Korg SQ-1 Sequencer

I don’t do a lot of sequencing these days but I do have my eye on the Intellijel Metropolis as an addition to my modular system. But since Korg has released a nifty little (and cheap!) sequencer called the SQ-1 I thought I’d get one and have some fun with it.

I’ve only had one night with it so far but I can tell you that it’s a lot of fun! It’s very solidly built too, which was a surprise. From the pictures I assumed it was made of plastic but as soon as you pick up the box you can feel the weight! It’s a very sturdy metal plate that will stand up to a lot of abuse.

I won’t go into all the features here since I’m not really reviewing it but I will say that it is pretty much what you expect and it doesn’t take long to figure out the basics. The manual is in 4 or 5 different languages and is printed on one poster sized piece of paper that unfolds like a giant map. I have no idea why anyone would choose to do that. I know they did the same thing with the Monotrons but they are just tiny little things that don’t need a lot of explanation. This is a solid, professional piece of equipment and you would expect a manual in a normal booklet format.

However, it seems there is not much to know. Try out each of the features in the manual and you pretty much understand the whole thing and are ready to play. Plug the CV and Gate outputs into a synth, press Play, and start having fun!

I made a quick little video but it doesn’t show much of the actual features of the SQ-1, it’s mostly just fooling around with the MS-20 mini I had it plugged into.

Also, I haven’t done much video with my new Nikon D7100 so I wanted to see how that looked. The quality seems really nice but I have to work on the focusing. Hopefully there is a way to get it to track and auto-focus better than this.

So, all in all, for $150 total this is a cool little device that might provide a little inspiration here and there when I want something repetitive and droning. I’m sure it’ll show up in a song very soon!