This chip music background and almost obsession with monophonic stuff is exactly why I avoided Elektron gear for a long time.
Argument about being located in Sweden is not really an argument in any sense to me. Especially if that’s an argument why they use ‘cheaper’, ‘worse’ parts than competitors. Just think about it.
You’re so right on that ! 
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Because they have to pay their workers Swedish wages, they have to cut corners somewhere, is my speculation. Instead of using a cheap plastic case and cheap buttons, they go for quality and then have to cut costs somewhere else, eg the screen and the polyphony.
Where did you get that information from out of interest?
I believe they still use DSP chips (Freescale)
Unless i can see a tear down, I’ll stick to my original assumption.
Oh that was my impression from reading around here … I don’t know a thing about chips really. Will amend the comment.
And so what? Every company pays their workers the wage they are able to in a certain country, does it make the synth better if it’s built by higher paid workers? (if they hypothetically save on parts) It’s a wild guess of yours and if it’s true I would be quite pissed to know that, Elektron isn’t the cheapest brand already. There are countries with amazing specialists in other countries, it shouldn’t be connected to where they are located at, it’s company’s choice not consumers.
We don’t get discounts by country we buy from, any synth will be luxury in low GDP countries but in the end more or less actually have to pay premium price to even get it.
Cancel. Yes, abandon.
No it doesn’t make it better, as is obvious from all the defective Elektron boxes coming out in the last year. It makes it more expensive.
This is why the Behringer Neutron will cost only €350. Because it is mass-made in China. The same thing made in the EU in smaller numbers would cost double (at least).
BTW I am NOT advocating that any company should manufacture in China. It is a criminal practice that is destroying the planet for the sake of cheap gadgets.
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Higher wages should not mean worse products. Or at least that’s what I take away from your post/argument. Higher wages should mean BETTER products and quicker delivery, etc.
Not everything has to be made in China to be competitive. World today is pretty well connected. I’m fine as long as worker gets a competitive salary in their country and that means better product for me, whoever he is Swedish or Chinese, Siberian or whoever.
Sorry for the off-topic, 90% of the time I have to press ‘cancel’ on this forum, but this just doesn’t make sense.
Just take OB, everybody complains about devs being too expensive/rare in Sweden, why not have a remote team then who could make 3-4 times more work than 1 high paid worker in Sweden. (they might already have but clearly not big enough) It’s amazing to support local business but we are not all Swedish and we buy instruments which are universal.
Over and out.
You’re right. the MC909 was a usability nightmare though. And it was not cheap.
They use Freescale Coldfire microprocessor which are microprocessors. They’re not “DSP chips”.
See here for example. That’s the DT, not the DN, but @Ess has stated repeatedly that they’re using the same platform for the DN.
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Same platform, but I thought they had to add another chip to offload some of the computing ?
Yeah, I think they mentioned “dual processor” so I assume that they added another one of those. Not that that in itself is a simple thing to deal with, but that seems most likely.
Again, I haven’t looked inside a DN yet, so who knows?
i guess the same logic could be applied to all those expensive polysynths that are only monotimbral or bitimbral. How come they can’t have a different patch for every voice card? Hmmmmm…
Just playing devils advocate here. I love the multi timbrality of the elektron devices, highly lacking in other hardware synths IMO. There are a few, but it’s either you trade up voice count for multi timbrality or you get a ton of voices and the most you can do is split the patches on the keyboard.
I would love to see a list of multi timbral synthesizers that have individual sequencer tracks plocks etc.
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I’m not sure if its only a design choice in case of elektron. the p-lock ‘way’ must be a killer on memory/processing power. you can change almost every parameter in milliseconds. also overbridge relies on USB which has limited bandwidth. I`m not even sure how they gonna solve it with 8 tracks. On my AK, which has proper ob already, I’ve never been able to use all the tracks at once (on a powerful PC w. tip-top usb ports).
I also have nord drum 3P, which has a good 500ms lag on preset change.
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i had a preen fm2, that thing has the nastiest noise burst/click that i just couldn’t stand when changing patches. I was spoiled by elektron, instant parameter changes, and even the ability to smooth parameter changes between steps.
the digitone is very attractive to me because I know i won’t have these problems, simple elektron design ethos that is echoed through all their machines that we oft take for granted.
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I think small companies don’t have the wherewithal to encase their products in bespoke plastic cases. It is far easier, and probably cheaper, for them to use metal boxes.
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You are right.
the thing is, you can implement plenty of DSP code not on a dedicated DSP chip…there is a growing trend towards running it on a microcontroller like an ARM…