Ion Torrent entered this market in 2010, the brainchild of biotech entrepreneur Jonathan Rothberg. (I wrote a Forbes cover story about him in 2011.) Rothberg figured out how to make a DNA sequencer using semiconductor parts that would be significantly cheaper than the machines Illumina sold.
Metagenomics takes another approach, basically putting an entire environment--the water in an ocean, the soil in a forest or the insides of an animal--into a DNA sequencer.
The remaining 8 x 4 pads above now function as a step-sequencer -- with a sound selected, tapping these adds drum hits in the respective position in the drum loop.