Ive just filled my Model Cycles with breaks and Pads, this is great.
now hopefully somebody will make the Korg Drumlogue the drum machine it should of been.
I’m honestly kind of excited about this development. In some ways Korg have been ahead of the trend by opening up (parts of) their devices for user made code, but no one on the industry had really counted on AI getting so good at reverse engineering firmware this quickly. I couldn’t care less about AI generated music or visuals, but using it to modify and create new tools seems like a great way to use it. It’s kind of like everything got open sourced overnight.
I’m in no hurry to mess with my beloved Octatrack yet, but I’ll certainly have a go at seeing what my Cycles is capable of
I just read that someone has an emulated Monomachine running on a MPC Live lol. wild times.
And on Mac, at least, 8 tracks of audio out via USB from an Octatrack.
Yeah it’s wild. Holding out for it to be post fader though
sonicware Livens are now $300. Oof. They were $260 when I got my Evoke 
Tariffs suck. I was looking into importing a new Jasper’s equipment stand to make some room for effects units and drum machines. The tariffs alone are now almost as much as I was paying for entire racks back in 2019/2023. And there’s always been an aluminum tariff for things coming from Germany, but it has quintupled over the last few years.
EDIT: Needless to say, I can’t justify importing Jasper’s stuff anymore. I’m going to switch stand brands when I do need to add something.
people are porting Machinedrum Machines to the Octatrack, and probably Monomachine, too.
Huh.
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I’m interested to see if this is like Daft Punk breaking up so they can go and do something new and interesting or if it’s like Nvidia functionally not supporting the market that built that company so they can pursue money in new markets.
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Someone got Plaits running on an Akai Force
The company lost me when they jacked the price of the OP-1 from $900 to $1300 after taking the OP-1 off the market, then releasing it with a new screen/price. Then the OP-1 Fields at $2000 made my middle finger larger.
From that article:
" The products aren’t the business. We can be so much more than that."
if I’m interpreting that correctly I think you might be right on the latter. But who knows ¯_(ツ)_/¯ it does seem like he’s kinda bored though and doesn’t want his company to just be known for audio gear.
I imagine fucktards will buy $3000 OP-1 Fields when people freakout and think they’re sitting on a gold mine.
TBH I see them going up in value. It’s a great design. Not for me, but it’s already a classic and now with finite supply. That will take years, they’re not worth that yet, but I absolutely can see the day that they will be.
Yeah, the same line stuck out to me. I don’t know if I should read that as “we design $100,000 jaguars now - we’re done with the poors” or “it’s been fun but I can’t see myself making instruments for another 15 years”. It could be a bit of both, they’ve kind of been trying to move out of music stuff for a while and get shit on every time they make singing dolls or a desk. If that’s really what they want to do and they don’t want to take flack everytime they do it, then I get this.
I’m not super interested in their instruments so it’s not going to bother me. But I do wonder if someone else in the music space will step in to fill the void this is leaving. Not right now, but within 3-5 years I could see the spiritual successor coming from elsewhere in the industry. Is that from an existing company? (Sonicware?) Someone new? A new product line from Akai or a revival/pivot of Maschine? Or Circuit? Because when these things are going for $3k in 10-15 years, there’s going to be a market niche someone wants to come in and fill at a lower pricepoint.
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I think Sonicware kinda took a shot with the ELZ_1 but it’s not really the same, either. Yamaha with the SeqTrack or whatever that is. I think both of them kinda lack the playfulness of the OP-1, though. I wouldn’t surprised to see $3000 sooner than later for used Fields if the price of used OG OP-1s when they were “discontinued” the first time is any indication. But that’s just speculation.
All I really want right now is the OP-1’s virtual tape with multiple ins and outs. Nobody seems to want to make that, though. The Tascam recording mixers are similar but also not really. I want a screen and the tape tricks and lifting/placing segments, etc. MIDI sync.