Tom Moravansky's Sequencing Powerhouse

Check this wall out. Going from left to right then top down: Two Oberheim Cyclones, JL Cooper Synapse MIDI patchbay (16 in, 20 out), Grex MXF8 ("the
almost vaporware product from the Notron guy (Gerard Campbell)"), a GenoQs Octopus, Oberheim DMX, two Sequentix P3s. a LinnDrum, two Notron sequencers and a Linn LM-1. Here's one more shot.

So of course I had to ask how the sequencers compared. Tom had the following to say:

"Octopus, P3, Notron are all different. I've only had the Octopus for a day, so what you're reading is initial impressions.

The Notron is still the only hardware sequencer I know of that decouples the note on time from the length of a step. Everyone else forces a note on to be less than or equal to a step size or else used some type of tied note notation to extend it.

Why do I care? Well, it's easy on the Notron to set one element to play 2 notes with long overlapping times and then to have the pitch or sustain modulated over the course of a sequence. Ideal for slow spacey things like old FSOL or Orb stuff or for NWW/Coil drone things.

The Notron is also one of the few (only?) hw sequencers to send out MIDI CC messages 'between the notes'. Everyone else spits out a MIDI CC value at each step. Notron sends out a seemingly continuous stream so that modulations really do sound and feel smooth and flowing. So you can have a track running at a slow tempo and still apply a smooth modulation with it. Other hw seqs would have a large, grainy steppiness to them at slow tempos.

The Octopus has a very easy interface for zooming into the step level and back out to the track view (10 tracks at once) or grid view (multiple pages of tracks). It's also very easy to check and change things like MIDI channel for each track (one button press and one knob turn). Still in development so the modulations and 'extras' are not as fleshed out yet as the Notron or P3. It does have some nice touches already and the UI really does make it fast to use.

The P3 reminds me of the Oberheim Cyclone with access to it's programming guts. :-) It's easy w. the P3 to create those self-modifying sequences that morph over time and change and shift with each pass. It's a very inward looking sequencer - it's focussed on modifying it's internal patterns and play structure.

The Notron is an outward sequencer - it is designed to spit out as much different MIDI info as possible and let the source deal with it as best as it can.

The Octopus is inbetween. Lots of parallel tracks possible (90 max), with some internal modification possible, not much extra MIDI spit out (other than the standard MIDI cc info per step)."

Via Tom of Synth Services. Thanks Tom!