Same here, but I doubt it will click with me now.
Unfortunately this is my main complaint about the Deluge too, a lot of things that should be there arenāt and lots of stuff that need not be there is.
That said some aspects of it are really quite amazing and elegant, but it can feel a bit lacking in some UI areas still, but Synthstrom seem very committed to continuing to improve it and that is to be applauded.
I now really like the arranger, probably the best I have ever used on hardware, having spent some time with it. It is very different from the Octatrack arranger which I also really like, Deluge is similar to the Cubase paradigm, whereas Octatrack is more like Notator/Creator on the Atari ST, both have their merits.
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Yeah i kind of regret selling mine, but when i had it i just didnāt connect with it for some reasonā¦it has so many features though! must convince myself not to spend more moneyā¦ haha.
The Deluge is awesome in many ways.
But for every major release, while it keeps impressing in the features department, the flaws of its interface become more obvious. It wasnāt properly designed to carry this load of options, and at some point, the simplicity of a grid system with just a few knobs collided with a feature set thatās approaching a DAW.
I just think thereās a slightly indecisive nature to the whole thing.
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For the same reasons stated above Iām waiting to see what all 3.0 includes before deciding to keep, sell or maybe trade for an OT MK2, miss a fader in the house.
Feature creep is definitely something developers have to be wary of, but I havenāt felt like that with the Deluge.
The simplicity of the grid system is still thereā¦ If I choose, I could use it in almost exactly the same way as I could in mid 2017ā¦
I personally have enjoyed the new features and it works really well as my utility for various studio uses.
I do accept though that it doesnāt have the singular purpose/vision of say my OT or A4.
I took the Deluge on holiday with me recently and I felt it worked great as a standalone device for various facets of production. It lacked in the FX department but other than that I was quite satisfied.
Iāve recently used it for live midi compositions in Ableton, and Iāve got some good evolving results using the grid. Itās quite intuitive.
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Hmmm, funny I feel the same way. When I compare my desire to mess with my Digitone to the slight inner resistance sitting down with the Deluge. Itās weird, this machine is crushingly capable, but perhaps so much so it gives me mild writers block. The grid is close to a hardware piano roll DAW which isnāt a plus in everyones view. The other thing perhaps is that my creative process tends to start with sound design, exploring some timbre or other that catches my imagination, and manipulating the synth engine on the Deluge just isnāt as immediate as with Elektron gear.
Gonna keep mine though, itās not as fun as I hoped, but you still get monster results if you lean into it.
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Yeah, I mean, when all is said and done, the Deluge is a work of genius, no matter anyoneās preference and Synthstrom is a landmark on how development, community and product support should work.
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as always, super impressive updateā¦
as many have stated, it does feel like the features overgrew the hardwareā¦ then again, I never played one so I shouldnāt really say much, but every time a new update comes along, I get the same three thoughts:
- āwow, I canāt believe the keep expanding this machine! their developers are amazingā
- āif they ever release v2 of Deluge with a better screen, more hardware controlsā¦ I might be interestedā
- āman, I wish Elektron would take notesā¦ā
Does the Deluge has the ability to automatically chop up a sample (when loaded as a kit) and assign slices to the buttons?
Yes. You can assign prefered slice division and then the Dellie chops them up and makes a kit out of it.
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Thanks a lot!
Can you tell me a bit more how to set it up? Is it written in the manual? Or do you have a YouTube video that shows it?
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Itās very straight forward. This guy knows how itās done -
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wow itās just getting better and better
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This is incredible.
I have an unopened box op-1 in front of me and have serious trouble deciding if I should send it back and order the deluge or i should open the op-1 to pair with my op-zā¦
After all, multisampling and looping could be achieved with an ipad, but the whole pack of features in the deluge is incredible.
Iāve paired my Deluge with a OP-Z. So Iāve got the incredible feature package of the Deluge as well as the immediate, playfull fun box OP-Z. Looking at wavetables and MPE support + whatever will com in firmware 3.xx/4.xx/5.xx the Deluge is such a powerfull (yet not that playfull) device!
OP-1 and Deluge are two worlds apart.
Deluge is, when all is said and done, traditional music making in a grid format. Slightly unconventional interface, but the paradigm is tried and true and in many ways, it has few practical limits.
OP-1 is something else. Wherever you go, youāll run into walls and road blocks - if you decide to look at them that way. Others would view it as an extremely competent and portable four track tape recorder studio, and love it for that.
Theyāre both portable and flexible enough for complete tracks, but theyāre very different in all things that matter in practice.
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Yes I am really torn.
Same thoughts hereā¦ i may ending buying both, but I hate having more than 2 machinesā¦
Iāve had both at some point. I loved the idea of the OP-1, but at the end of the day, sitting down and writing music shouldnāt be so much about an idea of how youād love to do it, but an actual process where the tools serve one primary purpose - to get shit done. By inspiration, workflow and the right balance between options and variety.
The OP-1, as great as it is, fell short in this context for me. The Deluge had nothing but options. Itās not as fluid as youād think, though, and my muscle memory never quite got a grip on it. For reference, Iāve been on the Octatrack for years. I took a longer break from it, awhile ago. Came back to it, and after an hour or so, it felt like Iād never left it. So my muscle memoryās pretty good.
I think once you spend a lot of time with the Deluge and the muscle memory kicks in it becomes a bit more immediate to use, there are quite a few hold this and turn this operations to remember, some of which are logical, some not so much. The matrix editing for the synth section is actually quite intuitive and easy in a āhunt and peckā kind of way, and makes the best of the interface limitations, I kind of wish some of the other operations had matrix shortcuts but it probably would not fit into the UI in a cohesive way.
There are a few default behaviours that could be better though and probably speed up workflow, off the top of my head these are:
Zoom behaviour: It auto zooms and some values are not available until the data permits it, for example in arranger you canāt zoom to 1 bar per LED pad until your clips are a certain length. Iād prefer to set zoom manually to whatever I want and the option to turn auto zoom off.
Scale mode: When in keyboard view off scale notes are still available on unlit pads, and I donāt really care for the isomorphic paradigm personally, Iād prefer the whole grid to contain just in scale notes and cover the full range.
Mute mode: It defaults to waiting until the end of a clip before muting, you can hold shift to mute immediately but Iād prefer the opposite as I use that way more, a setting in global settings would be nice.
Editing: When using the grid to edit it requires use of back button to exit, so for example you canāt make a quick edit then jump back into song mode by pressing song button, you have to back right out first then press song. Sometimes this can be a few presses of back required, depending on what you are editing. To my mind a change of mode should exit immediately without extra button presses required.
P-Locks: If you want to lock a parameter to multiple steps you have to do each pad separately, you canāt hold multiple pads and set to same value. Removing individual parameter locks is a manual operation, Iād prefer just to hold the step and hit delete to remove all parameters locked to that step.
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