If it is about fun and distraction, Digitone is imho one of the best boxes ever!
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Underpowered only when regarded as the sum of its parts. The genius of the Digitone is in the product of its parts.
And the Digitone is complete by itself. It doesn’t beg you to plug it into something else or send you down the rabbit hole of GAS.
Four-oscillator algorithms are less complex than 6-, but that’s like saying the gravitational interaction of four celestial bodies is less complex than six. They are both wildly complex.
As others said, above, harmonics and filtering add a lot of possibilities. Can’t go wrong with the DN!
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Super kind to give someone such a great instrument. As others have stated Digitone might look underpowered at the surface, but it’s really powerful. 4 part 4 operator 8 voice FM synth with elektron sequencer. You can build entire tracks with it :). I keep finding gold the more time I spend with it. After years of use it still manges to surprise me.
Edit: oh and not to forget it actually has subtractive capabilities. Which you don’t often find in FM synths.
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…i can guarantee u and ur friend, those 4 operators and their different and various predefined ways to combine those, opens up the whole potential of fm in a much easier to approach way of whatever u got in mind than all takes yamaha ever gave a try…
elektrons/ess’ design/coding try on the endless sonic field of fm is a pretty fresh take to wrap ur mind around that matter, without any misses…
not to mention it’s endless array of all kinds of presets from drums, bass, pads, organs, voicings, glitched outs, otherworldly stuff which can be a startingpoint for anything, turned inside out with a twist while never getting lost too far out with unusable results…
while total randomness is always just a click away…
u really can’t compare the japan take on fm with the swedish one…not at all…
but u get all what u can expect from fm with the digi…and beyond…promise.
plus many further sonic treatment options yamaha never thought of…
and if ur friend never touched an elektron instrument before…well…after two weeks u’ll see for urself what a great friend u are…and what a great gift u made…
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thanks for all the great info and responses!
i think i’ll get it for them after all 
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I have both the dx7iifd and the dn. I wouldn’t say either is absolutely more powerful than the other, they both excel in different ways. Quick note for folks comparing the two in case you’re not familiar with that specific version of the dx7, the “ii” versions are an improvement on the original in a few ways, primarily in that they are bi-timbral.
Operator count rarely feels like a limitation in fm synths as the ones with fewer ops often have more options for waveforms beyond sine so they compensate.
The thing that feels like the biggest limitation of the dn to me are the envelopes. The dx7 has amazing envelopes and in a way, kind of make the synth so special.
I’ve come close to selling my dn to fund an opsix several times but the sequencer keeps it on my desk. The integration of synth engine and sequencer is fantastic and I get a lot of use out of it’s external midi tracks.
I don’t find either of them more difficult to program than the other either but to be fair I’ve been using dx7s for a long time and am probably just used to them at this point, I know lots of people hate the interface.
At some point I had to stop directly comparing the two, they’re fundamentally different devices even if they use the same underlying synthesis type. I wouldn’t directly compare a Yamaha cs5 and a prophet 5 even though they’re both analog subtractive synths.
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Everybody else has hit on a lot of the things that make the digitone pretty powerful as far as the pure sound design. I have both the digitone and the opsix and am a huge fan of fm. If your friend has a lot of other gear and uses it mainly for recording and no live work, something like the opsix would probably be better. But as far as live aspect, the digitone is so much more inspiring. I use it as my hardware brain for all my gear. I don’t get a lot of time for writing music these days so I’ll take my digitone to work and write when I’m on my lunch break. I’ll purposely push as much out on that one device as possible. Once I hit a point where I feel like the track needs something else, I’ll plug it back up to the rest of my gear at home (the opsix, a prophet rev 2, and a Korg prologue) and start sequencing those pieces with it. The performance and sequencing aspects make it my most fun piece of gear.
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I think the Digitone is perfect for an FM lover. Digitone designer @Ess loves FM so much he’s got an FM tattoo
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I think folks tend to think of FM ‘power’ in terms of the amount of operators, but it really comes down to things like the number of waveforms the operators have and what kinds of routing and mod-controlling one has access to. The FS1R is 8 operator and that’d be weaker sounding than a 4OP if all it had was the skimpy adlib ADSR envelope controls, no LFO and only sinewaves. You’d still get some mileage out of it, but that kind of constraint wouldn’t hold a candle to the FM capabilities of the Digitone.
There are some strange ‘gimpings’ of the Digitone, primarily where the wave shape isn’t independent at all, but it does basically have a morphable wavetable. If your friend is into exploring the FM possibilities, an OPSix might be more their cup of tea if they don’t mind that it has an essentially useless sequencer that can’t make a full track, to which the Digitone does have this. The OPSix actually does stuff the FS1R doesn’t do, including using operators as an effect, etc. and also the ability to design your own operator algorithms. I’m waiting for korg to get off their bums and turn that into a groovebox ala Electribe style, but considering their oddball decisions the past 10 years, that’s pretty much not going to happen, so it’s OPSix as a sound design tool/keyboard or nothing.
Hope this helps answer the question for you. FM is an oddball style of synthesis. Personally, I don’t even think the DX7’s capabilities have been fully exploited to it’s full potential due to folks kind of just looking for the ‘default’ FM sounds and being okay with it. I get the impression folks want that cheese to be up front and center…i dunno. But having dived deep into the Digitone for my own amusement, it’s definitely got a lot of room to explore, especially when you start incorporating the dual LFO routings and the dual filters. It doesn’t take a whole lot to get ‘beyond the norm’ of typical FM tonal qualities with it.
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Lfo and mod wheel set to ratio offsets.
🤌🏼
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Having spent some time with a DX7 Mk1 recently, I was surprised by some of its limitations. For example, the LFO can only modulate pitch and amplitude. Presumably this was due to limited processor power, and a design philosophy focused on replicating real world instruments, rather than weirdo sound design. The Digitone by comparison has two LFOs that can modulate anything, including ALGORITHM.
My point is, it’s kinda weird that people fetishize the DX7. It’s cool, and I get why it’s iconic, but there are other FM synths with a lot to offer.
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This is how Elektron describes the Digitone :
A new deal
Digitone represents our vision of how FM synthesis can be revitalized and modernized. Here’s how: combine FM sound generation with a classic subtractive synthesis signal flow. From jagged chaos to mellow soundscapes in less than a second. Digitone is one unique box.
Ultra digital
Choose from multiple FM algorithms featuring carefully selected parameters. Shape the tones with powerful filters. Arrange them with the intuitive Elektron sequencer. Round off with the stellar effects. Now enjoy the most spectacular sounds, seemingly emanating from some parallel universe.
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Huge side question. I got a rev 2 and been liking the idea of picking up a digitone , would I be missing out on something solid by selling the rev 2 for a prologue 8 and a DN ?
I think it depends on how deep you go with the rev 2’s mod matrix. I know I underuse my rev 2 (my only analog polysynth) and often think I’d be well served by a simpler alternative. But I also hope to grow into it, so will for sure keep it for a while longer.
I do also have a DN, and have to say that its synth engine is really immediate: so many sweet spots to be found in just a few moments of twiddling. I do find that I am feeling my way around ratio settings and harmonics more than I am deliberate about them, but the exploration is so enjoyable. And the LFOs and filters allow for some crazy sculpting.
So yeah…how are you currently using your rev 2?
My TX81Z was 4 operators
My DN also only 4 operators
Neither are limited…imo…
DN is 20 times easier and far more powerful with the sequencer…
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If your friends feels iffy about it, buy them a dedicated FM synth with as many operators as possible with your budget
Interesting thread.
Very attracted to a DN at the moment.
- User friendly FM
- Substractive options
- Very nice FX
- 4 parts multitimbral
- Elektron sequencer
- Nice ARP
- 2 LFOs
Would go nice with OT and DT…
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Thanks for the input . I’m using it in a similar way , it’s my only analog Poly . I’ve yet to make a usable patch utilizing all of the lfo’s and mod matrix slots , though there are patches that I find soo tasty im finding the narrow sweet spots challenging .
That’s a tough call. The prologue is much easier to program then the rev 2 with more sweet spots. But the rev 2 has way more modulation options and personally I love the brassier sound when the filter is more open. Of course with the digitone you can send the midi channel lfo’s and parameter locks to prologue’s cc parameters and get crazy modulations as a result. If it was the only way to afford the digitone, then I think the prologue/digitone pairing would be great but I think the prophet pairs better with it.
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I mean yes, you do want to get everyone what they actually want over what you think they really want. Surprises suck!
But, if there’s some flexibility in what they want over spec and how many ops they “need”, again as persons mention the integration is ~super~ powerful as a package. The Digitone can’t be beat in its niche, even if it’s not a Yammy or Massive.
It might be useful to give a basic description of the Elektron groovebox approach and sequencer-as-instrument to them in the handover, at least to connect intent for design. If they’re familiar with other boxes they’ll have an appreciation for flexibility over spec or mix isolation already
Unrelated to anything, but i’m curious how many persons who used to use popular VSTs to make grime, dubstep… or brostep might have transitioned to hardware like this.
I can see how simpler retro FM applications flow from ease of programming but it’s harder for me to reverse engineer more complicated vocal formant sounding patches with the interface. I probably need to locate a good advanced programming video or guide (do persons even upload written guides anymore? 
)