The flagship CV/gate and MIDI sequencer from endorphin.es is now available in its own “ultralight” aluminum 42HP housing – atop last year’s V2 update and recent smaller tweaks. All your step sequencing and polymetric and polyrhythmic needs are here.
Bringing this into its own case makes sense I suspect for modular and desktop users alike. It’s just way easier on the arms to access a sequencer when you can position it ergonomically, unless that’s just me. This is not the cheapest machine on the market at 789 USD / 789 EUR including VAT. But you get one heck of a machine for your buck. It’s a rare combination of Roland-style simplicity – the quick-access sequencing of the x0x 303/7×7/808/909 and SH-101 – and some powerful features for rhythm and meter.
So you get, among other things:
- Polyrhythmic ratios (up to 32 against 32)
- Polymeters
- 4 tracks – 1 drum track x 8 triggers, 3 melodic CV/gate tracks
- Add a MIDI keyboard for velocity and CC recording or play the 2-octaves keyboard here (just on-off, though that may be fine depending on your, erm, musical desire or chops!)
- Store multiple projects on SD
- Dedicated mute/solo bus – this
- Editable scales
- Arpeggiator, roller, patterns queue, slides, ties/rests, ratchets, transpose
- External matrix for CV
https://www.endorphin.es/modules/p/ground-control-standalone
V2 dropped last year with a bunch of fixes and improvements. The LAST STEP button for instance now can toggle smoothed versus stepped modulation in F/MOD.OUT mode.
2.30 is out this week, in beta:
8 triggers lengths as well as sequence directions are saved and recalled correctly.
When clocked externally via midi, the tempo is read correctly without doubling the BPM.
The arpeggio super latch mode has been optimised with reduced latency and improved stability.
The polyrhythmic clock divider is now saved per-pattern and is no longer a global per-project setting.
Ground Control device name is identified correctly when connected to a computer.
Events from the MIDI channels not assigned to tracks D/1/2/3 are now entering and passing thru the MIDI and USB-MIDI otputs
USB host improved as the USB-MIDI keyboards not always initialized on hot-plug
Firmware version correctly shown as 2.30.
When using 101 step input mode up to 64th step, after last step 64th step entered, it is now properly recorded with the sequence length set to exact 64 steps
Here’s a tour of V2:
JAde Wii takes it for a spin:
And here’s endorphin.es’ Julia Bondar taking it for a spin – there inside a larger case (the Intellijel Stealth):
It’s definitely a nice unit, while we’re on the topic of step sequencers and endorphin.es.
See also: