Very interested in your findings, especially in the context of make noise system and compared to René

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Me too! First question: Is it possible to shift a track in time in relation to the other tracks?

loopop has a nice overview/review:

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I watched your Youtube video. “Reich” was the first thing I thought when Usta was announced. Excited to see what you can do with three or four phasing channels.

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Yes! Of course!

Here is the Piano Phase video that @joshuaandrew mentioned:

@rklem Check this:

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That’s great too, but I wasn’t thinking of phasing, more of shifting a sequence by a quarter or whole note – and without external CV. Is that possible as well?

It might be possible, the manual is full of microtonal references, which I skipped altogether :grinning:

(There are 9 pages of preset scales in 12, 15, 19, 22, 24 tones per octave)

I mean shifting time by note values. :slight_smile:

No idea sorry. I’ve switched it on three times by now so I have explored only a fraction of what it can do.

Any idea if you can edit stages on a pattern other than the active one?

You can. There is a part of the display reserved for “see nn, play nn” where it shows what is currently playing vs. what you’re looking at/editing. The manual is very good. If you’re interested, you should definitely check it out.

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Thanks. I had skimmed through the manual but not found that info.

First thing I thought of was buchla 250e. :wink:

Just looking for peoples experience with Usta.
Wondering how it is to play live/jam with?
How intuative is it?

It looks a good balance between accesability and power, just looking for opinions as there isn’t much info out there.
Thanks

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I would also love to know how people feel about it.

still getting to know it, and live performance is not a priority for me, but in case it helps i’ll share what i’ve been appreciating about it that not every sequencer offers:

  • adjustable length per step, thus not needing to use up steps on rests
  • asynchronous looping - not just different loop lengths per channel but entirely unrelated tempos if you so desire
  • LED rings around the knobs are a great source of visual feedback
  • implementation of various EDO microtonal quantizations (customizable as well)
  • smart knob / button combos for editing multiple steps at once
  • inputting sequences via external cv
  • the organization of two gate and two cv outs per channel reminds me to do more “related but not entirely related” modulation of parameters within the same voice

it definitely demands to take an important place in your setup, if not being the centrepiece. fairly large (but with the sequencing power to match) and to work quickly with it you’ll need to memorize a few color coordinations, ie. what are you editing when the LEDs are red or blue or green on a cv track, and red or blue or green on a gate track.

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While I don’t own one, I appreciate how ‘steps’ are being dealt as ‘stages’, that is a feature I absolutely adore about my Intellijel Metropolis

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Thanks very much for the info.

Took the plunge and ordered one! Plan is to make prepared pieces, then improvise and evolve then live.

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Had my Usta for a few weeks now, and really loving it. Only really scratching the surface so far. Thoughts so far:

  • Stage lengths is so powerful. Great for creating different rhythms, really breaks away from most sequencers with fixed step length. And really easy to change quickly.
  • Gate control also very powerful. Length plus ratcheting. Plus probability.
  • Second CV channel very useful for extra modulation
  • Easy to copy/paste patterns, then change the new ones.
  • CV control over stage position is good for creating variations

I use the Stage Loop feature combined with subtle CV variation of Stage Position and Pitch, which is amazing for pattern variation within a set theme.

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How large is your set-up?
I’m very curious about the USTA, but I have just 7u 104hp and I think it may be more sequencer than I need.