mode on hapax enough to replace a daw… so combined to avoid duplication, and also bring together different perspectives.
again a reminder,
discussing ideas, whats available, what you might need is cool.
feature requests are welcome, but should go via the contact form
as a Hapax user:
to me the discussion boils down to a few things :
Can the Hapax workflow/song mode by used in a similar way to a daw?
Is it enough for full arrangement?
Do hardware sequencers need to be full daw replacement?
or are they more compositional / performance instruments, and so requirements are different.
esp. give the necessary hardware limitations…
a case of the right tool for the job? daws still have a role , even if you have a hardware sequencer.
I’ve kind of answer this, from my perspective, in how I use the Hapax/DAW in my post here
but of course, we are all different…and have different use-cases etc.
overall, I think its fascinating topic…
does the DAW still have a role when you have a hardware sequencer?
if so, how does it fit it?
its a question that keeps coming up too… I remember same topic being discussed around the Pyramid!
so its one I think we all grapple with at some point or another.
One area where DAWs are good and hw usually falls flat is letting you see the ‘big picture’ of a song.
On a large computer screen you can zoom out and get a decent feel of the flow and density of tracks and sections across the song.
The Hapax actually has the capability to do something similar in the right screen. Kind of like how you can scroll up and down octaves and zoom in and out of bars, doing something similar for an entire song might be useful.
A lot of hw pretty much says – create a pattern (1->16 steps, 1->n bars), create a bunch of these, now layer them, string them together, and mute/unmute them as necessary. That kind of works for the most part, but there’s also times where you just want to say “I want this one section to go the length of the song and trigger a sample (or some drone chord) ‘here’, ‘here’, and ‘here’ - no looping, no repetition, just a linear track across multiple parts”. This seems harder to integrate into the paradigm if the device is based on loops of patterns.
The other aspect to consider (whether for live use or as an idea generator to be captured in a DAW) is how easy it it to interact and play the sequencer live? Some devices invite hands on manipulation while the sequences are running and others tend to be more of a ‘program cool stuff and sit back after pressing play’ kind of thing.
Kind of just a ramble, but hw sequencers are very personal devices. What works for one person may be a complete enigma to another and the only way to really determine it is to have it in your hands and in your setup for a period of time.
i’ve flogged this dead horse enough but just to be clear vis a vis the merged topic name, don’t want to work in a DAW, don’t need my hardware sequencer to function as a DAW, the whole reason i’ve bought Pyramid and Hapax is so I never have to touch a computer in the studio or in a live setting other than recording the stereo mixdown from my gear (and I already have an MPC to be a “DAW in a box” if i did want/need any of that). just need linear arrangement functionality like many pre-DAW sequencers had and at least one current hardware sequencer has in Deluge. so to me it’s a false choice to compare Hapax’s end function to full-feature DAWs. it’s really just whether one added function in the Song mode that already exists is going to be forthcoming.
the reason i would prefer to stay with the Hapax workflow (other than everything on the composing side in Live, Step, Auto modes, which for my uses are already near-perfect and further tweaks to FX etc would be merely additive) is coming to production and playing live as a longtime DJ, the ability to mix between two “tracks” (projects) on the fly, muting individual devices and individual voices within a given device is basically multitrack DJing, which would be awesome! but to make that part work, for me, arranging the song in a linear way is much more conducive than the laborious process of chaining pattern mute state snapshots in sequence sections and hoping all the dominos fall perfectly each time. without more patterns, at the least, for me it’s not really going to work. with more, i could probably make it work but the compromises i’d have to make with Deluge (generating setlists with songs that started immediately after each other versus being able to mix live between Proj A and Proj B over longer stretches) outweigh trying to force Hapax into functions it’s not currently built for.
I guess you need more that two projects to switch between
I often think similar, why am i trying so many convoluted set ups …when i could easily use my daw desktop machine or laptop into eurorack / midi outs…and do all of this
That being said …i still want a hardware sequencer… ill just have to except some limitations… maybe hapax song mode and pattern amount will be updated
there is no linear song mode on the Hapax - the song mode is based around arranging patterns.
to create a linear timeline (like Deluge) would be an entirely new thing, requiring a completely different UI.
sure, the pattern view has a linear view, but it has no concept of ‘clips/patterns’… so its not really helpful.
(look at how you do this in Ableton arranger to see what I mean about linear times with clips)
so, not is not just ‘one added function’ … its a completely new mode. one that was never promised , nor shown.
of course, thats no reason to not send a feature request via the Contact Form.
it may be Squarp devs are keen on the idea too… and would like to do it , who knows…
I do get the idea though…
but I rather come from the other side, I have tools and I adapt my workflow to what they can do… to their strengths, and in this case, with the Hapax that is a more pattern based approach.
(and yeah, like everyone, Id love a few more patterns :))
If they ever add an alternate song mode (maybe call it arranger) similar to the Deluge, I would be VERY happy. I think it can happily exist side by side to the current song mode.
It just seems such a waste to not use the grid to build a song.
Same with note entry btw: would love to be able to use the pads to define the note lengths as an alternative way, instead of the encoders - but that’s an entirely different topic.
