So I've had Torq running for just over a week now, and I have to say that I'm just loving it. I initially had some trouble with tracks skipping, but realising that I hadn't replaced my styli for quite some time I decided to buy myself some new carts & needles. I went with the recommendation of almost everyone on the Torq forums and bought a pair of Shure M447s, and I've had absolutely no issues since.
For the record, this is my setup:
- MacBook Pro, OS X 10.4.8
- Torq vinyl control records on Technics SL1200 MKII decks
- Shure M447 carts & stylus
Things I love about Torq:
- Built-in effects and the ability to use my own VST plug-ins
- The convenience of digital
- I still get to play on my decks using vinyl
- Loops are really easy to setup on the fly
- MIDI control wherever I want it (i.e. on effects controls)
- Snapshots
Things I think they need to improve:
- The 16 cell sampler is great, except that you can't sync it to the bpm of the tracks you're playing and there isn't any way to nudge/push them whilst they're playing
- I'd love a keyboard shortcut to load tracks into the decks instead of having to drag them in
- There are a couple of safety precautions that need to be built in. For one, it should give you a warning if you try and load a track into a deck that's already playing. Secondly it should also warn you if you quit the program - at the moment you can just quit in the middle of playing and it just shuts down on you. I know that these are things that we shouldn't do anyway, but it wouldn't be hard to incorporate these features
For the moment I'm happy to put up with a few shortcomings as I'm sure that these are things that will be addressed in free future updates. M-Audio has enormous resources behind them and this product will only get better over the coming months. For my money this is such a great value product at an RRP of only $699 (even cheaper if you buy it from us!), saving a few hundred bucks compared to Serato. Of course, Serato has a great reputation for it's stability and has a lot of years behind it which is something that Torq will have to earn. For a first generation product though it really is very impressive.
Comments