tl;dr: I’m trying to choose which one to keep and it’s really hard. Both have pros and cons and I may keep - or sell - both. Perhaps my (long!) ramblings can serve as a product comparison review to anyone else out there choosing their first (or second) groovebox.
This may be a slightly ridiculous comparison and choice, but I currently own both the Syntakt and the MC-101 and I’ve decided I need to downsize my hardware setup and focus more on music making again by leveraging the DAW as the main production center instead of my MPC. I had a really good run with the MPC but I feel done with that now. I also have a couple of other hardware synths that are just collecting dust and probably need to go as well.
Still, I find hardware to be inspiring to use and after going through a number of simpler/more focused grooveboxes over the years, I’ve ended up with these two, and I’m trying to decide which one of them to keep and which to sell. The goal is to have one fun toy that can work as an inspirational device to generate new song ideas and sketches to be recorded into the DAW for final song arrangement, structure and mixing. In that process, depending on the sound of the material from the groovebox, I may keep or replace the individual tracks with new stuff in the DAW.
At the surface level, the Syntakt and MC-101 are both similar in that they’re both an interesting combination of groovebox, drum machine, sequencer, and synthesizer. But they’re also very different from one another.
The MC-101 has its liberating battery-powered portability, light and compact size, amazing Zencore synth engine - which is now surprisingly accessible too with the new 1.8 update - samples playback support, and a bunch of fun live performance tweaks like [Track]+[<], Scatter and Last Step that sometimes give you new ideas on how the song might develop. It also even resamples itself with some roundabout workflow steps via Clips tracks. And let’s not forget that it comes with a set of amazing effects, more than you’d think is possible at this size and price point: the world-famous Juno+JX chorus, distortions, amp simulators, multiband compressors, saturators, lofi effects, delays, reverbs, etc etc. It’s just so capable it’s hard to believe!
All in all, I find it to be a lovely grab-and-go kind of device that powers on and loads the most recent project in ten seconds and you’re off making music. It is AA battery powered and can also run via a USB powerbank, making it ultra portable. It’s also pretty straightforward to record into the DAW and can send both midi and per-track audio via USB.
On its downsides, it’s a finicky device, particularly the sequencer which is so much slower to program compared to the Syntakt. It’s also plasticky, doesn’t have the clever Elektron sequencer logic, is limited to four tracks (which you can workaround with some Looper work, but still), and, subjectively, it’s kind of cheap looking.
Enter the Syntakt. On paper, it’s already a more exciting device (granted, at twice the cost of the MC-101): analog VCOs, drum synthesis, 12 tracks in total, an amazing build quality, great looks (subjectively speaking), a super quick workflow (try copy+pasting 8 trig notes in the sequencer and then do the same on the MC-101 - it’s a night and day difference) and a workflow design that invites you to explore, mess up, revert, try again and stumble on gold. The sequencer lets you create almost self-generating music, the reverb sounds great, and there’s the analog effects block which adds some warmth and grit when you need it. The synth engine(s) are all very immediate and let you experiment on the fly and create movement in your music by just twisting a knob.
I don’t know, but there’s just something about the Syntakt that tickles me, it feels like entering another world. Yes, I did read the marketing material and maybe it colored me, but it does feel like the Syntakt has some otherworldly vibe to it. 
In my time evaluating the Syntakt more deeply in these last couple of days, I ended up with a new song sketch that I enjoyed and will record into the DAW later on.
But then there are plenty of downsides compared to the MC-101. First of all, I can’t help but feeling that the overall sound is a lot more limited. While the synth “machines” are tweakable, I find it hard to dial in really lush sounds. There is no chorus, no gritty distortion (the overdrive is actually pretty gentle), there’s no compressor, there are no lofi effects, and there’s no way to layer any sound with samples. The biggest omission of all is some form of polyphony, and an arpeggiator. I owned a Digitone last year and loved the way it implemented this. It’s frustrating that Syntakt doesn’t offer the same voice stealing and arp functionality as the Digitone. The Digitone also has a great chorus.
I’ve spend a few hours on sound design on the Syntakt to see if I can fill some more of my perceived gaps in the palette and I was able to approach some Juno/Jupiter sounds using the excellent SY Bits machine, and overall I’d say it does a good job at the traditional subtractive synthesis, at least to the point where all the basic sounds are there. But yeah, there’s the icing on the cake that’s missing. Honestly, remove the chorus from many of the MC-101 presets and the magic is gone. Meaning, a great chorus makes all the difference! The Digitone tickled me more in that sense and could do sweet sounding pads that the Syntakt just can’t approach without sacrificing several tracks and accepting tedious programming across those tracks.
But also, the lofi, compressors, distortion - they all make a huge difference with adding punch, warmth and tightness to drums and I honestly find Syntakt to sound thin on its own without putting a lot of work into it. Even the stock patterns/songs come with layered kicks (eg using two tracks to create a punchy kick sound), which suggests that this thing isn’t really beefy out of the box. If I jam on my Syntakt connected to the DAW, I tend to keep a parallel mix bus with some gritty, dirty distorted compression playing live so I can get into the groove more quickly. On the MC-101, I don’t have to.
And let’s not forget about portability, which is important to me. I can’t move around the house with the Syntakt without also carrying with me the power brick and cord. The MC-101 is so easy to grab in comparison, and it makes a difference.
One last con of the Syntakt is Overbridge. It could be a problem with my setup (MacBook Air 2021 and Reason 10) but things slow down considerably when recording into the DAW, to the point where twisting a knob can have up to a 0.5 second lag, which ruins the vibe entirely. Also, I couldn’t figure out how to capture the knob movements as automation lanes in the DAW, and when I tried to do it manually, things slowed down even more. The MC-101 has no problems sending all midi information to the DAW and then letting itself be sequenced from the DAW from thereon out, making it really simple to fine-tune things. With the Syntakt, I feel like I’m better off just making all those tweaks directly in the patterns on the Syntakt instead and not mess with trying to control things from the DAW.
All in all though, I feel I’m having more fun with the Syntakt. I don’t think about the workflow because it’s so seamless it never gets in my way. Instead, I quickly lay down the ideas and worry about sound design later. Whereas on the MC-101, I usually start with browsing for an amazing synth preset and then I lay down ideas based on that particular sound, and then the workflow gets in the way more. I find myself live recording more on the MC-101 to avoid the finicky step sequencer workflow. I also feel like the sequences I make on the Syntakt become more unique and different from what I’d sequence in the DAW. The p-locks offer so much creativity that a traditional filter sweep automation can’t approach.
The number of tracks on the Syntakt means I don’t worry about running out of tracks, whereas on the MC-101, I have room for drums, bass, a lead and a pad or arp, and then the tracks are filled. You can work around this by switching to sounds per clip and adding new clips to create B sections of the song with new phrases, or by resampling stuff and putting them onto drum pads, so it’s not a big deal in the end. In fact, maybe it’s good that the tracks are limited since my use case is to record into the DAW and finish up the song structure there? The Syntakt’s generous track counts means it’s possible to build nearly complete tracks on it. Pros and cons, really. The Digitone was as limited as the MC-101 in that sense, if not more given the lack of polyphony. Then again, that forced you to be more deliberate with drum loop design.
In summary, I guess I’m just reflecting on how hard it is for me to choose one over the other. I may end up keeping both because they are so different in what they’re able to generate. But I wish I could choose to keep just one because I want to spend more time making music and less time just playing around. Any thoughts or advice would be greatly appreciated!
