Why a Rare Sequencer From 1973 Still Inspires

[@Hainbach]

WINTER SALE: All my plugins with AudioThing are 35% off! Get Wires, Gong Amp and Motor now: www.audiothing.net/effects/wires

[@jonasheimbecker2025]

Fantastic plug-ins! I am nothing but satisfied with the audio thing collection! Thank you for developing these.

[@kitespongan]

I think I'll snag wires! Man if this was ever ported for iPadOS/ iOS I'd be on that too!

[@AlexBallMusic]

Glowing 70s read outs and a "terminate" button should be standard on all studio gear and home appliances.

[@tungtobak]

Also dating apps.

[@AlexBallMusic]

@@tungtobak For that you need the Rorschach Test to check if they're replicant.

[@DarkSideofSynth]

@@AlexBallMusic "You look down and you see a tortoise, Leon. It's crawling towards you." Swipe left, you kill it. Swipe right, you date it :))))

[@DarkSideofSynth]

I guess the "Terminate" button is standard issue in every HR department...

[@Michael_Smith-Red_No.5]

@@DarkSideofSynth "Tortoise? What's that?"

[@RedMeansRecording]

Woo this is a new one to me. What an absolutely wild piece of gear.

[@robertsyrett1992]

I knew that Oberheim made the S.E.M. was made to go along with this sequencer, but this is the first time I a have seen it in a gear demo. Hainbach still digging up treasures!

[@joshviggiani9844]

Red! You are one of the very best songmakitfiers I've seen on KZbin!

[@LOOKMUMNOCOMPUTER]

BEAST

[@janne-seta]

That orange nixie glow of those Panaplex digits must add at least 25% more warmth to anything you sequence!

[@mathyoooo2]

6:30 sounds amazing. Love the microtonal pitches and the unsynced rythm

[@bricelory9534]

I love the idea of steps in a sequencer being just slots of time rather than specific rhythm! It's a bit of a shame that sequencers developed in a different path than that - certainly they're more directly useful for heavily rhythmical styles of music, but the freedom of free-form stepping is something I could see being particularly interesting, especially with the tools available today to be able to randomize or re-arrange steps and things like that. Imagine this Big Boy being able to also be able to play the sequence forward and backward, randomized, and similar - I think it'd really have a place in aleatoric and ambient styles. And you're right - I love the old futurist vibe its design gives. I feel like it'd be a perfect computer terminal for 2001: A Space Odyssey

[@MrScarabey]

And now 0-Control can do all these, thank god

[@robertstevenson8696]

yup its very frustrating that step sequencers still dominate even today ---- though the Circuit now gets very close to just being 'slots in time'

[@JorbLovesGear]

Wow, look at that thing, I love the idea that that was once a contemporary design. The relationship between clock rate & step resolution ~sort of reminds me of the sixtrak's sequencer, fit as an extra feature for a synth a decade later. Great work, as always

[@powerinformation]

I like how you are open about your thoughts, spending and choice in jumpers

[@aaronthompson317]

This is the awesomest line ever! “And how you can do this is with a perception of domination!” @ 10:35ish.

[@agerven]

About the EMS sequencer, but you may probably know: The Putney or Synthi A model was sold mostly with a touch sensitive keyboard including a 256 step analog sequencer in its lid. That version being named Synthi AKS for Analog Keyboard and Sequencer. I was fortunate to own a Synthi A for many years, but never saw or touched an AKS version in real life. Thanks for this beautiful documentary about those early, fantastic days! (todays days are much better, but also more limited in vision).

[@vexpired7559]

Fabulous sound, something organic and magical about this wonderful landscape.

[@DocBolus]

I have to agree, there is something lovely about a limited feature set for making you work to push it further.

[@DIGOOfficial]

Love the wise words from brother Hainbach, towards the end of this video.

[@TinyMaths]

I'm not surprised you bought it 'based on looks'. As soon as I saw it in your thumbnail last night (just before going to bed) I absolutely had to save it to my playlist. It just looks so gorgeous and appealed immediately to my gadget addiction (I'm in recovery by the way 🙂 ) Definitely has that 70's sci-fi look; beautiful.

[@lukewarm5356]

That EMS looks amazing to this day. Happy new year Hainbach

[@synthemodulaire]

These unquantized rythms are sounding sooo good ! And your musical skills make this oldy sounds so great. That's the kind of groove I really like with these old instruments as I tried to demonstrate with my latest video about the Buchla 245.

[@williamolsen20]

I have noticed from having used older gear in my life that sometimes these limitations can spark some creativity in very surprising ways.

[@jimmy_jamesjams_a_lot4171]

THAT is Tom Oberheim’s least populated and not-at-all-busy in appearance panel that I’ve ever seen!! Put his X-Pander next to it, and it’ll look like you have the ultra rare X-Pander’s-X-Pander 22K RAM expansion that actually has special Bio-Active photosynthesizing amoeba heat sinks, and the little habitat of green bottle fly maggots that both charge the special battery for the CMOS and serve as self sustaining waste disposal for, well, the amoebas and their own selfs!! THANKS AGAIN, HAINBACH!!

[@Haraamcore13]

Absolutely incredible. It’s so amazing to see you make music with these old machines.

[@spurioustransients]

I love that last track you were playing! Wonderful stuff!

[@equalequalslopezcartoons3702]

I just got this sampler without a clock in and out because it look cool and deff felt that buyers remorse maybe look back into it.

[@joelblacklock5696]

Great video, your words strengthen my love of sequencers.

[@dessiplaer]

I remember when one of these showed up at my local music store. I thought it was pretty cool, but I found it to be a little fiddly trying to get precise rhythms. Of course, I was only used to the beep, boop, boop, beep. type of sequences. As I've said before, Hainbach has all the cool toys, and I might add has the imagination to use those toys in new and different ways. I hope you and the family had a Merry Christmas and will have a Happy New Year

[@JobimSynthMusic]

Nice video. I like the simple note sequences too. They inspire because you know there's nothing else to do with a simple sequencer. I have a digitakt and I seem to never go deep with it. I continue to do things by hand and when I do use the digitakt, it's for very simple things.

[@paulbennell3313]

At the start of the video when you were talking about its limitations I knew you'd find a way round them! It looks like it would become very intuitive in use after a short while.

[@NateHorn]

No judgment from me it is a piece of art in its own right! That you're using it to make music is only a bonus :) Wonderful video as always Hainbach! Interestly I've been spending the last few days researching sequencers for my eurorack so this was a very well timed video. Unfortunately I won't be adding the DS-2A to my list though.

[@ringsystemmusic]

It’s absolutely crazy how I’ve got something that fits all this musical power and more (clock in!) literally in a business card sized footprint now. Nuts what we take for granted now!

[@INDUSTRIAL_WOLF]

You had the perfect chance to play "Friede" by KMFDM. They hooked a DS-2 up to a Roland Jupiter 8 for the bass.

[@RossTotino]

Thanks, I've been hoping for years that someone would make a video about this device. And this is a great video!

[@kikkirow]

The song at 7mins is amazing. Would love to hear a full song of that!

[@BITRATE_MODE]

WOW! What an incredible piece of kit.. I love it! Yet another lost spaceship controller from the 70s. Nice find!

[@steredekt]

8:37 - 9:21 Pure bliss. I love it.

[@mattwillis3219]

Hainbach with another beautifully presented piece of electronic music production wisdom 💫

[@sommelierofstench]

that sound around 7:00 you have dialed in is so nice

[@atstrollz6875]

👍👍👍

[@Soundbrigade]

Cool! I am building a digital sequencer based on an article in Practical Electronics from 197?. That one must be inspired by this one as the few controls there is looks a bit like the DS-2, but it is way simpler. On the other hand it can be modified and made into something "almost" as powerful.

[@KK4CNM]

That thing sounds like the audio version of smooth melted butter on a fresh baked roll while sitting next to a warm fire with a cup of hot chocolate. So very nice.

[@DanFreeman723]

I use Reason now but these first gen boxes are a narcotic. Must be nice to have so many serious vintage machines.

[@StuderSSL]

The first sequencer I used was in the Emulator II. It and a LinnDrum locked to 2" with Linn sync (48ppqn), but the E-Mu would sometimes lose sync and you'd have to reprint. Later I was introduced to the MPC-60, and that became my favorite sequencer for many years.

[@Hainbach]

MPC-60 has been a dream for a long time for me - something about it just hit me right. You still use it?

[@StuderSSL]

@@Hainbach The only 80's Japanese thing I still own now is an MKS-70 I upgraded with Vecoven PWM. Wish I still had the Akai ASQ-10 someone casually gave me years ago. It was the sequencer section of an MPC-60 in a smaller case.

[@Alien-qw5ks]

Why does that old gear always look sooo cool! Also: limitations can be your friend. 🙂

[@matsewunderlich]

What a cool machine 👍 - Happy New Year 🍀

[@BeniRoseMusic]

Seems like more of a CV recorder than a sequencer, eh? Cool that it keeps track of the rhythm you play it in!

[@briarboy8959]

Awesome looking piece of gear.

[@boomtish4520]

Wow, what a beautiful looking machine.

[@synthnerd4539]

The Roland CSQ-600 works a little like this too - you can program it in step time or freely, and play back any run of 4 sequences to the single cv and gate outputs. I use mine a lot, the simplicity is perfect. I'd have to check the details, but I believe the sequencer Ralph Dyck made that inspired Roland to make the MC-8 was a bit like this too. Thanks for making this video as well. Nice demo.

[@robocelot]

Glad I'm not the only one to notice the similarties to the CS-600, with the exception that you can't mix and match unquantized and step-written notes within the same sequence like the Oberheim.

[@markgolland5717]

It has a lot of unused white panel space. Curious.

[@lundsweden]

That was the 70s design ethos: tiny screen surrounded by a massive bezel!

[@threadingfield3496]

Nicely observed! The white space is where the magic resides . . . de-cluttering our thinking . . . sharpening our perception of the 'minimal' enabling us to draw the perfect curve . . . to discover afresh the beauty held within sequential sonic simplicity. Peace to you : )

[@d3nnisparisis439]

Vidéo très émouvante. Bravo 🎹✨

[@paradiddle16]

Never seen anything like it! It's huge! I have to say the synthrx caught my attention also. It's sounds really good!

[@michaelgmoser7845]

Happy new year !!!!

[@ovalwingnut]

Wonderful! I liked what I heard and found it memorizing. It is so ORGANIC (germanium and silicon are organic, right?:). I was exposed to digital just as MIDI was hitting its stride. Roland MT32 era. I had no idea what had come before it. Thank you for helping me visualize that what was old is now new again. Consisting of old school electronics plays into my other interest. Cheers HB. Live long and prosper. So.Ca,USA 3rd House On the Right

[@yqsl7726]

Bro, love you 😁 loving all what you do 😍

[@jmgmarcus808]

If someone was to make a plug in of this.........I would buy it in a second. Hainbach, have a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. 🌲🌲🌲🎅🏽🎅🏽

[@AndersEngerJensen]

Fascinating device! :D It's clearly not for me, but I really dig the look back in time to the world before MIDI. Happy New Year, Mr. H!

[@humanwaveform]

Another fantastic video from the Bob Ross of electronic music

[@reggiep75]

That would be a killer live sequencer machine if it had a metronome. It's the one missing feature most musicians, of any genre, could appreciate and work with. Surely there's got to be a way to do a non-destructive mod to give it a metronome.

[@antmerritt]

Nice explanation particularly the tape loop analogy fab bit of kit! 🤶👍👊😎🎄

[@Gluttonite]

My "like" was based on the look. Absolutely gorgeous.

[@georgereasonproductions]

Very cool

[@kneel1]

Oh man i love that thing! you have the coolest channel ever

[@OttoMilde]

Beautiful!

[@yungshinto7224]

Absolutely love the sound! I’m actually in the process of finding a good sequencer with analog possibilities. I’d love to hear your thoughts on the S2400, so far it’s been the most appealing! Thanks as always for the fantastic content!

[@Hainbach]

I heard so many good things about it, but have not tried it yet!

[@natioffline]

Same here, in case you want to loop one voice in various speeds 5:36+ change the pitch like this 6:16, what would you recommend? Samplers or sequencers? Thank you very much for sharing

[@chriswareham]

The Oberheim reminds me of Akai's ME-20A arpeggiattor. The Akai is a brilliant machine with some unusual features, but has no means to sync with other equipment!

[@temporoboto]

Super interesting, thanks for sharing.

[@tree_relics]

As usual, the sweater is sick, the gear is dusty fresh, and the sound as organic as an well aged cheese.

[@udomatthiasdrums5322]

love your work!!

[@tomahzo]

In an age of step sequencers that had to be programmed step by step this sequencer is quite advanced. Also, scale quantization? Surely that was quite innovative for its time? I wonder what the feedback to it was back in the day. I get the feeling that musicians would have appreciated the expressiveness that it would have allowed compared to its competition. And when I say competition I mean even long after this machine came to market. The sequencer for the Roland System 100M that came out in 1979 for example. That's quite simplistic from a perspective of traditional musical expression. Compared to that style of sequencer the DS2A is quite advanced. I feel like there's still room for sequencers like this today - even though I'd probably want to at least have the option to sync the playback to an external clock :).

[@LillySchwartz]

Ohh, thank you so much for the great explanation of how to make this feel “in time”! Whenever I turn off the grid completely, things go too bonkers for me, so I always end up warping stuff back onto the grid in the end. Usually it leaves me with this feeling of disappointment that I can’t make it work! Never occurred to me to just leave a single part off grid! So obvious 🤦‍♀️ Kinda also shows the downsides of software, grids, step sequencers etc! When you only have a hammer everything you build is going to have to involve nails, to the extent that any other tool might seem ludicrous and unusable after a while. I wonder what might have happened if all sequencers had continued like this one!

[@dawlessstrolling5306]

Interesting view!

[@Tiger.Arcade]

I didn’t catch what drum machine you used at the end there?! Also, someone should clone this but allow for clock sync or trigger!

[@Hainbach]

Super rare East German machine, video in the works.

[@hurphendale]

Great video! What would you say are some modern-day sequencers that adhere to the same principle you described, as it being more of a sequencing tape-loop than a step sequencer (ie. the timing of entry is what determines next step). I can think of something like the Bastl MIDI looper perhaps? But otherwise I am not sure what else exists (aside from actual loopers of audio, but I am interested in the fact that it's not looping the audio but the sequence).

[@TerryKinesis]

Don't go changing Hainbach; you are well loved. ❤

[@thisisnev]

The ability to transpose seems to have been a rarity among vintage digital sequencers. Honourable mnetion to the rare Cheetah MQ-8, though, for being able to transpose any or all of its 8 tracks via a second MIDI input.

[@Midi-olo-gist6758]

I love the old and the new. The greatest thing that ever happened was the DAW. It aloud the little man the ability to create his own music without being taken to the cleaners by recording companies and big studios. I embrace the technology and appreciate the classics and where we came from. Always looking forward. Very cool video. 😎

[@awogbob]

Cassette four tracks made home recording possible since the 80s as well, but the DAW is a complete package

[@g3cd]

This basically does what the Polyend Seq does (with 8 tracks, MIDI and up to 256x 32 step patterns that can be linked), only 50 years earlier 😱

[@ChromosomeSyndicate]

Man man man where do you find all this exotic gear ?

[@Hainbach]

I have been hunting for the odd for long, and now it comes to me. Also, I scroll through eBay to relax. :-)

[@johnnymidnight2982]

Nice Albertus font on the back.

[@fiddlestickzmuzik]

I like it a lot, love simplicity, the more basic the more creative I feel I can be..

[@UKULELERIGA]

What a beautiful design! I wonder if its full of components, or most of the case is empty 🙂

[@-The-Darkside]

It's beautiful

[@joseph395]

Is there any sequencers you recommend for the obx8? Great video btw! 👍

[@davidgrahham1057]

I recognise that skateboarding footage, been on a Tuss binge lately?

[@magnuslindberg973]

hello! would be interesting to see how it would act with the input from a sample and hold

[@Hainbach]

Works really well! It is one of recommended patches in the manual.

[@tungtobak]

For a few seconds there I thought Santa gave you a bag of speed this year but I had accidentally started playing the video in 1.3x speed. You sounded VERY adamant to tell us about this sequencer... :D

[@2sing]

I don't see the midi usb port in rear panel...

[@tylerrathbone2176]

Best sweaters in the game 🙌🙌🙌

[@memetunestudio]

I think the Emu Modular digital sequencer with 256 steps also came out in 1972 or 1973? (I've got one in my Emu system)...

[@Hainbach]

From what I read 1973, but it’s hard to get the exact details from that time. Especially since EMU kept developing on their modules.

[@memetunestudio]

@@Hainbach yes that's true - I couldn't find much info either!

[@AndyThomas_mrblitz]

This is great!

[@wttw4942]

Wow! I haven't seen one of those in decades! An interesting piece of museum. Unfortunately not much use for todays recording sessions workflow standards. Also this analog circuits usually have serious supply voltage fluctuations and artifacts that are produced by a ton of different factors, weird filters behaviour, resistors out of tolerance, diode leaks, etc . . . I think you will work a lot more flawlessly if you use a DAW and a MIDI to CV interface instead of this device. But is cool, and is a nice piece of equipment that might gain some collectors value in the future, probably. Thanks for sharing it with us!

[@sanciopancioahoy]

6:40 My cat went wild

[@NicholasBryantBonzaiSequoias]

Well worth checking out an album by Synergy called.. Sequencer. It shows what the DS-2 can do rather well!

[@234cheech]

first time ever seeing this its pretty cool looking machine

[@adrimathlener8008]

What is the brown multi-knob instrument on top of the DS-2A?

[@Hainbach]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/f5DCpKGrqbaGfJo

[@joshviggiani9844]

That sqwazz around the 9 minute mark sounds very gorgeous. Songmakitfy please!?

[@maxistork6060]

Interesting module, no wait ...

[@aritcheflower8625]

so would it be perfect for a Bad Gear episode or is it just perfect ?

[@atlasglaas2575]

God I wish that intro patch was available to listen to… wow.

[@Hainbach]

I am going to put it on an album!

[@atlasglaas2575]

@@Hainbach bless your soul Hainbach. That patch is like freshly baked cookies, but for my ears. I can’t wait to hear the full realization!

[@papepcool]

It’s cool regardless, send audio of the synth being sequenced to a looper and make multiple loops to play back or sync. As a collector I think it’s well worth the price…

[@nunofernandes4501]

I was born in 1973 too! Oh man, I'm old...

[@dotted9689]

I love Sequencers. All of them

[@Hainbach]

I wish I could say that. I love the Serge / Random Source TKB, Make Noise Pressure Points/Brains and 0-Ctrl and the Korg SQ-1, and now this. Five12 Vector is stunning but I always forgot how to do things if I don't play it all the time. Two Moskwas is lovely, but I really like to hold a key and tune it. Keystep pro I don't know yet enough, but it feels very capable and very useable. I did not like the Beatstep Pro. Elektrons do my head in, through the Digitone sequencer is fun. In modular my fav way of sequencing was combinging switches, cv sources and quantizers to a complex system. I copied that in Numerology for an orchestra score. In software, Numerology is everything.

[@SpikesStudio3]

My friend, you are the counterpoint to "badgear". Perhaps "sublime gear"?. Happy new year.

[@NervenklinikRecords]

Die Originale Ostblock808! 😍 Ich hab auch eine hier stehen, seit dem Eprom Update läuft die auch richtig im Takt 👌

[@Hainbach]

Nice! Wo finde ich Details zu dem Upgrade?

[@Hainbach]

Ah auf eBay gefunden :)