Music Thing: The GenoQs Octopus

Each week Tom Whitwell of Music Thing highlights the best of the new music gear that's coming out, as well as noteworthy vintage equipment:

This is the GenoQs Octopus, a beautiful looking MIDI sequencer. It will cost €1,200. A cynic would say it can do less than a
cheap PC. But cynics very rarely buy cool stuff.

A sequencer is a machine that plays a sequence of notes on an electronic instrument. Player pianos and steam organs were early sequencers with a really crappy interface, but they came into their own with early synths. The first real sequencer was Leo Theremin's Rhytmicon from 1931.

The vast majority of modern sequencers are now software – programs like Cubase and Logic which can record infinite amounts of MIDI note data, synchronized with sound and video files and virtual instruments. They're endlessly powerful,
but often not very inspiring.

That?s why analog-style sequencers are having a quiet revival. Covered in rows of knobs and beat-chasing LEDs,
they?re immediately fun to use and great for generating happy accidents.
Unfortunately, because they?re complicated, full of expensive parts and relatively unpopular, hardware sequencers are notoriously expensive. The SND Sam-16 costs ?1,800 euros, and the
Doepfer MAQ 16/3 (which the Chemical Brothers use on stage) is ?659.

At present the Octopus is nothing more than a website, a pretty render and an address in Stuttgard, but it looks like it might have been inspired by the legendary
Latronic Notron, a British-made hardware sequencer loved by people like Bjork and Howie B. Last week, one sold for $1,691 on eBay. If the Octopus ever becomes reality, it will make a few people very, very happy.