If all the patterns were linked by kits I probably wouldn’t keep this thing. I’m so into the pattern separation!
With the analogs they are freely assignable…
You can have one kit for every pattern if you want just like the DT, but you have the option of sharing a kit to any amount of patterns.
Also on any pattern, you can load one of the 128 kits to it any time you want…
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Loading the kits into any pattern sounds cool…
The sound pool is the new equivalent, it’s quite useful.
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Analogs have sound pools too, and 128 freely assignable kits… Just FYI…
They have a bunch of options, you can set it to reload the saved kit every time you change pattern, or keep all changes to the 128 kits in ram. You can also reload the current kit, or reload all kits…
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well that’s pretty sweet certainly… but I feel satisfied with the current system
I know, I’m not trying to win you over, DT rocks!
I’m just a kit guy, and I talk about kits, some people might not know what they do…
No need for apologies. It’s exactly what I think about the “simplified models”. Yes, they are more intuitive, but for my taste you loose simply too much flexibility workflow-wise. I will always prefer a swiss-knife over a single tool even if some learning effort will be necessary.
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Elektron’s just going through it. The older units had a rep of being confusing even though they’re super flexible. Some people don’t think they’re confusing, many do. Many people got them because they were super flexible. Then they made much simpler ones which are awesome for some but not flexible enough for others, especially the users that liked Elektron for there complexity and flexibility…
Maybe in some more years they’ll find some awesome balance of flexibility with out confusion, although that’s a really tuff task, how can you make complexity simple it’s like an enigma. The more flexible you make something the less straight forward it is…
Maybe they’ll just split more and rift into more complex ones and more simplified ones…
There’s only been two simpler ones now so I’m sure they’re observing what happens to evaluate what they should do in the future. It seems they can’t win, it’s always too simple for some or too complex for others…
Personally I don’t know any other company that makes hardware as complex and flexible as MD, MnM, OT, and Analogs, except computer programs… I thought that was there niche, who else is going to do it if they stop? Maybe some other brand will…
If they keep doing what they’re doing its almost like they’ll have two separarate user bases. It’s a strange situation…
Yes the DT and DN do seem super sweet, but imagine if they had all the options and performance features of the older boxes, they’d rule… They probably will make more complex ones in the future still, but again it’s weird as it might create two separate users basis that overlap some but aren’t really one big group…
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I only fear that the flexible boxes will loose in the long run leaving the market blank (as you said: no one else produces such machines).
There are no real numbers available, but I think that the simple boxes sells like crazy compared to the more complex ones and they are definitely much cheaper in development (costs scale exponentially with complexity).
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Personally I think the sales have less to do with these newer boxes being simple and more to do with them being half the price. The Digitakt was the first piece of Elektron gear my local rental shop ever had and I fell in love. The Digitone is also really unique and I’m an FM guy so I would pick it over the A4 even if they were the same price.
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I really think I’d love the digi’s if I had them. I just think it’d be sweet if the DT could loop and have slices and things, if there were neat new school performance features, and if you could do basic things like separate clock from transport and stuff. Doesn’t mean I wouldn’t absolutely enjoy them for what they are if you threw em at me…
And it is certainly nice to get the units at a lower price… I bet they’ll get some more tricks after awhile too… I see things a lot of ways, and my statements or questions certainly aren’t absolute…
This is my concern as well. The big boxes are awesome, the smaller boxes are more like everything else out there by other manufacturers… But it must indeed be a helluva job trying to design a product for both camps. I just hope the big box UX paradigms will not go the way of the dodo…
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The A4 mk2 was my first elektron gear. Then I sold it and I am happy I did. For me the DN is way more suited. Easier to do nice stuff without the steep learning curve - so less frustration. Now I am really happy to have OT, DN and DT - they‘re an awesome ensemble.
made my day … just remembered that scene from Ice Age: “there goes our last female” 
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I think it would be very easy to have a setting to make a pattern affected or not by the overall parameter changes.
It’s horrible when you chain some and start tweaking but that effect in the sound doesn’t remain on the next one…
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Yea mate I’m running into this problem as we speak… Just got my Digitone yesterday and I’m super disappointed in the parameter carryover…
Isn’t that a relatively easy firmware update…? To make those parameters global per sound within the sound bank? Surely with the complexity of these machines and update such as that should not be impossible.
It is certainly an issue that makes things more difficult. Doing a clean filter sweep over 4 chained patterns is damn near impossible. I have to resort to running it through my ms20 filter and recording that.
A nice way around it would be to have a global effects page that works over all patterns that you could tweak live.
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For now the only thing I can do is to use Ableton as the sequencer but, you know, no conditional trigs, no parameter locks, etc.
This step backwards with pattern flexibility is what stops me from buying a Digitone. I was hoping these new Elektron boxes would improve how they handle external inputs and FX, allowing these boxes to maintain settings between tracks for smooth FX transitions. Instead, removing kits/parts is a step backwards for the overall Elektron universe.
I don’t really understand the value of external inputs if their architecture means that its very easy to mess up a transition and have your fx sound off.
I have more problems working with kits to be honest… I know the advantages of both. Would be nice to have a link function though - there is plenty of space in the menu for that.