my feeling is that the DJS1000 is more “performers” oriented, i see it pop up more often for producers/DJ’s that do live gigs, and wanna take the studio-thing to the stage, f.e.:
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So I’ve committed to my set now and the Toraiz is front and center, with the Blackbox for free form looping into the Toraiz and the Prophet 12 for SP-16-sequenced bass duties. All goes through the Toraiz audio input, for master compression and some non-synced ducking on the external audio input.
I always use the SSL SiX for final output, but in this case, I’ll be sticking with the Toraiz as the final part of the chain. That soft, clean DJ sound is more appropriate for what I’m doing now.
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Here’s how it’s set up -
Toraiz controls everything. It sends midi to Blackbox and Prophet 12, but only clock to Prophet 12. Everything from the Blackbox is free form and runs by definition free from sync or tempo.
Each track on the Toraiz is one of three things.
A sample from the Toraiz itself - a one shot or a loop, which could be anything from drums to ambience and field recordings, either sequenced from the Toraiz sequencer or launched live as I perform, synced to 1/16.
A midi track - sequencing the Prophet 12, including CC:s mapped to tweak the Prophet 12 live from the Toraiz during the performance. The bass is always from the Prophet, and sometimes I’ll throw in a sequence or a pad or something as well (though I haven’t, so far).
A trigger track - launching or stopping free form sequences from the Blackbox. Rather than triggering just samples or loops from the Blackbox, I actually trigger sequences from the Blackbox instead. They allow for much more variety and flexibiliy in sample performance from Blackbox, so that’s why I went that route instead. Since the free form stuff is way longer than the amount of time the Toraiz can hold a sample (64 seconds), this is why I use the Blackbox as well. If the Toraiz could handle samples of any length as long as the RAM allowed for it, I wouldn’t need the Blackbox for this setup.
Prophet 12 audio goes into Blackbox, which goes into Toraiz. Everything then passes through the Toraiz master compressor, with some non-synced ducking applied on the audio in from the Prophet and Blackbox.
So I don’t really need to interact with the Blackbox or the Prophet, just hook them up and then control everything from the Toraiz, including song structure and live tweaks to the Prophet and Blackbox.
Works like a charm, so far. I got one track ready with this set up now but haven’t committed to recording yet, cause it’s so much fun just jamming away (and as a consequence, a bit hard to commit to an actual song structure, since just playing is too much fun right now).
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nice to see you are rediscovering / reintegrating your SP16, your initial excitement for that box was one of the reasons why I finally decided to give the Toraiz SP16 a shot (and glad I did! 
)
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I’ve been working on a similar setup myself, but have started to get caught up in the little things such as not being able to save kits, no legato on midi tracks etc.
Ideally I’d like to be able to just switch things on and go, without having to load all my sounds each time.
I’m currently trying to figure out what I’d be best to have on the sp16’s inputs as I bought a HKA digitizer which I’m determined to have involved in some way.
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Glad to hear it, and yep, I keep coming back to it. First, the sound - not only does it sound great, it has that clean and dreamy character of a great DJ set. I love that about it. It’s the one kit I have that outputs master quality. It’s not like my SSL SiX, but it’s not worse - it’s just something else, whereas the other stuff I have, they just can’t compete with the SiX for final output.
Also, the workflow is fantastic. Nothing’s difficult on this machine, the interface is never even remotely in your way.
And finally, it’s emergent (a term frequently used in my work in the video games industry) - that is, the way all features interact with each other, you can usually find your way around a missing something, if you want. The looper, the send fx, the p-locks, the touch ribbons, the slicing, and so on - there’s almost always a way to connect the features to make the Toraiz work in ways it maybe wasn’t even designed to, but still very capable of.
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So what about the Rytm that you recently got?
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Won’t be using it. The threshold to make it sound good, was too high for me. After working on something for a few days and realising I still didn’t get the kick right, I felt that as much opportunity the Rytm holds, it’s not right for me now.
I think, in the long run, the Rytm would’ve been more appropriate for what I’m doing. But I’m on a deadline and the Toraiz will help me finish on time. My lack of Rytm skills would be too much of a risk element.
Once this is over, I’ll go back to the Rytm, but an MKI, because I liked where it was all going - but I certainly won’t be needing all the MKII features, I’m just after the sound and the sequencer.
Yes, it requires a lot of work to have the Rytm sounding good- I read that the SP16 is very easy to use and very easy to make it sounding good
I initially wanted the Tempest but I will give the SP16 a try
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Yeah, they don’t compare. I got a Tempest and have used it on and off for many years. There’s a lot to love about the Tempest, but it’s very much about how you want to love it more often than you actually do. There are people who get interesting results out of it, but not many do much with it that leaves you wanting for more. Impressed by the results, perhaps, but more because of technique and the unique flavour it brings, less about the actual music.
I keep coming back to it because it’s damn fun to use, it’s very funky and sometimes, well sometimes, you get something out of it that you can really use and then it sounds totally unique. But those moments are far between.
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Two questions for you people:
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Does the SP-16 support 12-bit samples?
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The sample time is 64 seconds per pad or 64 sec per project?
I did a quick search but couldn’t find answers. Thank you for your help!
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No
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I don’t know either
Oh great, now I want a Toraiz SP-16. THANKS.
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Per pad.
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- on both the DJS-1000 and the sp-16, source files can only be 16-bit/44.1 kHz or 24-bit/44.1 kHz WAV or AIFF files. (if you have a collection of 12 bit files you would have to upcode them using a batch audio converter).
2a) SHORT answer: per pad…
my advice: don’t worry about the 64 second limit stuff… - in practice it just means you have to pre-edit acapellas and long dialogue samples to a manageable length before using it on a sampler, just like on any other sampler. more advice: don’t read beyond this point…
2b) FUN answer: the “64 second sample limit” is explained very poorly in all the Pioneer DJ manuals, but the 64 second limit is per ‘track’ - and since “track” means “pad” on PioneerDJ samplers, you can max out (in theory) at 16 x ~64 second samples per SCENE (or 1024 seconds total). And since you can have up to sixteen SCENES (or 16,384 seconds), a PROJECT can have no more than 271 minutes, or 4.5 hours of loaded audio samples (your usb stick can contain as many PROJECTS and non-loaded samples as you want though). if you’re still reading this, here’s where things get weird because it’s worth pointing out that “64 second limit” literally means a sample can’t be more than 64 seconds when played at whatever BPM it has been quantized. WTF PioneerDJ engineers?!?..super super weird right? if you’re not sure why this is weird, here’s why:
On the dance floor of life, for a 120 bpm house jam, each beat is half a second, so each bar/measure (every four beats) is two seconds long. if your track is 120 bars long, that means it will play out for 240 seconds (4 minutes).
For a 180 bpm hardcore banger, each beat comes out to .333 seconds long, making each bar 1.333 seconds long, and if your track is 120 bars long, that’s 160 seconds or less than 3 minutes.
Putting aside the obvious injustice revealed here and the fact that Pioneer DJ’s approach favors house music over hardcore music, it’s worth noting that you can trick the sampler into playing much longer samples IF you set your bpm to a much lower bpm (hint: divide by 8, cf. youtube link) when recording into the djs or sp-16. for the 180bpm track, if you record it into the sampler set to 22.5 BPM you can trick the sampler into playing an entire song when sequenced with ‘time stretch’ set to off. it’s weird but it works.
if you’re STILL reading this, you mine as well make an afternoon of it and watch these totally genius, un-official, early DJS-1000 videos breaking down the divide by 8 trick.
“Pioneer DJS-1000 (Using 64 Sec. Samples On 4 Bars)”
PART1: https://youtu.be/t-ZHdSq1nfY
PART2: https://youtu.be/8NLZLaVNcrY
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quite the insightful observation. lol
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Commitment schmomittment. I’ve changed stuff around again and the Toraiz is on hold now. Blackbox is back and the SSL SiX now handles compression and summing, instead of the Toraiz.
The reason was simple - the free form and polyrythmic nature of the Blackbox, combined with the SSL SiX sound (yes, it has a sound, I don’t think it’s transparent at all), are both such intergral part of my original material, I can’t give those up as I rework the club versions for my EP:s. They sound great in the Toraiz, but they sound too much like 4 / 4-stuff. I don’t mind, I love 4 / 4, but my stuff is … well, I don’t know what it is, but it doesn’t work all that well within the 64 step, non-polyrythmic structure of the Toraiz.
Having said that, coming back to the Toraiz reminds me how great it is. I’m gonna use it again, not just right now. My secret Daft Punk dream needs some fuel, after all.
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After reading your glowing praise I went and bought one… And now you’re telling me you’ve shelved it?!? 
The inherently 4/4 thing is a nuisance though I’ll be using it with a DT and/or Ableton Live for polyrhythms/polymeters.
Looking forward to trying out the Toraiz, it’s a classic case of a product released half-baked which has a cloud hanging over it despite firmware updates making it a far more capable machine.
It’s a very nice machine, especially for the price it can be had for now (I say it was a bad deal originally when it came out half-finished and way expensive).
It’s a performance sampler, lots of fun jamming with it as it is mostly very immediate and its design/UI is fairly “flat.”
The Live Sampling feature alone is worth the sub-1000€ one typically spends on these today (16 tracks for live sampling and looping on the fly, bam).
I find it to be a musical and enjoyable box. Bought it myself because I was bothered with my MPC’s workflow which felt like there’s always a glasswall between me and the music I make with it. Don’t expect an MPC in terms of feature set, that’s not to say it isn’t feature rich (I love the immediacy of its auto slicing and chromatic playback modes and sample manipulation is also fairly immediate).
The SP16 is an awesome sampler with 16 pads, the DSI filter is really great, and the sound quality of the device as a whole is top notch.
Congrats & Enjoy! 
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Nah, not shelved, just not for this project 
in fact, I’m kind of longing for the straight forward restrictions of a 4 / 4- sequencer. My praise remains
Considering my history, I’m sure I’m back on the Toraiz tomorrow, convinced it holds all the answers.