Torso Electronics S-4 is a beautiful but frustratingly incomplete granular sampler, synth and effects unit$899.00, torsoelectronics.com
Torso Electronics garnered some well-deserved attention from gear nerds with its first product, the T-1 Algorithmic Sequencer in 2020. Now the company returns with its second product, the S-4 Sculpting Sampler. While the T-1 scored some immediately positive reviews, coverage of the S-4 has been far more sparse.

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After spending several weeks poking at it and pushing it to its limits, I understand why. While it’s an incredibly compelling device capable of making absolutely gorgeous sounds, it’s also expensive at $899. And, to make matters worse, it’s not finished.
But let’s start with the positives — there’s quite a bit to like about the S-4. The hardware itself is satisfying. The screen is large and crisp, the push encoders are solid with excellent resistance and the keys are delightfully clicky. The S-4 is, from a purely tactile perspective, a joy to use. There’s also a decent amount of connectivity around back, including two ¼-inch line ins and outs, a headphone jack, MIDI in and out and analogue sync in and out. Finally, a USB-C port offers file transfers and transmission of audio and MIDI. Whatever your studio setup, the S-4 should be able to find a home there.
The user interface is also easy to navigate. I was able to quickly load samples from the 4GB of built-in storage, record synth pads using the audio inputs and then mangle them with the granular processor, bit crusher, delay and reverb, all without looking at the manual online.

Some of the more advanced features, like changing the modulation parameters, aren’t as obvious, but don’t require an inordinate amount of menu diving. You should be able to figure out most things through trial and error.
The heart of the Torso S-4 is its granular processor. It’s incredibly flexible with a number of controls and up to 128 grains that make it easy to turn anything into the stereotypical granular clouds of ambience, especially once you start dialling in the onboard delays and reverbs. It comes preloaded with around 300MB of samples for you to smear into oblivion — pads, basslines and even drum loops. With four tracks to work with, you can actually load up different loops and treat it almost like an oddball groovebox.
But this is just scratching the surface of the S-4’s capabilities. The default ‘material’ (sound source) for each track is Tape, which is a simple sample looper. But you can also switch it to Poly mode, which turns the S-4 into a MIDI-controlled granular synthesizer. Here, anything can become your sound source, from synth samples to field recordings of birds. As a granular synth the S-4 doesn’t do anything truly groundbreaking, but hardware granular synths are still pretty rare. And its host of effects make it simple to craft interesting and moving textures that aren’t easily achievable without combining several pieces of gear.
Image: Terrence O’Brien for MusicTech
If you’re looking specifically for a hardware granular synth, the S-4 might be your best bet. The 1010Music Lemondrop is half the price and equally capable, but its interface is fiddly, connectivity options are limited and the built-in effects are merely okay. The Tasty Chips GR-1 is an incredible piece of hardware with a gorgeous interface, but its older hardware, limited modulation options and higher price make it hard to recommend over the S-4. The Tempera is interesting, but its quirky interface is challenging to master. Beyond that, options are limited without spending thousands.
That all said, most people looking for a granular synth would be better off sticking to software. Plugins like Pigments, Quanta and FRMS will get you excellent results at a fraction of the price.
My favourite application of the S-4, however, has been as an effects processor. Switching the material to Bypass allows you to use the granular engine, filter, compressor, drive, bit crusher, delay and reverb for real-time processing of live audio, and it’s amazing. Staid synth pads suddenly become undulating drivers of your arrangement. Guitars sparkle and scream with lo-fi digital destruction. And drums sputter with glitchy fills. There are other granular-based effects out there, but few allow the depth of control of the S-4. If controlled chaos is your jam, then you will love what Torso offers here.
Modulation options and peripheral effects here have a lot to do with just how powerful of a sculpting tool the S-4 is. There are four mod sources per track which can be a simple LFOs, a random generator, or an ADSR envelope (an envelope follower is being added in an upcoming firmware update). These are all easily assigned to manipulate the size of the reverb, the pitch of the grains or anything else you might want. There’s even a filter-specific modulator called Waves that can do everything from subtle ebbs and flows to wild effects similar to an auto-wah. I like to leave Waves permanently on to create gentle movement.
Image: Terrence O’Brien for MusicTech
Physically then, the S-4 is a joy, it’s incredibly versatile and sounds fantastic. So what’s the problem?
To put it bluntly, it’s not a finished product. There are three buttons on the front panel — Temp, Perform and Scene — that simply say “Coming soon” when you press them. That a feature could be so important as to require a dedicated button, but somehow not be important enough to actually implement before shipping a product is baffling. That it happened three times here is bonkers. Even basic features were not ready at launch. For example, despite being available through retail channels as early as July, Torso didn’t implement MIDI sync until early September.
Even ignoring the missing features, the current firmware is quite buggy. On more than one occasion the S-4 crashed and rebooted on me. Sometimes it got stuck in a boot loop for no reason. Error messages popped up when trying to save or load projects. And there were times that required yanking the power cord. Other times, the S-4 immediately powers back on after being shut off, and remains responsive, but refuses to load samples or process incoming audio.
Rarely have I been so torn. The Torso S-4 has so much potential, yet paying $899 to be a beta tester is a big ask. If Torso can quickly iron out the bugs and roll out the missing features, the S-4 Sculpting Sampler could become a modern classic. Right now, it’s hard to recommend most people spend their hard-earned cash on it.
Image: Terrence O’Brien for MusicTech
Key features

Stereo in and out
⅛-inch MIDI in and out
Analogue sync in and out
MIDI and Audio over USB
Built-in microphone
4 stereo audio tracks
4 modulation sources per-track
128-grain granular processor
8-voice MIDI-controlled granular synth engine
Live audio processing
Multi-mode Resonant filter and resonator
Built-in compression, drive and bit crushing
Delay and reverb engines with shimmer
Dimensions: 242 x 156 x 39 mm
Weight: 820g

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