Pioneer Toraiz SP-16

The Lounge Other Gear
#746

Actually SP-16 is discontinued because Dave Smith Instruments and Pioneer have parted company. SP-16 with those amazing filters (One of best stereo filters ive heard at any price) might be a future classic. I think they have hit rock bottom price now and have a bought a spare. Might be fun to jam with two units

#747

Thanks for saying :pray: itā€™s nowhere near done yet, I got a small gig late August and figured Iā€™d make about half an hourā€™s worth of this kind.

Yeah, looping across patterns is a very powerful way to create organic and independent movement across tracks for sure.

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#748

Iā€™ve been trying to find news about the parting without much luck. Is that speculation, or insider info?

#749

Very cool, like it!

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#750

If the SP-16 has been discontinued, it would account for the relatively warm response given to a recent suggestion on the PioneerDJ forums that they open source the firmware.

The SP-16 and DJS-1000 operating system is Linux and from their firmware release notes they use a lot of open source libraries with permissive licenses for both units. Also, as far as I can tell (from my own DJS-1000), none of the chips that matter are proprietary.

These arenā€™t overly complex systems inside so itā€™s my humble opinion that it would actually be a pretty simple thing - in legal and logistical terms - to go the open source route.

If people in this thread like the idea, please track down the relevant post on the PioneerDJ forum and add your support. We can dream!

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#751

So the Toraiz samples in 44.1 (like the OT) but most of my samples are in 48khz (DT/AR)ā€¦ is the Toraiz able to convert them in good-enough quality on importing? Or is it better to convert first in a DAW? Or just resample as audio?

#752

Iā€™ve just had a look on the Pioneer forum. Itā€™s badly laid out and takes a while to find anything, unlike the SP-16 and DJS-1000 units. Doesnā€™t appear to be much chance of the open source idea from the reply I read, as they want stability of their operating systems. Seems fair comment. For such a huge brand, they seem understaffed though.

Iā€™ve said it before and iā€™ll say it againā€¦ I genuinely think Pioneer can rule the mid to higher end electronic music making equipment market, like theyā€™ve done to the DJ market if they want it. Their gear is top notch, but the support just isnā€™t there to progress their products to make these must haves.

Thankfully neither unit is broken. Iā€™m still happy with the DJS-1000 and thatā€™s coming from an SP-16 prior to going for it.

2 Likes
#753

Thank you :slight_smile:

#754

It doesnā€™t convert when you transfer the samples, which I learned the hard way since I got a lot of 24b/48khz samples, so you convert them before you transfer or record them directly into the Toraiz from whatever source that can play them.

Here, Elektron scores one point. And the Deluge beats them all, since it basically eats up anything :slight_smile:

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#755

I found these tutorials pretty well done, here is the playlist:

https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLk1VCXHnvPLB_hgN2o_o64c7yoW8WJMh-

7 Likes
#756

Here is link to SP-16 and DJS-1000 service manual ----both are built beautifully
https://mega.nz/file/UphA1YTC#E5o8PsKMOLP78ROyr73vY1viXm5lFGTTOdX_XZU4l_Q

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#757

see my link above for service manual --both SP-16 and DJS-1000 use same convertors.
The Dave Smith Stereo analog filters --despite been based on P6 --are heavily tweaked for the SP-16 and sound wonderful ā€”I like them more than the Analog Heat analog filters!

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#758

Yeah, I know Iā€™m being absolutely (naively?) glass-half-full on the open source wish. :unicorn:

I totally agree their forum is a mess. Itā€™s a great reminder of how fortunate we are to have such a well-moderated forum on a modern platform as Elektronauts.

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#759

Nice find!

Noted that the DJS-1000 uses a US$70 (in small lots) NXP - formerly Freescale - SOC based on ARM Cortex A9 as the ā€œbrainā€. Basically, itā€™s a 2011-era iPad 2, minus the rendering add-ons.

This is not to disparage it in any way but serves to show how much bang for your buck you can squeeze from such systems.

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#760

I must admit I never really used the DS filter, I didnā€™t like the sound of it much at all, and I didnā€™t like the scaling of the cutoff, it was ok for the cliche DJ filter sweeps and a bit of sculpting, but as a general purpose filter I felt it needed at least envelope modulation. Still with the separate outs external filtering is possible.

#761

I kind of look at it as something to shape the sound, not so much a live tweaker. Like a Dave Smith version of the Heat, with say 10% of its features but all character still :sunglasses: I love the Prophet 6 filters so this one suits
me well.

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#762

Proper midi polyphony. Otherwise, itā€™s cool as is.

#763

I guess before getting mine I was pretty excited that a Dave Smith filter was on it, then when I tried using it I felt it wasnā€™t that great both from how it was integrated and how it sounded in use, I would not go so far as to say it was useless but it didnā€™t live up to my expectations. I felt that it was tacked on rather than an integral part of the machine.

But then I have a AH and numerous other filters so I tended to use those if I wanted analog filtering on a part.

Also the digital filter and the one in the bit crusher sounded nicer to me (heretic!) :laughing:

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#764

The digital filter and the pitch shifting master fx on the DJS sounds pretty good too! Can get a lovely old school sampler vibe going easily

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#765

Im the exact opposite I love the Dave Smith SP-16 filter ----even though its based off the P6 filter I like the redesign they did for the SP-16 ā€”It soundā€™s huge through a big PA ā€”adds something the DJS-1000 lacked

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