Just wanted to share with you people that i bought my first step sequencer in the form of a genoQs Nemo to complement my Voyager Signature Edition.
Within no time i was creating great sequences even though the Nemo doesn’t have any display to work with.
Before I bought it, I was concerned about the lack of this LCD display,
but oddly the machine forced me to be more creative because of this.
The clever arrangement of the tactile ball bearing buttons combined with the multi-color LED chase lights and the 4 track page setup brings out a natural workflow in my music arrangement.
All in all a great machine and a joy to play with…hopefully i can create a Tube movie soon to show it how it works.
Any additional info can be found on their site : www.genoqs.com
After some weeks of playing around is still discover new ways to add into musical workflow…
Anyways…
Like :
Quickly going through my layers of my workflow, Grid → Pages → Tracks → Steps
Copy, pasting tracks / pages
Easy laying down a melody line with the use of step phrases or attribute flows
Understanding really whats happening even without display, let your ears also do some work (love the pretty lights)
Creating long sequences…even more then 64 or 128 steps.
Chaining tracks or pages
Building chords or strums
Assigning different CC functions to the encoders
Making snapshots to revert back at a later stadium when you are not happy with what you have done
Forcing the music to a scale
Using effectors as a state switch so you can do cross modulation, something which is unique to sequencers
Using a USB lamp on my hardware
2 x MIDI in/out
Dislike :
No group muting
You can save only one project (All Grid or All Pages), if you want to keep different ones you have to do a sysex dump…this can be done via USB
Overall i think it is a really good and solid desktop sequencer (i really was looking into a desktop version for a sequencer iso. a rackmounted version).
I also like the optional firmware upgrades which happen regularly, and the guys at genoQs really listen to their customers over at their site and forum, adding new functions and wishes to the OS.
Even though i am missing a decent save functionality i still cannot find any reason not to buy this sequencer…
Do you use this as your main sequencer or along with a computer? I’m looking to replace my computer for sequencing. Do you think the Nemo offers enough features to do that?
I use the Nemo as my main sequencer…and only use my computer for recording songs.
Before the Nemo i used a MPC 2000XL as my main sequencer…but i think with the MPC my workflow was more beat based iso. the melody line.
From the Nemo manual which covers your question :
Reflection notes on MIDI recording
While MIDI recording is one of the most exciting and useful features
in Nemo, some restrictions do apply, as we have seen already.
The MIDI recording capability of Nemo and Octopus, while extensive
and clearly unmatched in hardware step sequencers, should not
be viewed as “what goes in, necessarily will come out” functionality,
which you may experience on software packages for example.
The reason for this is quite simple: step sequencers underly a certain
granularity constraint that is given by the interface, such as the number
of steps in a track, which again give you advantages which other
sequencer paradigms do not. Therefore, on Nemo, steps, while polyphonic,
will force certain input into certain start positions which may
sound different to your ears than what you have played in.
In other words, if you are looking to input material naturally, which
you then work and interact with further inside the sequencer, you are
spot on. If you are about to record your piano sonata as a MIDI
stream for later identical replay, you may not be using the right tool.
One of the many simple and possibly free software package for MIDI
recording may be a better choice than a highly sophisticated hardware
tool.
So I went and checked the Nemo out yesterday. I played with it for about 2 hours. That thing is pretty wild. It’s hard to do anything that sounds bad on it. I ended up not buying it but may pick it up tomorrow.
looks cool
can you sequence cc’s with this? is there anything on it that is ‘playable’ (switches,knobs that change groove or do anything interesting? etc)
You can record or program which MCC you want to edit or let run in the sequence.
Next to this you can edit the folowing functions with the knobs : Pitch, Velocity, Length of the notes, Start position, Amount, Groove, MCC, Position, Direction, you can feed or listen to tracks, speed of individual tracks…and many more.
Pretty cool sequencer! 
