What happens when you take the concept from Euclidian Circles and go fully digital? It looks like French manufacturer Kaona Modular pondered that very scenario and came up their new module Skippy.
First, let’s try Kaona’s description:
Skippy is a matrix and non-matrix polyrhythmic sequencer (linear and logarithmic) which offers four completely independent tracks with a very simple interface: one button per track, one function per screen, no sub-menus.
Our take: Skippy is a 4-channel algorithmic trigger sequencer.
In VPME’s Euclidian Circles, your major controls are track length/fill/start point, but no matter what the triggers will always populate in a Euclidian pattern. With Skippy, you can change the base algorithm of each track between 4 types: Euclidean (Bjorklund), matrix patterns, microtiming patterns, and matrix rotation.
Here’s the full set of functions-per-track.
Kaona Skippy Functionality
- BPM (10 – 400)
- Number of steps (1 – 64)
- Linear or log
- Random function
- Chaotic function
- Direction: clockwise, counterclockwise, ping-pong, pause
- Number of steps before the start of the sequence
- Number of steps before the end of the sequence
- Gate duration
The screen and UI are obviously the feature here: bright, informative, and no sub-menus. The four colored track buttons map directly to the four colored rings on the screen. Data, params, settings, etc. are displayed on the central screen within the track circles, also following the color-coded theme.
One hardware feature we feel Skippy is missing is Reset In/Out jacks. Playing nice with fellow sequencers just makes patching that much easier. Hopefully, handling reset via the menu isn’t much of an issue.
Skippy can be pre-ordered for 310.00€ pre-tax (~$340 USD) on Kaona’s site. Release date is TBA. Finally, we’ll leave you with this fun timelapse build of Skippy from the Kaona YouTube channel.
