- Built around 16 coloured pads, a Roland TR-8 style sequencer and a seven-inch touchscreen display, the Toraiz is primarily designed to be the hub of your live performance. While it does sync with CDJs and other Pioneer DJ equipment, it's not limited to operating in the shadows of their industry standard gear. Toraiz can run your entire live show and sculpt your audio with Dave Smith's Curtis filter, which you'll also find on his latest flagship Prophet-6.
Before you get any sound from the Toraiz, you'll need to load a sample. Weirdly, it has no kit format, meaning every pad must be populated one-by-one. Luckily, once a sound is loaded by clicking the CDJ-style rotary control, you can simply press the next pad and scroll to the next sound. You can load 16 samples pretty quickly but it's not something you'd want to be doing in a live situation. It's a simple folder-by-folder affair when loading samples, which works but doesn't make the most of the large screen. The sooner Toraiz is compatible with Rekordbox—with its tagging, colouring, key analysis, playlisting and waveform view—the better.
Once you've populated your pads, you can start to sequence your sounds. Every Pattern can have up to four bars, and each Scene can have up to sixteen Patterns. With sixteen Scenes available, that's up to 1024 bars of music through 256 Patterns. Steps entered with the sequencer are of fixed velocity, so if you're looking for some variation in volume, hit the record button and play in your pattern by hand. The pads feel sturdy yet responsive and the auto-quantise, which can be set to a resolution of 1/32nd, feels natural. Rather than recording automation, Toraiz operates on a step parameter edit system. For example, if you want one hi-hat in your pattern to have a longer release, you press and hold the step in question and adjust the sample release time, releasing the sequence button when done.
Step types can also be changed to only affect parameters and not trigger sounds. Step-based parameter editing might seem like a limitation over more fluid automation options but it actually goes a long way when in fine-tuning the groove of a sequence. Sadly, some parameters, like Send FX level, cannot be automated with the sequencer.
Once loaded, the various parameters are changed with the corresponding dials below the screen. Pressing a knob on the touchscreen and sliding your finger up does not affect the parameter, which seems like a missed opportunity. In general, more could be made of the touchscreen from a performance perspective. An assignable macro page with finger-friendly knobs and sliders or even an X/Y pad would be welcome. There is a performance touch strip that can be set to control either pitch, note repeat or up to eight parameters simultaneously via two user banks. It's a neat solution but more extensive mixer functions are left out for now.
Speaking of FX, in a recent update Pioneer DJ added four more insert FX. These can also be set as Send FX, though it's still only possible to have one effect per sound. LoFi is probably the pick of the bunch, giving everything from old school sampler bit-depth effects to all out sound mangling while pushing the preamp gain. Each effect parameter can be altered with the sequencer, which is preferable to manually tweaking the knobs and a lot more fun.
Another new feature is an LFO per sound, offering modulation of parameters like sample start time, pitch, FX parameters and MIDI CC. It's a flexible tool and once you've routed the LFO to your preferred destination, automating the rate and depth with the sequencer can lead to unique and creative sound design and happy accidents. This is one of Toraiz's biggest strengths. It encourages creativity, tweaking and experimentation and before long, you'll often end up with sounds you didn't expect and something you'd never have made with a mouse. However, having more than one LFO per sound would definitely be welcome.
Aside from Track and Mute, there are two more pad functions on the Toraiz: Slice and Scale. Slice will cut up a loop into anything from one to 64 parts and place them across the pads. There's currently no logic to the way the samples are sliced but Pioneer DJ says transient slicing is coming. Scale mode allows you to play selected samples at different pitches, although it's very limited. The pitch can only ascend and there's no way to change octaves or scale type without changing the pitch of the original sample. The addition of MIDI In for note control gives you more flexibility, but if the Toraiz is to properly infiltrate the studio, it'll need to significantly increase its sampler capabilities.
Of course, you can sample your own sounds. There's a stereo balanced TRS input and a threshold setting that starts recording as soon as an input signal crosses it, with up to 32 seconds recording time per sound. Recorded sounds are automatically time-stretched to the current BPM so be careful to turn this off when recording short samples. Samples can be looped, but without a crossfade function, it's difficult to find a loop point without audible clicks.
There are eight stereo pair outputs on the back of the device. These are assignable within the unit but it would have been nice to have RCA options. RCA ins would've facilitated sampling from turntables while outs would make for easier connections to a DJ mixer. Balanced TRS outs have higher sound quality but it'd be nice to have the option for convenience.
One of the biggest advantages the Toraiz has over its competitors is the Pro DJ Link functionality via Ethernet. This allows you to sync the unit to CDJs, XDJs and any compatible hardware. The sync is tight—even big jumps in BPM catch up quickly and there is a pitch bend on the unit for any manual adjustments you want to make. The latest firmware also allows sync from MIDI DIN or USB at the same time as Ethernet. This means you can sync your CDJ to Ableton Live and use the Toraiz as a syncing middleman, or simply link Toraiz and your DAW directly.
There are plenty of niggles to the Toriaz that Pioneer DJ are slowly working through. While it might have come to market a little too early, the hardware is solid and well thought-out. With one major firmware update already released as this review was being written, Pioneer DJ are clearly listening to user feedback. Dave Smith's filter is an excellent addition, with the Drive knob doing enough to bring your sequences in line with mastered tracks in your DJ set. And although it's only possible to apply it to the master right now, individual track routing is coming.
Performing live is an extremely complex and often very personal experience. Pioneer DJ has hit a middle ground by satisfying both seasoned performers and those who are attracted to the concepts but don't know where to start. The ability to save and collect projects on a single USB stick makes it possible to arrive at the club with your DJ set on one stick and your live set on another, significantly lowering the barrier for entry for live electronic performance. It's an exciting product overall, largely because the hardware is so well designed. If the firmware updates continue at the current rate, there's no reason it won't become a serious competitor to the laptop as the core of your live set. We'd love to see proper integration with Rekordbox, proprietary kit formats, MIDI file support and more touchscreen performance functions. But for now, if this is Pioneer DJ's first foray into studio-DJ crossovers, we're excited for what's to come.
Ratings:
Cost: 3.5
Versatility: 3.9
Ease of use: 4.0
Sound: 4.2
There are eight stereo pair outputs on the back of the device. These are assignable within the unit but it would have been nice to have RCA options. RCA ins would've facilitated sampling from turntables while outs would make for easier connections to a DJ mixer. Balanced TRS outs have higher sound quality but it'd be nice to have the option for convenience. One of the biggest advantages the Toraiz has over its competitors is the Pro DJ Link functionality via Ethernet. This allows you to sync the unit to CDJs, XDJs and any compatible hardware. The sync is tight—even big jumps in BPM catch up quickly and there is a pitch bend on the unit for any manual adjustments you want to make. The latest firmware also allows sync from MIDI DIN or USB at the same time as Ethernet. This means you can sync your CDJ to Ableton Live and use the Toraiz as a syncing middleman, or simply link Toraiz and your DAW directly. There are plenty of niggles to the Toriaz that Pioneer DJ are slowly working through. While it might have come to market a little too early, the hardware is solid and well thought-out. With one major firmware update already released as this review was being written, Pioneer DJ are clearly listening to user feedback. Dave Smith's filter is an excellent addition, with the Drive knob doing enough to bring your sequences in line with mastered tracks in your DJ set. And although it's only possible to apply it to the master right now, individual track routing is coming. Performing live is an extremely complex and often very personal experience. Pioneer DJ has hit a middle ground by satisfying both seasoned performers and those who are attracted to the concepts but don't know where to start. The ability to save and collect projects on a single USB stick makes it possible to arrive at the club with your DJ set on one stick and your live set on another, significantly lowering the barrier for entry for live electronic performance. It's an exciting product overall, largely because the hardware is so well designed. If the firmware updates continue at the current rate, there's no reason it won't become a serious competitor to the laptop as the core of your live set. We'd love to see proper integration with Rekordbox, proprietary kit formats, MIDI file support and more touchscreen performance functions. But for now, if this is Pioneer DJ's first foray into studio-DJ crossovers, we're excited for what's to come. Ratings: Cost: 3.5 Versatility: 3.9 Ease of use: 4.0 Sound: 4.2