I don’t think he’s pressing any of the buttons. Looks like he’s just giving it a little bit of play acting, just like so many DJs I’ve played with over the years.
“YOU HEAR THAT, I DID THAT WITH THE TWIST OF THIS KNOB LABELED MID!”
Can this be sequenced with 1 MIDI channel for all 6 drums?
yes
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Anyone sequencing this from Octatrack?
Pitfalls?
Benefits beyond microtiming/probability?
Not 6-S but I have sequenced my 8-S from the OT.
Cons- you dont get access to very much at all via midi, so, really you’re just getting a more flexible sequencer, with probability blah blah.
Pros, you can use the elektron sequencer…
Not really worth it in my use case. Maybe the 6-S gives more midi implimentation? Making my comment totally useless 
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I had the 6S for a few weeks before returning it (I put the money towards replacing my OT MKII). MIDI implementation is the same as on the 8S; not as deep as it could be.
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Thanks for these responses.
I’m seeing CC#s recognized for:
SHUFFLE MASTER FX DELAY LEVEL DELAY TIME DELAY FEEDBACK MASTER FX CTRL
BD TUNE
BD DECAY
BD LEVEL
SD TUNE
SD DECAY
SD LEVEL
LT TUNE
LT DECAY
LT LEVEL
HC TUNE
HC DECAY
HC LEVEL
CH TUNE
CH DECAY
CH LEVEL
OH TUNE
OH DECAY
OH LEVEL
ACCENT
REVERB LEVEL
BD CTRL
SD CTRL
LT CTRL
HC CTRL
CH CTRL
OH CTRL
Plus program change, Velocity…
So I’m not sure what else beyond that would be expected or appreciated?
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Plus OT sequenceur 
Well the ctrl can only control 1 parameter. So you modulate the snare snappy, and reverb send. Its one or the other. Thats a TR8-S thing though. Basically I found it quicker to just use the 8-S as it is. Sequencing from OT didn’t really do anything for me. Sure, probability… Thats about it.
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As Mictrotribe suggests, it all comes down to what’s locked behind the CTRL knobs. If you look at the parameter list (https://static.roland.com/assets/media/pdf/TR-6S_Parameter_eng02_W.pdf) you’ll see there’s a lot on offer - effect send, FM patch morph, all the filter controls, bit reduce, LFO depth, sample speed and so on - and you’ll be limited to only accessing one of those per voice. Ideally they’d be directly accessible as CCs, in which case the Octatrack would add a lot of interesting options. Same deal with the 8S and the 707, a kind of gatekeeping CC approach. It might be necessary for the engines to cope, perhaps…
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While these are all appreciated, they all have a dedicated control on the panel. It would have been a more effective use of the available CCs, IMHO, to expose parameters that require a dive or an assignment to a knob over ones that have dedicated controls. This would have allowed not only for remote control but for the expansion of the physical controls.
Exposing Delay send, Reverb send, Pan, Insert FX send, Coarse and/or Fine Tune, and Morph (for FM sounds though this would not be a wise choice as the parameter only exists for FM sounds and not samples or ACB), would’ve made far more sense. You can still control these parameters via MIDI by assigning them to the CTRL knob but it is easy to “break”. Especially so on the TR-8S as there are four methods by which these parameters can be assigned. Quite often I am adjusting Delay and Reverb sends on the same track during a performance. Having the above all mapped to my MIDI Fighter would have been nice.
It would have also been really neat to be able to use an Elektron sequencer to plock or LFO modulate the effects sends and pans or to play chromatically using the Coarse Tune parameter. You still can but only one at a time.
None of this breaks the game.
I believe intelligent design would have allowed for mapping parameters that need to share one physical control instead of using up the limited CCs exposing parameters with their own controls on the panel. There is likely a more healthy balance for the limited number of CCs available.
Edit: I see @NickD and @Microtribe addressed the same points in a less winded fashion above. 
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It’s also worth bearing in mind that we can’t go higher than 127 with standard CCs, so on a device with six tracks (or more on the 8S) it’s probably not feasible to expose all the parameters unless you mandate a MIDI channel for each track, which could be inconvenient. So I guess perhaps this one reason Roland have chosen the ctrl knob route as a compromise - you get to define a parameter for each track and still keep everything on one channel. It’d be nice if the 6S and 8S received an update in line with the 707 where all the knobs can be freely assigned. This is more of a necessity on the 707, though, which goes well beyond drum machine territory…
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Took delivery of one of these a few hours ago. First impressions are great. The kicks absolutely slap. I’m only using it as a TR-X0X at the moment and really this is a fundamentally different experience to just loading up a samped 909 kit in Ableton or whatever. Superb sound quality and a huge, huge amount of synthesis in such a small and inexpensive package. I haven’t even tried the FM stuff yet or the samples. It sounds great and is very playable. I’ve given the Aira stuff a wide berth so far because I think it looks shit but the TR-6S actually looks pretty classy - not much lime green, and a nice nod to the 808 colour scheme. The user interface is what I’d call “classic Roland” - if you’ve ever tried to program a JV-1080 from the front panel you’ll know what I mean - but once you get going, it’s extremely playable. Great drum machine!
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Okay, so slightly disappointing complexity of available CCs aside, anyone using this with OT?
Particularly sequenced with OT’s MIDI tracks.
I figure I could offload 3-4 channels from OT that I use for drums, sequence via MIDI, come back in to a thru track for some FX scenes manipulation, and open up OT flex tracks for more interesting stuff.
But I am also a bit on the fence as I do enjoy the simplicity of writing on a single OT without anything else connected 
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I feel the same quandry. Oooh sexy drum sounds via OT magic, vs the sublime zen mode of solo OT.
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So I caved and got one of these after talking myself out of it.
After initial headaches with sample handling and more limited sample RAM than I anticipated, I am beginning to enjoy it. Especially the Instrument level FX. That Drive+Comp has some serious oomph capabilities. I think keeping that on my kick, hats, and anything else that doesn’t depend on a different effect, plus hitting the master compressor super hard (as a limiter, basically), can keep me out of needing to run it through my Harlows or Analog Heat.
Still finding the sweet spots, but Drive+Comp has 17!!! different parameters 
.
I wish it was available in the master FX section.
Other thoughts, the different compressor Knee settings are great to have. The frequency shifter is also fantastic. The delay and reverb make my OT mildly jealous. And the swing reminds me of the 90s. I’m basically making mostly old school stabby x0x techno with it and really starting to enjoy that. Completely different vibe from MC-101. Much more immediate when wanting to perform more rhythmically dependent material like techno.
And just like the others in the series, the level fader customizable lights are great for at a glance organization. I basically stick to the instrument assignments (BD, CH, etc) and make those white LED, and put my hooks on either SD, LT, or HC, depending on which track is free, and make that/those red LED.
Real groovy little box that sounds a little better each time I use it. Easy to sit down with it and blow past 2 hours making technoes.
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I assume the 6S has the same overly polite delays found in the 8S, 707 and TB-03, and presumably elsewhere - fine until you want to drive them into self-oscillation / distortion, but incapable of going over that edge. Maybe the intention is to have the synced delays serve as loopers at the highest feedback level, but this is a nuisance for me because I think a send to a grungy delay wash is one of life’s simple pleasures. Their old RE20 pedal seems to be generally frowned upon, but for me it does a better job than any of the modern Roland tape delay FX I’ve encountered.
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I‘ll be hooking up the OT and TR8S because I miss conditional trigs a lot.
I was jamming on the 8S yesterday and you’re right, „polite“ is a good term. Although I like that the tape delay never goes totally out of control, it’s no match for a nice ext. delay pedal.
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I can appreciate that with eight tracks all potentially having their own send, there’s scope for unpleasant results that might not be immediately salvageable depending on your configuration. Just give me a software toggle to enable 100% feedback if I want it and I’d be happy.
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