Have to agree with you here, and I think it is quite noble that the op is considering others above his own needs.
The whole ‘other things are worse’ attitude only contributes to a downward spiral.
Ultimately people can only police their own behaviour. Set your own standards in the hope that others will follow, rather than looking around to see how low the bar has been set.
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Between Drambo, Grooverider GR 16 and Koala on an iPad you have sampler, modular synth and high quality groovebox emulation that could last a lifetime, with the added benefit of being able to add additional excellent synths (eg FM, Moog, Juno, 303) and amazing FX for an average price of about $7 per app. They can all connect together via MIDI in a host app like AUM. So you’ll never get bored.
I have about 100 music apps on my eight year old iPad Air 2 that isn’t even being supported by new Apple iOS updates and everything still runs flawlessly on an individual app basis. So you can look for a refurbished, slightly out of date iPad model for cheap and still have confidence it will run most music apps well for years. You don’t need an expensive one with the M1 chip unless you have budget for it.
For the use case you describe, discrete, quiet, lightweight and public use, the iPad is a no brainer. And if you do want to add hardware at some point like a Digitakt, the iPad plays beautifully with it.
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Roland T-8
Circuit
MC-101
All silent, small and battery powered
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The MC-101 is definitely very silent. That said, clicking buttons on the Digitakt/Syntakt isn’t that much louder than typing on a laptop so I’m not sure how anyone would have a problem with it on a train for example.
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You sound very considerate.
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Deluge
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Get your point but I think not everyone of them will really ask for this. Not everybody is self-assured enough to do this.
Yes, understood. You cannot know that all of this is far out of my scope. I, personally, do never want to produce anything. I don’t think I can give anything of value to the community or any potential listener. Maybe simply my own quality demands are too high to ever reach them without neglecting my family or other commitments. Therefore I do not have and never want to have a soundcloud/bandcamp/whatever account or produce videos of what I’m doing. I just want to jam. Nothing else. Just to make that clear. No offence to anyone producing and publishing music. I like to listen to other’s music, of course. 
That is exactly my point.
Not sure if I’d find it again. But I heard it clearly. But of course you never know the absolute sound level of such things in videos. So I thought:
[quote=“senor-bling, post:27, topic:185571”]
The Circuit might appear to be clicky placed on a resonating desk. Operated on the lap it should be more silent than the average notebook.
[/quote] <-- this.
Thank you. That is what I’m always trying, maybe not allways reaching.
So this thread seems to turn more into a personal advice than a general comparison. OK. You’re Elektronauts. That’s okay
So let me organize my thoughts:
Blackbox
As already said, it seems a bit too much programming, less jamming.
OP-Z
Could be very funny. Not sure if velocity sensitive buttons should really be a claim. I don’t know if I really use it excessively on the train. Could make the use of a device even louder. So maybe the OP-Z is enough. Has many other cool features. Only issue is: On Ebay I see a lot of bent devices. Whatever leads to it. Aren’t they mechanically very strong?
Model:Samples/Cycles
Love the Elektron sequencer. Of course much more limited than the DT. Not 100% sure if it’l be the best for me. But would take it if there’d be no better alternative.
Circuit Tracks
Looks very interesting. Think it should be available for testing in my local store. Can imagine that I’ll be frustrated about only having 2 synth tracks. Don’t need the MIDI tracks for my use case. Internal battery is nice of course. Price is very good.
Deluge
Nice, but I don’t think to much about it because it’s simply too expensive to play around. I’d like to stay under/around € 500, new or used.
Roland T-8
Has not been on my screen. But I think it’s too simple and too much “techno”. Maybe have a look to some videos
SP-404
I think I need to have a closer look to some tutorials with the actual updates. On first view it does not look like it’s my workflow.
MC-101
I think 4 tracks won’t be enough.
Laptop with performance friendly DAWs
How to explain this correctly… I’m working the whole day on a notebook. I take my work notebook in my bag. Making music on it is too much a like-work feeling for me. It’s just a psychological thing. I don’t want to work on a laptop in a train after having done this for hours before in my office.
Ipad with apps
I am totally out of this apple environment and all these apps. My work phone is an Iphone but it’s used for work only. My private phone is a Fairphone with e.foundation OS and only basic apps like email and maps. I’m simply not familiar with this app world.
I had a macbook in 2009 and threw it away after about 4 or 5 years. I was very frustrated that after only 5 years updates led to make it running so slowly that I simply couldn’t use it anymore.
Having an Ipad ONLY for the described use case is something I could imagine. Mitrack and drambo look nice. I don’t have any clue about the required performance for those apps. The simple actual Ipad is enough? Or which earlier version should I buy used? I really don’t have an overview about all versions and their advantages and disadvantages.
BTW: I definitely want to use a 3.5 mm headphone jack. Do all Ipad versions have that?
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iPads are what, $300-400? An iPad just to run Drambo is cheaper, more portable, more powerful, and more capable than any hardware groovebox in that price range. Silent and inconspicuous.
Also good for you for thinking about being a socially conscious commuter.
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It’s more like 19 tracks if you allocate one drum track with 16 individual pads and three tone tracks. And so long as you don’t use all the 16 drum pads as drums you can add loops and one-shots on the spare pads.
And of course each clip on the track can have a different sound to the last clip (same for the drum tracks, every pad can switch sounds on following clips).
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My 2 cents
I had a blackbox and even it was very nice it wasn’t so easy to use it “on the road” cause you need a power bank.
I think it’s always better to use a battery powered device for traveling and using outside. Op z seems to be a good choice. Deluge is a good one too. iPad or laptop are obviously very good options.
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Unfortunately, but no. Of the current line of iPads, only the most basic iPad has a headphone jack. But the good news is that Drambo will easily run on it because it has low hardware requirements (I don’t know about mirack).
With other iPads you have to use an adapter from usb-c to jack.
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Polyend Play?
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I had plans to use my Model:Cycles on my train commute this fall. I didn’t. In a bit of COVID theatre, they had installed plexiglass partitions between the seats, and I felt too confined. I just listened to music and looked out the window. Sometimes I read. But my commute was three hours one way, two one-way journeys each week. If I had to do it more often, I would try using an iPad (which I have been slowly exploring for musical purposes at home). Or maybe a Circuit Tracks, though I have not used one yet.
I would be annoyed by someone else using a Digitakt in the same train car. Parts of the train are designated as “quiet zones” but people often ignore that.
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if i was commuting on a train i would bring something small that i could quickly take in and out of my bag: gameboy + lsdj or m8, op-z, qy-70, or something w/o knobs–PO33/35 would be an exception. i dont want to bring anything too nice that draws attention esp with blinking lights.
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If you happen to end up with Blackbox then I will recommend what I think the best portable setup I’ve ever seen:
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These things are quieter (on the inside) than most grooveboxes. The Italian high speed rail I’ve been on felt like an older generation of Shinkansen - ride was a little bit rougher, a little bit more noisy, but still a place where a clacky keyboard or groovebox would spoil the mood.
Silence is expected in First Class / Green Car on all trains in Japan.
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iPad with Korg Gadget will keep you busy for ages. There is a lot of power in that app alone.
Second the vote for the Circuits.
It might depend what kind of music you like to jam, but I reckon the Blackbox is actually a pretty good option, and with a decent powerbank runs reliably and forever-ish.
It doesn’t actually have to be all that programmy either. I find the screen for playing drums or keys into the sequencer much more playable than I would have expected, I actually enjoy it (I got a beatstep to use as the pads and I like that less).
The good thing about Blackbox is it gives you a lot of different ways of working. It’s a good place to store a heap of samples and snippets of recordings and reuse and mangle them. It also doesn’t scream “hey, I’m a music device”.
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Can you sample to a pad over usb or do you need a computer to do this kind of thing (and resampling tone tracks to looper)? Trying to work out how self-contained the mc101 really is.
People are not really aware anymore of what influence their noisy amusement and behaviour has on fellow travelers and eventually themselves.
I’m happy to read that people DO care and that:
is not the thought of most of you in this thread.
By just using some imagination, I can almost feel that comforting joy of all these passengers embracing the silence 
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