How I learned to stop worrrying and love the Digitone
Warning: WALL OF TEXT. Sorry.
Many of you on this forum will have seen me vocalizing my issues regarding the Digitone and its many (many many) drawbacks and handicaps. To give a bit of background, this is my 5th Elektron box. I own (or have owned) an Analog Four, Octatrack, Monomachine (x2, sold), and a Machinedrum (sold) and I’ve gotten the chance to play with the Rytm on a few occasions at a buddy’s house. I say this not to brag, but to give you some context as to where I am coming from - I am well-versed in Elektron’s way of doing things across multiple devices. I also have a Virus C, 0Coast, and Fatman (the latter 2 being analog).
I initially bought the Digitone in hopes of having a new type of synthesis to learn and to have a smaller box with the amazing Elektron sequencer built in that I could easily travel with or sit on my couch and knock out sketches and ideas. Given my love of all the other boxes, I figured the DN was a no-brainer in terms of adding it to my setup both for the formerly mentioned purposes, plus it would add a different sound pallet to my already existing hardware collection.
While I read the manual, checked out tons of forum posts, and watched a gazillion videos on the machine, you all know that getting one in hand is a much different experience than just research. Once I got it, I realized all of the little things that were missing from the bigger machines - slides, individual track times, individual track swing, bandpass/notch filters, the way the voice stealing works, no frigging MIDI arp. All these things infuriated me to no end. Elektron is obviously capable of creating these features, so what’s the point (besides money) to leave them off?
So I told myself “well, you still have a few weeks to try it out before the return window is closed, so I might as well dive into it and see what I can come up with”. I downloaded the demo packs for all of the soundbanks, rearranged the location of all the presets (any sounds I don’t create myself got copied to banks F-H) and started creating.
Holy crap. The sounds I was able to create even in the first few hours were great. I love doing sound design and the shit I’m getting out of this machine brings a smile to my face every single time. I’ll sit with my Virus or A4 and just make sounds that will get used for songs later, or my bandmate will send me a track in progress and I’ll replace sounds he’s got in there with custom ones, and I can see this being added to the mix. The DN’s biggest strength is how it sounds. Everything from metallic bass stabs to ethereal pads to morphing sound fx and percussion to beautiful leads, I’ve gotten tons of great material out of it already (probably 2 dozen presets since last Tuesday). LFOs and parameter locks on harmonics, ratios, levels, and feedback can all create wildly different and evolving sounds that are fantastic. While some of the limitations of flaws (clicks everywhere!) get in the way of sound otherwise choice sounds, I believe I am growing to accept that as an inevitability with this particular machine.
As for the form factor, it’s pretty much the perfect size. It’s easy to carry, fits in my lap (I can use it on my couch while my wife is watching the Kardashians…) and the buttons/knobs are laid out in a way that is easy for muscle memory to retrieve. The inputs/outputs are acceptable, though individual outs would always be welcome (firmware update??? 
).
My conclusion is that I will probably keep the synth, if anything, just for it’s sound design capabilities (assuming my bandmate thinks the sounds are something that would work for the music we’re currently writing). I can hope that Elektron will update it with things like MIDI Arp, bandpass/notch filters, dedicated LFO filters in all those empty spaces on the 2nd filter page (or perhaps dedicated delay controls per track!!?), a 3rd LFO or the ability to assign one LFO to multiple sources, assignable envelopes, p-locking FX, p-locking arpeggiator settings (though a PITA workaround someone mentioned is saving different versions of a sound with the arp settings then using soundlocks), more MIDI note polyphony (which would be faked in a way using microtiming), and making it easier to avoid clicks during long pads and reoccurring notes, but as we all know, we can’t bank on any of that happening so we have to enjoy the synth as it is. The DN is a sound-design beast, and while some of the features and sequencer is lacking in certain areas where the bigger boxes excel, I’m beginning to see it’s beauty shine through (or stab through, depending on the preset) and I can see myself getting good use out of it over time, especially when sequenced by my DAW. Plus, I feel like this paired with my A4 will create the ultimate ambient dream-machine.
Now discuss among yourselves.
Elektron