As a TR-8S and Digitakt owner, I don’t see what this Donner device will add to your music. But I hope to be surprised by it.
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Check out this machine called the Elektron Model:Samples.
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Im sorry if this is a dumb question, but you can unquantize record with the Digitakt, and manually move your steps, have you already been trying that out?
Would that make Octatrack users happy tho?
I figured I would post this just to save everyone some time. The video’s kind of useless.
There’s no demo. The dude from Donner doesn’t really tell us anything about it that we can’t see on the website. But he did say that it’s coming in May and that it should be $249.
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It also amazes me how bad some of these reps are. A bit of hyperboly here, but it should be criminal when a product demo isnt provided at a music gear show.
I think this will be exactly what he said at the beginning. A sample based drum machine for kids to start their journey with. Which is cool. I started with a Roland Dj70. Which needless to say, wasnt the best kit for a total beginner.
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Damn. I feel sorry for him. The guy shooting the video is trying to help him but he’s just struggle city. Dude should have took a few English freshener classes before Namm. You can tell that he’s super nervous. Not sure he even knew if you can sample through the AUX in. Poor bot.
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I don’t think the issue is just the language barrier. Donner has made essentially a real-life 3D render of a product and paid a guy (probably very little money) to represent the company. That ‘D1 Drum Machine’ almost certainly doesn’t even have any functionality at this point.
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Yeah, it feels like they just threw that guy to the wolves doesn’t it!? Like, you can hear in his voice that he really doesn’t know what the AUX in is supposed to be used for. Hahaha.
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Plot twist, the Donner rep went to lunch and the security guard wanted to live his life long dream of being a gear rep.
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And he’s a much better salesman and somehow he got that mockup to actually function! Someone get a new vid quick!
Before Donner sells all their stocks off!
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Careful now, its all speculation. Maybe it does have functionality, maybe not. Just because we didnt see any in the video, isnt conclusive.
The demo blokes english was clearly limited, and he was having trouble with the script. Could I do the same thing in another language? No I could not.
Ive done trade shows when I worked in the skate industry, you get paid the same days wages as when you’re in your usual office role. And they pay your flights, accomodation, food, and you end up with a fair bit of free shit, and there’s the parties of course.
Some of the comments are starting to smell a bit here. Donner are quite clear, its a cheap, entry level drum machine. Its probably not of any interest to a lot of people on this forum.
Good on them for making something their own, and not just copying old shit…
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Nah, it apparently works. There’s another video where a dude is just going over what’s at the Donner booth. It’s not worth watching but he does hit the pads and you can hear some sound coming out. But he wasn’t able to really record it.
Personally, a cheap, simple, portable sampler will probably always interest me. I doubt this one will be for me. But I want to know more about it.
I think I’m also curious just because it’s the only new sampler besides the Tracker Mini.
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Its kinda really hard to beat Koala though right?
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Nah, I have an old phone. Koala doesn’t start up half the time for me. And I’m not sure how much more reliable it would be if I get a new one since I’m using Android. So right now, as good of a program as it is, it’s pretty easy to beat.
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One thing I’ll say about donner is that I don’t know how many companies they actually produce remarketer gear for (pedals mostly but also electric guitars and other instruments) but they seem to be at the center of it, and they’re doing a pretty interesting job of taking the step towards making some affordable (though not particularly original) instruments for making electronic music. With that said, I can see they’re borrowing a lot from korg with this packaging as it seems they’ve adopted a form factor that lives somewhere inbetween the sq64 and the nanokontrol studio with a bit of mpc market grab in the pad department. It’s not original, but I’m interested to watch the inevitable episode of bad gear to see what it can or cannot do well.
Especially since with some of the other sample based units out there like the sonicware liven lofi12, there’s so little real world information out there it’s like a guessing game as to what things are actually capable of… I might not fork out $250 to find out, but it’s nice that there’s something like this that will be in that ballpark price range because if it turns out to be decent, it’s unlikely the company will try and do any price hikes in the future. Also since I have an ancient phone I can’t really run any cool apps so hardware always interests me.
The more I look at the machine, the more I want to find out how practical the UI is. Something seems off about it in terms of haptics…
Also Donner means thunder in german, so that’s another oddity point added. 
I thought it’s the food, like meat in a wrap, donner kebab something…
I remember seeing many places like this in Berlin
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Ah the Chinese bad knockoff excuse of a drum machine, please don’t make me laugh.
Ah yes, Döner Kebap. Yummy!
Btw, that company seems to make all kinda of stuff. Instruments like keyboards, e-drums, guitars, but also pedals, mics and interfaces…and they’re rivaling B with their use of stock images. 
Anyways, it’s oddly refreshing to see them trying to do something original, isn’t it?
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