The great thing with DN and drums is the Multi Map. Should be on all Elektrons. (Also present on A4).
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I think it depends. If you want to jam around and have fast access to some drums, something like the tr8s is perfect.
But if you want some drums for genres that need processing, choosing a sample can be much faster than building a drum kit. Also if you are not satisfied while building your track, scrolling through samples gives you different things fast, while tweaking a drum machine takes some time then. I like both. I just had some preferred settings on drum machines, and always came back to use them again. So I could use a sample anyways.
I personally donāt see a benefit using a dt over ot but maybe Iām wrong as I never used one.
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Itās incredibly faltering but undeniably powerful. At each level you hit new frustrations. Iāve just started going beyond (deep) one pattern noodles. And I keep remembering much too late that changes I make to machines in one pattern can affect the rest. I know why, I just forget. Compared to digitakt itās a bit like finding that when you take some eggs out of the fridge it fucks the central heating.
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The pattern thing has its pros and cons for sure. I like it, because it makes finishing tracks easier because if you filter a sound to give another one room its changed on every pattern for example.
Forgetting things is a problem, ot needs to be a bit like your instrument. You have to use it every second day to stay in the flow. I had some frustration at the beginning too, but after using a lot, most things make sense.
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Case in point. Just resampled a loop from master on t7, sounded great, mashed it up, messed about, had great fun, saved as new project, went back to the old one, realised Iād lost the resample because I didnāt manually save it and assign to free flex and then select that flex slot on t7 (multiple stupid steps they could fix in firmware update) and Iād made lots of changes so recreating the original master sample would be hard. That sort of thing. Fuck that.
They could make me love this machine if they just had features to auto save buffers, or one click to say "save all buffers, assign to flex or static slots, select those slots for whatever track machines were previously using those corresponding record buffers ".
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Loving it again now.
Basically if you accept that the octatrack is dreadful itās brilliant.
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Hereās some inspiration for you Octanauts if you are feeling burnt out on the Octatrack.
Take one synth (or a groovebox if you prefer)
Plug it in to OT
Have each track on OT be a thru track
Have the first effect of each track be a EQ or Filter
Set the frequency of each track differently
Set different effects on FX slot 2 for each track.
Play your synth and have fun exploring
You can get some really cool patches by exploring distortion/compressor at different frequencies.
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Yep. Can be interesting on drums too. Filters set to 24 db.
Isolate kicks, snare, hihat/cymbals.
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Thatās so cool!
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A friend of mine has a Liven XFM, and as far as price:performance I canāt think of anything better in hardware right now. Full, 4 op FM with nearly control-per-parameter editing for around $200 USD! Sure the Volca FM is cheaper and has 6op with DX compatibility, but itās also tiny without any real deep editing capability and a much more limited sequencer.
PreenFM looks excellent, Iāve had my eyes on them for a long time and now that my TX802 is having problems Iād probably build one if I could afford to, but it also doesnāt have much in the way of performance control (plus DIY only and PCBs are out of production). For me personally, Iād either go with PreenFM or maybe a MIDIbox FM but as far as off the shelf stuff, Iām really impressed by the XFM (and the Liven stuff in general, Iāve had an 8bit Warps since launch and I really like it even though it doesnāt have a home in my setup right now.
Just throwing that out there so itās on peopleās radar, itās a good, affordable instrument if you need some performance oriented FM.
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MEGAfm is easily my favourite of the current FM synth offerings, really canāt be doing with the shifty menu diving style of programming on the others. The Mk.II is a fair bit less noisy than the Mk.I in most of the YT demos if thatās a concern, but still has some unique character and dirt so not ideal if youāre looking for super clean glassy tones I guess.
Think I accidentally opened up a FM rabbit hole here, sorry for that. Maybe continue that discussion somewhere else and stick with ways to love the OT here.
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Iāve never owned or used an OT, and Iām already frustrated with it. Makes me want to get one.
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Not owning just the one is frustrating, imagine not owning three after the first two were so frustrating that you had to not sell them to retain your sanity.
Not owning just the one has saved you a stack of cash, pat yourself on the back! 
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loving this 
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Buy an SP404mkII in the hopes that it will be a simpler and more fun stereo sampler. Spend a few hours learning how it works, and then run back into the arms of your OT which you now finally appreciate and love.
This has been my experience this weekend.
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As I contemplate buying my first one (of many sell-off/re-buy causality loops), could you all please rate what is most painful in order from most to least?
1 - Stubbing your toe on the corner of your bed frame
2 - Thrusting bamboo shoots underneath your fingernails
3 - Learning to use the Octatrack
#3 requires #1 and #2, so Iām not sure itās really quantifiable in that way.
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Not familiar with that one, I have to take a look! I forgot DAFM (the Genesis/Megadrive soundchip synth, although they have versions fo rother OPL-family chips now, too). I got one early in its life on and itās quite good but fell off my radar for a while because the early versions like my first one couldnāt run later firmware that fixed some early design missteps, and since itās a single person operation (or was back then) it took a year and a half to get the free replacement board so I could run the good firmware. Itās definitely worthy if you want that particular flavor of FM, though. A bit like a Yamaha FB-01 with full front panel editing and a pretty good GUI. Just be careful about seconhand, becausesome of the year one versions canāt be updated (but even those would be great for FM drums and basic chip sounds).
TBH, my first synth was a TX802 I got as a teenager in the late 90s that started to have output problems (all 10 of the outs suddenly went so quiet that you can barely hear them over the noise floor with if you add about 60-70dB of gain, and it isnāt the transistors that are a known issue so it might be above my skill level to fix and out of my budget to send to someone that can - the headphone out is still fine, at least) but I finally found a free PSS-570 in the trash a couple weeks ago (one of my favrite toy keyboards of all time, Iāve had my eye out for a free one since 2011) and honestly it sounds better to me than any DX Iāve ever used. I also like the FB-01 better than any DX (except maybe the DX21, that chorus is nice) but I gave mine away to a friend three years ago when you could still find two or three of them under $50 every time you searched eBay.
I think I just prefer low end FM, especially 2 op. The TG-33 is the only āproā FM synth I actually get much use out of anymore, even before the 802 started having trouble.
EDIT: MEGAfm looks great! A little expensive but not actually as expensive as I thought it would be when I saw the front panel. YM2612 is going to have that 9 bit DAC and low resolution operators like the other low-end FM synths I like, so if I was looking that would be the one I looked at first. Seems to be essentially two FB-01ās in a box with a bunch of hands-on control, and that sounds fantastic to me.
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