Yeah that's the problem with all these boutique sequencer stuff - out of the DAW live performance is tricky unless you buy into the Elektron ecosystem which I don't as a mostly analog purist.
As a result I've cheaped out and when not using my beatstep to control the stuff via my DAW I have a Korg SQ64 but its a bit unintuitive flow-wise in terms of live jamming. I end up just using my TR-8S with the 2600 or 303 side-chained through it.
The Arturia Beatstep Pro has been the only sequencer I’ve connected with for my modest gate, cv, and midi sync needs. I moved to it after scoring what I thought was a deal on a SQ64. I really wish the SQ64 felt like a playable instrument and didn’t come out of the box with noise issues.
No you're right, they've some competitive analog offerings nowadays which I keep forgetting about. Headspace wise I'm still stuck at the last time I was properly 'shopping' for gear when the Elektron holy trinity was Syntakt, Digitakt and Digitone.
