I don’t have a tracker, but from the feature sets alone you cannot compare them. Deluge has “unlimited” tracks with unlimited length. It has its own 2 synth engines (VA and FM) is fully polyphonic and can act as multitrack recorder for audio. For example: you can drive 16 MIDI Instrument, use a ton of internal sounds, have 4 drum kits play drums and percussions and play along a vocal and 2 guitar tracks. All with internal effects etc. you have 2 LFOs that could use some more flexibility and (in my opinion) quite conservative modulation options. On nearly every track I want to set a modulation target that is not possible. As the 2 Oscillators for the synth engine can also play samples, you have a lot of sound generation options. You have to live with a 4 digit screen, a very good song mode (that behaves like a DAW) and should take tons of notes, if you want to get around in your projects when you left them for more then a day (at least I get lost in only colors). As Deluge streams audio from the SD Card, you don’t have issues with longer Audio files.
You are indeed able to hit the CPU limits with using too many FX, too many multi sampled instruments etc.
As I don’t have the tracker (yet), it’s harder for me to point out the top features, that it has over the deluge. I would name the screen, and with that a very good and detailed view into your track and song structure (if you get around the tracker interface), you seem to have extremely cool options for changing sounds per step and with that kind of modulation. You have to stick with 8 tracks and the song mode looks like a pattern.chain with track-mutes.
I don’t think that you can compare the devices and find a favorite without checking your very own needs. 8 tracks can be more then enough, a perfect limitation to your creativity or a plain no-go, dependent on what you want to archive. Having no audio tracks makes it nearly impossible to finish songs with accoustic instruments and vocals that you cannot splice into short samples. The limitation in memory (limited number of samples) also might be an issue.
In my experience with trackers, you cannot really compare them to other stuff. The workflow and the result are quite different, if you use the flow of the device.
I would love to spent some time with the Tracker, because it seems to be a hell of an instrument and a great potion of inspiration.
The tracker is btw. Half the price (or less, dependent of how you pay taxes and customs) of the deluge. Based on price and some limitations, it’s easier to compare to a Model:Samples or, maybe better, a Digitakt…
A powerful song mode is much more than just stringing patterns together, which is something Elektron never seems to get but Synthstrom certainly has. The Arranger is quite unique in the hardware realm.
I hear good things about the Tracker’s song mode and if I’d ever consider one, it would be because I hear increasingly good things about its ability to build something beyond the patterns.
Yeah, the arranger in the deluge provides exactly, what the timeline view in Ableton does. Only thing I miss is a way to handle Automation besides recording it.
But with that said: I really struggle with it, because after some time away from a project, it’s nothing more than an endless amount of colored lines and rows an dots. Without a proper and useful way to name them (and the parts) I leave way too many projects unfinished, because I don’t find back into them after a while away. And as the Deluge has now compfortable way to export the tracks, stems etc (numbered named files not organized by project all the the exact same timestamp), I even cant get them into a daw for the last 15%. (I know that i could check the latest file on the SD, then resample every track for their own etc, but come on! That alone would drive me away…) You can definitely see, that Synthstroms focus is extremely on the performance part with himself in mind, who seems to be better able to remember, what he did there
I just rebought the Akai Force because of that. There is no arranger (yet), but I can just export everything as Ableton project with one klick…)
I think the OT has the best song mode on Elektron gear, followed by MD and MnM, the list view with mute rows is better than most hardware sequencers, most of which just allow basic stringing patterns in a list.
But yeah the Deluge arranger has some great features, I think if they added loop and locate points it would be superb. I’m not too fond of the song mode though, I think I’d prefer it if it was a clip type paradigm like Ableton, where clips are arranged vertically rather than horizontally as it is implemented now.
One thing I do really like though is how you can use sub songs as different sections and load them to start immediately after the current one finishes, it would be nice to be able to automate this, but I can’t see how it would fit into the U.i without being clumsy. A possible way would be to use the arranger, and have a special track type which loads sub songs on the timeline.
I’m quite used to abstract stuff, so to me, the patterns that the colors make up become a reminder in themselves, and I also remain consistent in how I arrange stuff visually. I build the track from top to bottom, so if I just step through clips starting from the top and turning them on, it matches in concept the progression of the song. When it changes character, I change the color of the clips. That way, if I’d get a brain lapse or short circuit in the mind, I’d know that if I just follow this structure, it’ll be okay.
A local store is gonna have some deluges in stock soon, so I have a bit of gas and want to ask some questions. How awful is sample management on this thing? I tend to keep some big chunks of my library on my devices. All the videos tend to avoid this subject, but I guess it’s no fun to browse.
How fast and useful is slicing? Can you save kits?
I’m week four into having a Deluge and can speak some on slicing (see below) and saving kits (yes, you can). I just got to page 173 of the 3.1 manual this week, which covers slicing:
So you can set it to anywhere from 1-16 slices (I believe), after which you’ll have to manually choose start an end times. It’s not as quick as my MPC-1000 w/ JJOS, but it works.
Ron Cavagnaro did a video where he records a long session into a audio clip, 1 hour 30 minutes!
But unfortunately he pressed play at the end instead of stop and the clip did not save, it is stuff like that where Deluge could use a bit of attention, I’d be super pissed if that happened to me, still, amazing that Deluge appeared to be recording just fine for such a duration.
It even does hardwired resampling despite the single pair of stereo out and in. Just set up monitoring accordingly and you got gold there, too. I use this with my Chase Bliss stuff all the time.
I have to admit, tho, that I’m struggling to get stuff to sound kind of finished on the Deluge. My work tends to sound a bit muted and cramped and I can’t open it up without transferring the results to somewhere else.
Maybe that goes without saying, a box isn’t designed to do everything, but for comparison, I can get shit to sound just about done and ready to go on the Toraiz SP-16 (to the best of my abilities, that is) and I have a feeling the TR-8S works the same way. Fire it up, tweak it right and you’re good. Try as I might, I can’t tweak the Deluge right enough to get it to this state.
Again, I suppose that external processing and final mixing is best done elsewhere, no matter if you’re on a Toraiz or a Deluge, but I feel that I can get music to a point where I don’t have to do anything else with it, on the Toraiz. Not so with the Deluge.
I’m prepared to accept the reality of user error on my behalf and will take any advise you got to offer
I did feel that way before too, I’m not sure (in my case) how much of it was psychological and how much of it was due to not having a basic text or graphical mix overview, however when I last used it for a few sessions I think that I got it sounding better than my previous efforts by being more mindful of levels and where necessary using the filter and eq on certain parts.
I think in my case the jury is still out on whether or not it can be my DAW - and this isn’t a reflection on the Deluge, as to be fair it isn’t really designed for that, but I mostly use it for audio stuff, be that samples or recordings, rather than the synth engines, which I don’t really need, or use very often.
So I should be able to do hardware resampling with an external reverb pedal? I didn’t even think of that but got a Walrus Fathom (strictly
For the am radio sounding Lofi mode) and wanna use it with my deluge. I thought I’d have to record to my field recorder
Nope, you can resample it back. It’s a bit messy since if you want to get an idea of the results, you’ll have to monitor and play back the signal at the same time, creating a feedback loop if you’re not careful. So mind your ears. But when you record, just turn off monitoring on the Deluge and it records only the output and doesn’t route it back, thus avoiding the feedback loop.
If you want nothing in between to get this working, it takes a little bit of trial and error to find a level that works for you, and do be careful with your ears when you do it and mind the feedback closely. But once you’ve found a spot you’re comfortable with, it’ll work.
I am pleased to announce that the #4 part of the Boards of Deluge Sound Bank has just been published.
This time I’ve prepared 50 new synth patches as well as 11 additional drum patches (using only internal synth engine). The 3 types of kicks are included. Moreover you can use special custom parameter knobs to adjust and expand some sounds.
