Arturia Beatstep

Great

Bought this to control our backing track computer and works brilliantly. We only use the buttons as triggers, play, stop etc via Midi. but it is well built

Pas terrible

Le controlleur est compact et fonctionne rapidement. Ceci dit il n'est pas possible de choisir un canal midi par pad en dehors de l'application Arturia Midi Control Center et je trouve ca vraiment dommage.

Je pense que le Keystep est plus adapté pour jouer des accords malgré qu'on puisse ne pas connaître le solfège mais ce n'est que mon avis.

Outil robuste mais extrêmement limité et donc un peu trop cher pour ce qu'il délivre..

Good sequencer, bad controler

After some use, I discovered it has some issues.

It is very good if you want to sequence some hardware. But if you want to use the knobs for midi cc, then you shouldn't buy this.

The encoders are low resolution and it takes around 3 full turns to go from 0 to 127. There is an acceleration mechanism in the driver but that makes things imprecise.

I use it as a foot controller now or to enter drums since I don't sequence that often.

One of the best controllers I own

The arturia beatstep is a great little unit. Does what its supposed to do without missing a beat!...

Great build quality and its features are stunning.

Highly recommended!

cheapest good sequencer + midi to cv for eurorack

Lots of really useful features such as the sequencer and midi to cv. Sequencer can have diffrent scales so it like having a quantiser on the unit. I can now easily have my moduler system take signals from my DAW and there are many feature I have not yet had the chance to use. Great product at a really good price. It can be a little hard to get to grips with since there is menu diving for most of the features and there is no screen but at this price im not real complaning. The pro look great if you have a larger moduler system or multiple synths but if like me you only have a small system this will do the job perfectly.

beatstep

very good build. solid and feel good. it controls one and only one device at a time. but with midi out its very usable. 16 steps and 16 rotary knobs to glide up and down semi tones as you go. 16 pre set save patches and all the buttons are easily mapped to any daw software or dj software. it can be used as an effects unit for tractor or serato by midi mapping the functions. very usable all around the studio.

enjoying trying to work this out

Using this as a sequencer mostly and having fun with it. I'm new to this kind of music production and have previously been guitar based. Using microbrute with this beatstep and have tried korg volca beats as well.

To be honest it has taken a while to get used to it and I found online tutorials to be less than helpful although that might be more down to my lack of experience . Learning more from just messing around.

It is solid and built quality is excellent. Unfortunately it doesnt come with a power source and has to be connected to pc laptop or charger which I found annoying.

All in all its good value for the money and I would recommend.

Super!

Simple to use

arturia beatstep

if you use modules it's probably the best thing that happen to you the past year cause this machine gives u CV and GATE OUT .

as a step sequencer itself it not something special .

Price breakthrough, well made

You will probably find very little criticism aimed at this little thing. It actually offers three devices in one: Midi controller with pads and knobs, step sequencer and USB midi to CV converter. All that for less than 100 euros is a small miracle. And you cannot see it in the build quality, BeatStep looks and feels very well made, and really solid.

The majority of BeatStep users, including me, has been drawn by its step sequencer with CV outs. However, I can see that most of people are perhaps a bit overenthusiastic when it comes to step sequencing over CV. BeatStep is one-channel sequencer and that means you can control only one signal, either pitch or filter or amp. Lot of times this is not enough. Step sequencing often benefits greatly from "accents" which are either built into sequencer as a function (XOX style) or there is separate channel for filter CV, amp CV, or ideally, both. That is why professional CV sequencers have three channels.

You can come around this by using a couple of (ideally three) BeatSteps in parallel. Maybe not very elegant solution, but still much cheaper than any other alternative. Because, if you want to go all the way into old school step sequencing, you will need something like Doepfer MAQ 16/3, or at least Dark Time (8 steps, two channels). And for that money you can buy handful of BeatSteps.

So, if you want to start exploring old school step sequencing, or to try connecting your pre-midi synth to the midi world, BeatStep is currently the best starting point by far. But, once you would want to add some nuance by controlling either the filter or ampllifier section, you will need to upgrade. For that reason only I am giving one star less than the maximum score.