Seqtrak

[ajay_m]

I thought I already had a post on this but forum search doesn't locate it so apologies if I repeat myself here. Found something new out and was going to add to the previous post, but, ah well.

It's a great piece of kit in its own way but there are some gotchas:-

1. You can't remap MIDI channels to instruments so if you're using an external MIDI keyboard it needs to be easily able to change MIDI channels or you will get frustrated trying to record into different drum and synth parts.

2. It doesn't work with a USB hub which means you can only plug one MIDI controller into it, and then obviously you can't charge it. Although I *think* my KMI Qunexus *might* allow me to work around that by connecting a charger to its mini USB port that's normally used to connect to the optional MIDI expander, I suspect that'll route 5V back through the micro USB port and thus into the Seqtrak, we'll see.

3. There's no polyphonic drum mode; it would have made sense to put all the drum parts on, say MIDI channel 16 and allow you to map them across the keyboard for live input but... nope.

4. It'll route audio out via USB and back in again, leading to feedback if you're not careful wiring it up to the DAW, because audio will route in and then straight back out again unless you disable it.

5. The only audio outputs are the headphone out which is unbalanced and with the device connected to a PC via USB, you may (and I did) get noise, which requires either a USB isolator (which did not work in one scenario) or an audio isolating transformer, to resolve the problem.

6. For some truly weird reason it won't connect over Bluetooth to a PC. I have no idea whether it can do that with a Mac. I *think* the feature only works with phones for some reason. You *can* however have both a phone AND your PC controlling the unit at the same time, which is quite handy if, like me, you have stuff set up in a 'U' shape so you have to turn away from one screen to reach another keyboard.

7. The project management corner of the UI seems to require a USB connection - I could not get it to work with a WiFi access point at all. I'm still not quite sure where the backups actually go, they appear in the app, but I haven't determined where they go if you want to, er, actually back them up somewhere else.

8. The Seqtrak app will NOT work with older Android devices. They must support "ARCore" and "Depth API" because the app is written in Unity and requires these features. Devices much older than 3-4 years probably won't work, this also means low-end Android tablets may not work, which is extremely annoying. I don't believe this issue applies to Apple devices.

9. There's no way to set up drum kits that you can just load into a project (AFAIK). You have to assign each drum sound (or copy from an existing project, and there are only 8).

Now having said all that, a few positives. Firstly as an external drum machine/sequencer/sound source it does work very well. Apart from the very high quality AWM sounds and of course a full 4 op FM synth and the sampler, the built-in effects are high quality and there are a LOT of them - and once you start figuring out how the various knobs and buttons work, you gradually wean yourself off the external UI, but it is extremely handy as 'trainer wheels' to get started. Also don't forget it can process external audio through its effects chain too, which is great fun, and resample itself as well.

While selecting from one of the literally thousands of sounds without the UI could be a bit tedious (albeit the unit does have the ability to pick a category like 'bass' from the buttons and then browse that), the trick is to populate your 'favourites' selection with a much smaller set of curated sounds you will use regularly. Then you can fairly easily pick a sound from that set.

Where it really shines is that it's pretty trivial to just tap in some grooves in realtime and switch between patterns with the rotary encoders. This is orders of magnitude less faffing around than any other approach I've tried. Even the Akai Force is nowhere near as fluid here, and it's also locked into 4/4, whereas the Seqtrak can do polyrhythms with every track in a pattern having its own independent length.

I think it's a tad overpriced currently - I'd personally think at £250 you could probably overlook most of the gotchas, to be honest - but.... I'm having a lot of fun with it and it *is* doing what I hoped it would - giving me a quick and intuitive way of getting a rhythm part to play against for improvisation, where you are very definitely not in a mood to faff around with computers at all.

[adrian_k]

Yup, you did, it’s here: https://www.soundonsound.com/forum/vie ... 59#p904959

[ajay_m]

Weird, forum search for seqtrak doesn't locate that post, only another one where I mention it in passing. I wanted to share the new information I'd found out about Android apps which someone in Reddit apparently discovered, because that really could be very annoying to discover. Thanks

[The Elf]

With regards Bluetooth...

I recently wanted to add my bargain (12 quid!) Bluetooth switching pedal to my laptop for live performance. Turns out that Windows can't do it - something about it not understanding audio devices over Bluetooth.

[sadoh]

Hi, I'm soo glad somebody pointed out the issue (Your bullet point #4) I'm dealing with...
#4: "It'll route audio out via USB and back in again, leading to feedback if you're not careful wiring it up to the DAW, because audio will route in and then straight back out again unless you disable it"

I'm struggling to figure out how to solve the feedback when I route audio out via USB. I'm using bitwig as DAW and I can't figure out how to disable the routing audio back out again which creates annoying feedback when I try to record or play in DAW. When I press play button in Seqtrak, it doesn't give any feedback though.

Could you share how you handled it on your own DAW? I'm desperateee to solve this issue...!

[sadoh]

NVM, after hours of trial and error, I finally solve it!
In order to turn off the feedback, I basically have to mute the master volume within DAW. Otherwise, the sound that comes out when pressing play button in seqtrak AND the sound from DAW will play at the same time through the speaker (or any sound system that's connected to seqtrak's PHONES) with slight latency, and that is the whole reason that feedback is created.

Just wanted to share how I solved it for those who are also struggling

[Drew Stephenson]

Thanks for closing the loop - as it were.