I got the link to the preorder yesterday, and did a last internal review to decide if the Deluge was the better bet for me after all, despite wife’s wisdom and fellow Elektronauts’ advise.
In the end, I decided not to go for it and stick with the Digitakt.
I’m much more into samples these days, and have grown tired of the synth oscillator sound. As if there’s such a thing, but I kind of think it is. I’m not moved at all by the Novation Peak, I couldn’t care less about the Deepmind, and even the Prophet-6 has faded before me. They all sound like they come from more or less the same place.
I do love the Moog, I think it has a special spot in the sonical landscape and I enjoy playing it so much. It really speaks to me. And I love the Yamaha Reface CS. Where the Moog is raw and clean, the Reface is like an old tape from one of David Lynch’s labs. Twisted and distorted, weird and wonderful.
But other than that, a synth that just sounds damn good, but also like many other synths, VA or hardware, just doesn’t capture me anymore, no matter its features. It’s hard to find character in a modern electronic instrument today, and when you do, you should hold on to that. And samples reflect so much more of your own character, poured into an instrument. Well, it does, for me. Obviously, to each his own.
The Deluge might have plenty of character and since I don’t have one, haven’t played one, haven’t heard one in real life, I don’t know what I’m talking about. But it’s not like an end of the world decision, just a clear realisation that samples are really my thing these days, the pue synth oscillator not so much, and the Digitakt seems on paper pretty flawless to me.
There’s just no reason to go anywhere else, when most of what I’m looking for is inside me and I just need to pour it into something that can transfer my ideas into exactly what I want. The Digitakt’s it.