For 199 I’m super happy with it. Was a bit shocked to like it as much as I do given the flaws and what’s missing.
It feels great, love the size and form factor. It is a deeply flawed machine that seems like it could be next level useful with some updates.
Even with that though, I just like it for jamming.
Has anyone figured out how to record to Track 4 (drum track) from external MIDI?
I figured out how to record into Tracks 1 to 3 from incoming external MIDI, but not Track 4.
Thanks.
Have you tried MIDI ch 10? That’s commonly used for drums with the MIDI standard, so worth a shot.
edit: nevermind, I see now. There is no MIDI RX menu for the drum track.
Thanks @heckadecimal I have Track 4 receiving on 10, and my controller sending on 10. No luck. I have the note mappings set properly too. It will play the drum, just not record what I play.
When set to melodic tracks (MIDI channels 1-3), it will record incoming MIDI just fine, so I’m thinking that it must be one of the limitations of the SQ-64 (like no quantization whatsoever).
Other than those few annoyances, the SQ-64 is a useful pattern-generating partner to my Akai. It really makes up for the Akai’s poor step sequencer.
Powered on the SQ-64 today and half of my saved Projects have disappeared.
Not good.
Well, whaddaya know? Korg just released a 2.02 update 
Add drum pad mode to D-Track.
Add quantize setting to real time REC Mode.
Add Step Rec Mode
Fix LED brightness to increase the 64 PAD visibility
Add LATCH function to SHIFT
Add Step Copy function.
Improved Step Edit behavior(Supports new addition and deletion of note)
Change LOOP Mode behabior (The LOOP will not release when moving to another mode from LOOP Mode.)
Add other minor funcitons.
Fixed other minor bugs
Still no option to live-record drum tracks it seems ?
EDIT: Okay, I was wrong.
I had one for a few weeks but returned it. It was too fuzzy and fiddly to use. The workflow was unnecessarily ‘knobby’ for my tastes…and i love Step Sequencers.
If you want a cool external sequencer just stick with our trusted Elektron kits😉
Or invest in other kit (granted they will cost more than $199)
Haven’t tried it myself yet, but the manual addendum @avantronica posted above states “It is also possible to record in real-time.” 
I did read those, but I missed that line. Thank you.
I can’t believe they didn’t make that a bullet-pointed feature in the update 
live-record drums
step sequencing update “kind of keystep” mode…
is the SQ-64 now a little closer to BeatStep pro?
Interesting move after the price adjustement.
…
if some chord assistant function was added, this SQ-64 would be a clear must.
Norm
Award astonishment оf the year from Korg 
This new Drum Pad Mode is broken.
I set it to “4x4B”, so that the drum pad layout starts from the bottom left-most pad (D-1), but in Gate Mode, that 1st pad is still shown as D-13, not D-1.
“4x4A” works as expected, so it seems that Korg forgot to apply the new pad-layouts to Gate Mode.
And the new 8x2 section to the right of the 4x4 pads in Drum Pad Mode is used for step sequencing, but is counterintuitive (pads don’t light up where events are, instead you hold down a step, and the OLED shows which pads have events on that particular step.) It’s a long-winded approach.
And sometimes events aren’t displayed in Gate Mode, until you exit and re-enter Gate Mode.
And setting trigger conditions, like only play a step on the 4th loop, aren’t followed until stopping and restarting the sequencer. Otherwise it plays on every cycle instead of just the 4th.
Plus timing often gets sloppy, requiring restarting the sequencer.
Quantization works well, that’s a useful addition.
I’ll send all this to Korg. Hopefully a new firmware will fix these issues.
Awesome news about the update. My Korg SQ-64 arrived recently, but has not been taken it out of the shipping box yet. Hopefully, this weekend I find the time to install the update, and hook it up to some gear.
Yeah the drum updates aren’t great at all. Loving some of the other updates though, especially quantizing!
how about a full polyrhythm in the drum section? As I understand it, there is no automation of the selected handles either. :///
Can someone help me sequence via USB? I tried it the weekend before last and had no luck whatsoever
If I was running an ARP 2600 and Ms-20 the Korg SQ-64 sequencer would be a good match.
