Digitone is an amazing synthesis machine. It’s a hybrid FM+subtractive synth, with a few extra tricks thrown in like harmonics on the waves for more complex initial oscillators. It excels at IDM, imo; it can do lush/warm, precise/tight, and aggressive sounds all at once. Good for emulating LP5-era Autechre, imo.
It has 8-note polyphony across 4 tracks, which may not seem to be enough, but sound locks can be exploited in such a way that you can have up to three sounds virtually playing on one step in a track, so for example, you could put all of your drum sounds on one track, with a bit of smart sequencing. I made a video about it.
It has a sound that reminds often of mid 90s Warp sound.
It’s great for BOC/Aphex Pad sounds, Autechre like drums and strange melodic sounds. I made some videos with the digitone, and some people commented it reminded them of plaid.
Would the DN offer more than just FM because for $750 a FM only seems steep. Yes it does drums, but only 4 tracks. I’ll have to be creative. I need to research more.
So many options ahah. But I’m glad everyone mentioned the DN. Because it does have more of the sound I want!!
I think you should stop to overthink it at this point. I recommend to try out one of the mentioned elektron boxes, to experience the workflow and understand better, what all those p-locks, soundlocks and other sequencer features actually mean
ps: if you want to see/hear what „only“ 4 tracks can sound like, check some videos with the factory patterns of digitone for example…
Yeah, it has a resonant filter, so you can use the FM section to create a rich wave that you can carve with the filter. It is primarily an FM synth, but it’s definitely possible to get away from typical FM sounds once you spend a bit of time with it. I think it’d pair well with the BS2 actually.