Oh that’s good to know . Thanks for update mate
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And, as I posted here last week, I emailed Pioneer last week about it being discontinued, and if any type of MKii were on the way, and they responded with:
"Good Afternoon,
There has not been any information that has been posted of the TSP-16 being discontinued and at this time we have not been informed of any replacement. We still have stock and are selling the product at this time and will are still offering customer support. "
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Unfortunately, this is not true - the TORAIZ SP-16 is still an active product and has not been discontinued. We have confirmed this with our sales team today, as well as learning that Alto does not sell the SP-16 for some reason, while they do sell the AS-1 and SQUID.
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So here are some pro vs con observations I’ve made after having the SP-16 for a week (and using it intensively for a weekend) which may or may not be relevant to anyone else’s usage/workflow. And this is just getting to know the sampling side of the machine, sequencing will come later.
Pros:
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Sound quality is (as previously stated) really pretty spectacular. Not just the A/D and D/A, but the quality of pitch shifting as well. Closest thing I could compare it to is a stereo Digitakt, with a similar hi-fi “sheen” that is imparted to the sound.
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Overall the UI is quite logical and obviously designed for live performance in mind. Having the encoders below the screen mapped to parameters that you might want to change quickly without going to deep into submenus is well thought out… it would be nice if they could be user-definable however.
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The Lo-Fi effect is amazing. I’m always interested in bit reduction done creatively and it’s implementation here has so many sound design possibilities. Routing the random LFO to reduction amount or bit rate synched to clock honestly sounds as good as my favorite effects in the Gotharman LD but infintely easier to set up.
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The Flanger is also quite good, and you can modulate it with the LFO or change things like phase every step to give nice synched stereo movement to a track.
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Although initially I thought that the Delay was overly simplified (no pingpong, HPF, modulation built in, sample rate mod etc) it actually sounds great on a variety of sounds. Being able to have an independent one on each track if required is super helpful, and not being pingpong helps sounds be more distinct from what’s going on in the Elektrons (which on mine are usually bouncing around the stereo field like crazy…)
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The Multimode Filter is nice if used more subtly with no or little resonance, otherwise sounding a bit too digital to my ears. But having the LFO subtly sweeping the HPF cutoff slowly under a track can help a sound evolve beyond the SP’s inherent 4 bar limitation (below) and sounds great.
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Assignable outs and resampling seem very well impemented, haven’t had this much flexibility since my E-MU Ultra days.
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That lovely Dave Smith stereo filter is a nice touch, and I can see how resampling through it can help individual sounds sit better in a mix (although I wish I knew a way to sample through it on input).
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You can do some Elektron-like mod tricks like LFO to loop start, LFO phase and depth per step, LFO to any fx parameter and the like to get deeper into sound design. Nothing like an OT obviously but still a lot of options.
Cons:
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Envelopes are weird. In either the linear or curve setting the decay cuts off in a very abrupt, unatural manner. For some sounds it can be OK with delay smoothing it out or as an effect, but sometimes no amount of tweaking can get the envelope to taper off the way you would want. Attack stage, which I’ve barely used, seems similar.
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Random LFO is not random… this is a big one for me. It’s like the actual shape of the random LFO is just a “snapshot” of what one long iteration would look like, and every time you use it steps up and down in exactly the same pattern. Boo.
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The Reverb is garbage, like GM-module-from-the-90’s garbage. An afterthought. I’m sure there is enough proccessing power to shoehorn a proper useful algorithm is there.
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Chorus and Phaser aren’t particularly useful, sounding nothing like, say, a Juno chorus or a Phase 90.
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Most of the above issues are fairly minor and can mostly be compensated for or simply not used. But the biggest overall con for me (coming from the Elektron world) will be sequencing and the 64 step max limitation, with no separate track lengths, no individual track scaling, no time signature variation, none of those things that have helped us break from 4-bar loop bondage. But because of the many amazing contributors to this thread I knew this going in, and enjoy finding solutions to inherent limitations.
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I had a different perspective on the multi mode filter. With some resonance, it reminds me of my old Electrix analog filter 
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I had one of those, the Filter Factory one. There are some similarities but I remember it having a harder, more surgical sound.
I love my DJS - nice size and easy to use live
Just seen that BICEP use it live. I’d not really looked into it before but hopefully this thread shine a light on it.
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I may have missed this, but what is the max Project RAM? Making long looping ambiences (60-90sec) I am running out of memory to add new samples after 2-3 scenes.
I think it’s about 250MB or so. Even if it’s more or less, in general, the SP-16 is not for stems or long loops. As you’ve noticed, you’ll hit the memory limit fast if you treat it as such.
Great streamers would be the Octatrack, Blackbox, Deluge or SP404A, to mention a few. And monome norns running the Timber app as well. Also cool.
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I ask if we may get a final update. Seem like the 1.60 is final.
as SP-16 engineers answered below :
Unfortunately, we have no update plan currently.
We understand not only you but also many other customers have been waiting for such features.
Such feedback will be considered and utilized in new models to be developed in future.
Deeply sorry for not meeting your expectation and thank you very much for your kind understanding.
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I’m cool with that. It’s a fresh and mature product as is. The fact that it can’t do it all, only serves it well. Especially now that I’ve studied the Maschine+ more closely, and realised that in the end, the more a box tries to do, the more people will lament on what it can’t do. I really am done with all these one solution funk boxes now. So I guess I’m coming from that place.
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New machine ? Take my money Pioneer!
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Can you imagine if the best of the SP, AS-1 and Squid were integrated into the same device? That would be a gamechanger.
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I was about to buy a TR8S then I read William’s comment about new machine. Yes imagine if they do a combo groove box machine.
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Dear lord, yes. Let it be so.
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open-sourcing firmware used to be a bit meme-tier complaint for me however after having actually started to hack on various open source eurorack modules I am 100% an advocate. If Pioneer would just upload the source it would be so valuable. No support needed - let who ever is inclined figure it out. But to just say “sorry, no more updates. hope you understand” is a waste.
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Here’s to Pio collaborating with Roger Linn on their next machine.
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The SP-16 is the best drum machine since the EMU-SP-12 Id worry if Pioneer bought out a new model and dropped the analog filters and made it too complex. Pioneer should keep on making it as it is and do nothing to it. They have a winner in the SP-16 just like it is --its perfect
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better than DT/RYTM? 