Deluge, a portable sequencer, synthesizer and sampler(github.com)
github.com
Deluge, a portable sequencer, synthesizer and sampler
https://github.com/SynthstromAudible/DelugeFirmware
48 comments
> There are plenty of far cheaper 'grooveboxes' for DAW-less fun
On the price/features criteria, I believe the Akai MPC One remains supreme. Others are superior in some areas, but as a versatile "do-it-all box" it is astonishing value for 700€.
Yes, a DAW has the same ability for less money (not including the computer one may already possess), but the ergonomics are a major part of what makes those Linux boxes feel like a music instrument.
On the price/features criteria, I believe the Akai MPC One remains supreme. Others are superior in some areas, but as a versatile "do-it-all box" it is astonishing value for 700€.
Yes, a DAW has the same ability for less money (not including the computer one may already possess), but the ergonomics are a major part of what makes those Linux boxes feel like a music instrument.
MPC One/Live/X is an incredible platform. I would like to build an open source alternative.
An open source MPC ? Take a look at Zynthian ! Not much cheaper than an MPC One, but totally open source and leverages a ton of existing Linux music software... You might be interested if you feel frustrated by Akai's control of the MPC platform, are willing to exchange maturity for freedom of integration, and still want solid dedicated hardware.
https://zynthian.org/
https://zynthian.org/
It's wild to me that there's still no dedicated hardware MIDI sequencer that's designed for making _songs_. Pretty much everything is designed for making lots of 16 step patterns. But then arranging those patterns is a mystery. I had the deluge and it's not great. The Roland TR-8S inexplicable has no song mode. The Squarp hapax seems close but has some serious flaws from what I've read. Ultimately using a DAW still wins.
Yeah the TR-8S is very much geared as a live performance device to channel your inner-Jeff Mills (even though the 909/808 did have a song mode!). I will say you can get most of the way there with pattern chaining, and you implement a more fully featured ersatz song mode if you have something that will send it MIDI ProgramChange messages.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P01V0I84P8k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P01V0I84P8k
In terms of MIDI grooveboxes, I see Polyend Tracker and Square Hapax are interesting, but they are not cheap either.
Yeah that's the problem with all these boutique sequencer stuff - out of the DAW live performance is tricky unless you buy into the Elektron ecosystem which I don't as a mostly analog purist.
As a result I've cheaped out and when not using my beatstep to control the stuff via my DAW I have a Korg SQ64 but its a bit unintuitive flow-wise in terms of live jamming. I end up just using my TR-8S with the 2600 or 303 side-chained through it.
As a result I've cheaped out and when not using my beatstep to control the stuff via my DAW I have a Korg SQ64 but its a bit unintuitive flow-wise in terms of live jamming. I end up just using my TR-8S with the 2600 or 303 side-chained through it.
> unless you buy into the Elektron ecosystem which I don't as a mostly analog purist.
Analog 4, Analog Heat, Analog Rytm...
Analog 4, Analog Heat, Analog Rytm...
No you're right, they've some competitive analog offerings nowadays which I keep forgetting about. Headspace wise I'm still stuck at the last time I was properly 'shopping' for gear when the Elektron holy trinity was Syntakt, Digitakt and Digitone.
The Syntakt also has multiple analog oscillators, analog noise, and analog drive in it.
The Arturia Beatstep Pro has been the only sequencer I’ve connected with for my modest gate, cv, and midi sync needs. I moved to it after scoring what I thought was a deal on a SQ64. I really wish the SQ64 felt like a playable instrument and didn’t come out of the box with noise issues.
SQ64 is such a mess. My worst gear purchase.
I've had the Tracker for a while and it's really fun and easy to get a hang of. I haven't tried it as a MIDI sequencer and kind of forgot that that's even an option. It's a fun toy when I'm laying on the couch after work
Sorry, I meant to say the Polyend Play! Not sure if Tracker has MIDI out capabilities.
> couldn't quite stomach the $1400
looks at my elektron gear sheepishly
looks at my elektron gear sheepishly
I've gone through stupid amounts of GAS in my time. With my current Behringer Pro-1/MS-20/Neutron Tower, their 303 and 2600 clones, a microbrute, a Triton 61 etc... I've more or less fleshed out my ideal hands-on rig. If I'm dropping 4 figures on something at this point it would have to be a Prophet-6 - and that's end-game territory.
Although saying that, I'd imagine I could get very easily into Eventide FX outboard if I let myself lol
Although saying that, I'd imagine I could get very easily into Eventide FX outboard if I let myself lol
PSA: launchpad-pro has official SDK
I've been a Novation fan since the Nova (and even stuck with them through their dodgy 2000s VA phase with things like the X-Station) but the launchpad-pro is crucially missing CV outputs for controlling my semi-modular stuff.
Ableton Push 3 allows you to send four CV signals using the footswitch jacks, and for roughly the same price as the Deluge I'd probably go for that given its value proposition: a full i3-1115G4 processor w/ 8GB of RAM and over 2 hours battery life, plus native audio interface.
Ableton Push 3 allows you to send four CV signals using the footswitch jacks, and for roughly the same price as the Deluge I'd probably go for that given its value proposition: a full i3-1115G4 processor w/ 8GB of RAM and over 2 hours battery life, plus native audio interface.
I always wonder about CV — how much is voltage drop due to cables and connections? Is there a measurable detuning?
(I'd love if there was a cheap digital version of patching using e.g. I2S and with 1 sample delay per node, but no such thing.. )
(I'd love if there was a cheap digital version of patching using e.g. I2S and with 1 sample delay per node, but no such thing.. )
> $1400 price of entry as the synthesizer part of it
That's what's special about the "audio" category though. People's brains turn off. The price of an iPhone 14 Max!
But maybe it lets you tap into those latent feelings, "What would it have been like if I had gone to Eastman?"
> premium offerings like Teenage Engineering have
They have like 4/30 non-audio products. Look at them, and feel the magic evaporate. I can only speak to their SFF PC case, it is notoriously bad. Of course their stuff is beautiful, but so are Braun watches, Hay furniture, etc. I am not sure what these product categories tap into emotionally that phones haven't figured out how to yet.
That's what's special about the "audio" category though. People's brains turn off. The price of an iPhone 14 Max!
But maybe it lets you tap into those latent feelings, "What would it have been like if I had gone to Eastman?"
> premium offerings like Teenage Engineering have
They have like 4/30 non-audio products. Look at them, and feel the magic evaporate. I can only speak to their SFF PC case, it is notoriously bad. Of course their stuff is beautiful, but so are Braun watches, Hay furniture, etc. I am not sure what these product categories tap into emotionally that phones haven't figured out how to yet.
I am lucky to have a friend who's less stingy than me. He bought one and let me play with it for a week. I loved it. It's intuitive, fun, and very powerful. I usually work in a DAW and have an Arturia Microbrute, so I thought it would be annoying doing everything in hardware. It was actually really satisfying doing everything with physical buttons and knobs. I still don't want to drop the cash for it but I thoroughly enjoyed my experience with the Deluge.
Microbrute is a lot of fun for the money but I really want to chop the keyboard off mine and rack it above my Neutron as the keyboard barely qualifies as a keyboard and is more or less useless. Filter and OSC are just different enough to keep around, but the Matrixbrute etc... left me completely cold as the sound was just a bit sterile or something.
The name Deluge is already in use.
https://deluge-torrent.org/
I don't think the people behind Deluge BitTorrent Client will sue or even particularly mind that someone else uses the name. But it's a confusing thing for different programs to be named the same thing. For the sake of the users, more than anything, a different name should be considered. If no alternate name is possible, consider using the development team in junction with the program name. I.e., similar to how the Adobe suite works. They don't usually call it just "Illustrator", but instead "Adobe Illustrator".
In this case, it could be called "Synthstrom Deluge" instead.
As a further comment, the problem of naming things in a global namespace is an unsolvable problem. All you can do is try to be polite and avoid causing problems to yourself and others as much as possible, but in the end, lots of people will inevitably be disappointed. It's a case of minimizing discomfort rather than reaching a solution where everyone is happy.
https://deluge-torrent.org/
I don't think the people behind Deluge BitTorrent Client will sue or even particularly mind that someone else uses the name. But it's a confusing thing for different programs to be named the same thing. For the sake of the users, more than anything, a different name should be considered. If no alternate name is possible, consider using the development team in junction with the program name. I.e., similar to how the Adobe suite works. They don't usually call it just "Illustrator", but instead "Adobe Illustrator".
In this case, it could be called "Synthstrom Deluge" instead.
As a further comment, the problem of naming things in a global namespace is an unsolvable problem. All you can do is try to be polite and avoid causing problems to yourself and others as much as possible, but in the end, lots of people will inevitably be disappointed. It's a case of minimizing discomfort rather than reaching a solution where everyone is happy.
Deluge is a powerful commercial hardware groovebox/synthesizer/sequencer. The manufacturer opened up the firmware after they sold the device for a while. So the name Deluge is an established product name in a completely different namespace. Even trademarks wouldn't help you protect against this kind name collision because they are only valid for their registered product categories.
It's not a program, at least not in the usual sense of that term.
It's a piece of hardware. This is the firmware for that device.
It's a piece of hardware. This is the firmware for that device.
Once again I was bit by not reading the link thoroughly enough. I hope I'm not the only one that's happened to. ;)
Nonetheless, the problem of naming things actually stands. Trademark law aside, imagine if you tried to make a program like a torrent client called "Volvo". Names exist in a global namespace, and things will collide, and that's bad for everyone involved.
Had I made the original hardware product, I would have named it the "Synthstrom Deluge" to avoid this problem.
Nonetheless, the problem of naming things actually stands. Trademark law aside, imagine if you tried to make a program like a torrent client called "Volvo". Names exist in a global namespace, and things will collide, and that's bad for everyone involved.
Had I made the original hardware product, I would have named it the "Synthstrom Deluge" to avoid this problem.
From a trademark perspective, things do not exist in a global namespace.
From a human perspective they sometimes do, but that can lead to excellent comedy, like the computer-vs-cleaning device question when the term "VAX" used to come up. I'll take comedy over a very inhuman insistence on a global namespace.
From a human perspective they sometimes do, but that can lead to excellent comedy, like the computer-vs-cleaning device question when the term "VAX" used to come up. I'll take comedy over a very inhuman insistence on a global namespace.
If you don't want any collisions with your product name, then don't use a common English word as your product name.
People refer to it as Synthstrom Deluge all the time. The product is called Deluge and the company is Synthstrom. It would be strange if they called their product the Synthstrom Synthstrom Deluge wouldn’t it?
I’ve always wondered why these DAWless grooveboxes, with the exception of teenage engineering, don’t come with a built in keyboard.
A 8x2 grid of buttons can be used as a one octave keyboard. Space and buttons are scarce resources in grooveboxes, and grids of buttons are more versatile. You can always connect an external keyboard too, which will be much higher-quality than anything a groovebox can provide.
The deluge has a really clever keyboard mode that I find really musical to play with, especially coming as a guitar player as it stacks rows in intervals of a 4th
You can't really beat inMusic on quality at the same price as their various brands' keyboards. A button grid though is useful and pretty easy to manufacture.
Workflow and accessibility. Not to be reductive about it, but they're basically a massively reduced barrier to entry for tasting what 'real' production is like for the less musically inclined consumer.
Grooveboxes are essentially clip-launchers; they were basically incepted as a sort of sample-less Akai MPC utilising a built-in ROMpler and some basic Synthesis, some FX, and 'contemporary' presets to lure in people fiddling around in music stores - e.g. the MC-303 or to take it to its absurd conclusion, the DJ-XII.
The interactivity thereafter is about launching clips on the fly and fiddling with the resonance and cut-off for a lead sequence, and riding that master FX ping-pong delay like your life depended on it. The Dunning-Kruger DAW if you will.
Grooveboxes are essentially clip-launchers; they were basically incepted as a sort of sample-less Akai MPC utilising a built-in ROMpler and some basic Synthesis, some FX, and 'contemporary' presets to lure in people fiddling around in music stores - e.g. the MC-303 or to take it to its absurd conclusion, the DJ-XII.
The interactivity thereafter is about launching clips on the fly and fiddling with the resonance and cut-off for a lead sequence, and riding that master FX ping-pong delay like your life depended on it. The Dunning-Kruger DAW if you will.
The keyboard takes away space you could be using for more buttons.
The new Akai does.
I prefer the OXI One for sequencing
Wow, an actual product with the RZ/A1L. Kudos for sticking it out with Renesas.
Super cool, and GPLv3!
Polyend Play and Play+ are cheaper with similar features
Not to be confused with Deluge, the BitTorrent client :P
I honestly thought of that immediately. Deluge was one of the nicer clients I could ever find that was cross platform. As nice as uTorrent was, I preferred clients that were cross platform. qBitorrent became my favorite sometime later though.
Not to mention the bad reputation uTorrent gained with embedding ads and malware galore that followed.
Like most users who drop that kind of money on outboard, all I really wanted here was the 8x16 Sequencer/Sampler for controlling my CV and MIDI synths and drum machines, at maybe a $500-600 pricepoint.
There are plenty of far cheaper 'grooveboxes' for DAW-less fun like the cheaper Roland TR range for those who want instant gratification, and even premium offerings like Teenage Engineering have. Still, I'm very glad this exists.