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Is the SP-16 going to be discontinued?

 

 I see the price dropped quite a bit to $899. It's quite a few years old now I think going on 4? and the updates for it over the years have been scarce. It's almost 2020 and from the usual trend of music equipment a huge price drop and ending year after a run means a product is going to be discontinued (especially with NAMM around the corner). On top of that it doesn't seem to have done all that well with against Elektron's Digitakt & Octatrakt, Akai's MPC Live, Rolands TR8S and NI's Maschine. I see those a lot in peoples setups but not so much the SP-16. Is Pioneer chucking this thing into the wind to release something else that's more capable?

Going through the updates in detail and seeing what they did decide to release it seems to me that this hardware has physical limitations that limit what they can actually program into it. The updates are really kind of minimal things that aren't exactly going to make people rush out and buy a unit just because it samples to 64seconds or has some new midi features. Just seems like they would come out better designing a whole new unit that can do what people have been asking than to keep patching up a sinking ship.

 

 

JohnQ

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Well, I hope it's not sinking... I'm a relatively new owner, but it's totally nailing exactly what I bought it for (main groove duties). There's a huge amount of current potenital in the unit (as is); and plenty I'm sure they could squeeze out of the existing tech in firmware updates... personally all I'd want is improved workflow and a few tweaks to existing features (more mute options etc. including mute quantize for example). Just things that improve the existing options... not things that radically change what it was designed to do...

I guess it's worth keeping in mind though that every piece of hardware is limited hey... It's kind of odd that sooo many forums sh#t-can the toraiz sp for its limitations; and then you jump over to elektron and hear everyone rant on about how the digitakts beautiful limitations are the key to its sucess haha... go figure... (I own both toraiz and digitakt btw... both are rad).

Hopefully Pioneer pause and reflect on the unit they designed though - the one they orignally invisaged... something to take studio quality work onto the stage for live performance (I'd imagine it was something like that?)... a refined version of the SP16; without new bells and whistles; focussing on live performance code tweaks with improved workflow...? BOOM... best performance sampler hands down. And in the current climate, where many admired producer dj's are starting to move away from ableton (and their DJ sets), and heading into hardware only gigs... this unit would be king/queen.

jBam 0 votes
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