The issue with the Electribe was mostly due to the way the available voices were handled. The sequencer itself isn’t the culprit.
Regarding the volcas / logues, it’s clear when you read interviews of Tats that he made them with hands on live tweaking in mind. For more elaborate sequencing, well, use a sequencer.
I don’t think there’s anything elaborate about having more sequencer memory than only 16 1-bar patterns, or the simple ability to chain patterns smoothly. These are both highly unnecessary self-imposed limitations that show how little Korg cares about functionality and user feedback. What is the point of integrating a sequencer with a synth if it serves little to no use?
I’d actually say it serves many people well and Tats told in a few interviews about the philosophy behind.
Probaply Korg had a pretty hard time getting all the Volcas down to the price they’re sold for. That’s also the reason why there is a velocity slider on the Volca FM, they could not develop a velocity sensitive mini-keyboard for that price, but the slider stays true to the concept, self-contained, hands on mini synths.
Cheap Zoom drum machines, from almost a decade ago, had no problem with pattern memory or chaining patterns.
The Minilogue would just need a simple OS tweak to only transition to the the next patch/pattern exactly when the current patch/pattern ends. Such a ridiculously simple thing to do that Korg never bothered to implement after multiple iterations over several years.
To upgrade the Volcas so they can save more than a pathetic amount of patterns would be a nominal cost, but would increase their usefulness exponentially. Korg will continue to make the most infuriating sequencer design choices with imposed limitations because they always have imo, and they will never bother to make the most simple improvements to fix them no matter how loud users complain.
They used to make great, if not a bit simple, sequencers. The original electribes and then the x series were both totally solid with enough memory to keep me using them all these years. Obviously they weren’t elektron level cool but at the time it was pretty exciting to have motion recording of parameters. Plus the x series are still some of surprisingly few sequencers that have 128 steps.
Totally agree about the volcas though. They sound great, especially for the price, but they really need to be externally sequenced.
I had high hopes for the sq64. Still undecided. 10 years ago it would have been an instant buy for me but there’s a bit more competition now. I’d love to play around with one, always the best way to know for sure.
I like the looks and idea of this, but why not spend a little more and get a Squid with 10x the potential?
Does anyone know if it is possible to transpose from an external keyboard like the beatstep pro?
I should receive mine next week, we’ll find out soon enough.
well… thomann delay changed from 2-5days to 4-5 weeks 
Has anyone got their hands on one of these yet?
nope… canceled my order weeks ago. Will wait until it’s really available. Meanwhile the Oxi sequencer is giving me doubts.
Bought it from someone who got it early overseas.
First impressions (I’ve only messed with it for half an hour, so I’m no expert yet):
It’s small. But I like the size. See below next to my BSP. It’s got heft (feels solid and heavy for its size).
I love the clarity of the OLED screen. So easy to read the screen.
I somehow hate the red lights on the steps more than I thought I would (see image below). It’s too confusing knowing which steps are lit. I’m going to give another day or two to see if my eyes adjust. But so far it’s not good.
The non-step buttons (Gate, Pitch, etc) require a firm press that is annoying. Firmer than any buttons on other sequencers I’ve used. A bit of a workflow downer and more annoying than it sounds.
I like the retrig/ratchet feature because of the up/down options on them per step.
I like being able to see four tracks of 16 steps at once. Makes it more fun, especially when messing around with the playback direction options, sequence length, sequence speed, etc. Kinda cool to see everything at once (well, 16 steps of it). This excludes the 16 tracks in the drum track of course.
I enjoy how quick it is to get to the parameters: just hold a step and they’re on the screen. Doesn’t feel menu-divey.
I like the Select function using Loop mode because it allows steps anywhere in the sequence to be skipped like on Volcas. That makes for some fun craziness, especially on drums. It’s one of my favorite features on Volcas.
I’ve only used it with Ableton so far, so can’t speak to using it with hardware yet.
Overall it doesn’t have that super smooth intuitive sequencer feel that I get from sequencers like on the TR-8/TR-6S and the Volcas. But that might be a muscle memory thing. This has a good bit of potential and feels more fun than the BSP so far, though it’s nice that BSP has some great pads for finger drumming, which this obviously does not.
Thanks for sharing!
I agree, I bought one and couldn’t deal with how the steps looked (too much blurry red and no delineation) so I returned it and got a deluge instead 
Thank you! I think I’ll stick to Squid and add BCR32 as soon as that comes out.
What is going on there ? Are they different brightness’ based on velocities or something?
Yes, plus this:
since all 64 are illuminated, as well as the gate button, my guess is the bright ones are active steps and dim ones are inactive.
This is a serious UX fail that can hopefully be fixed in a firmware update.
I understand the need to illuminate the buttons that are text based, but inactive steps should not be illuminated at all (like how the page buttons 2-4 are not illuminated above them).
To make matters worse, the screen printed dots behind steps 5-9 and 13-16 reduces the visual contrast and makes the difference between active and inactive steps even more difficult to discern.
How did anyone with functioning eyeballs approve this?
It does look like a wrong move for the step buttons definitely.
As you say, begging for a firmware update. They could even provide a choice in firmware. Current functionality versus “off really means off”.
Yes, sounds like a bad design decision from someone who hasn’t used the thing for making music…
