I’d check Dominion Club for bass duties. I have Dom 1 and that’s one sound I’m not gonna part - especially for basses.
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I think the DN makes snappier bass tones than my A4. Adding some chorus seems to really add up the warmth too
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and then there’s this, which looks like a Bootlegged Elektron or something
Octatrack as your “dedicated FX” plus Volca FM is a secret little powerhouse. The comb filter and/or spatializer effect in Octatrack can make some super-alien sounds out of Volca FM. You can still p-lock the Volca FM with some setup in Octatrack.
I like more alien-ish FM sounds and find myself reaching for Monomachine for that more than Digitone. I just have not really connected with Digitone much. I know it can do it, but I just haven’t connected. But (as I find myself saying a lot these days), I’ve been really burnt out on music making in general and my not-connecting to Digitone is probably more to do with that burnout than with the machine itself.
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Out of curiosity, have you experimented much with sequencing the DN with the OT? I don’t own a DN yet but I’m hoping the OT’s capabilities will make up for some of its shortcomings, including the ones you mention.
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I haven’t tried it at all - my OT is kinda bust and haven’t had much joy sequencing elektron stuff externally (with my pyramid).
for now I’m ok with the limitations - the vast/new-to-me synthesis makes up for it … but the limitations just seem very unnecessary (seeing that the solution is out there at their disposal)
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Gotta say, I really love being able to reload a pattern, either from the temporary area or from the main project. It’ll make live manipulation/jams so much more interesting; being able to deviate far away from the original pattern but then bringing it back for the next session/take/set is amazing. I know it was possible with other Elektron machines but this is way more immediate.
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Extremely fucking happy.
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The first couple weeks I was kinda meh about it even though I really like the sound mostly because I’m not a huge fan of melodic sequencing on it and it’s expensive but the more I use it the more I love how easy it is to dial in great patches and the pattern saving/reloading is beautiful. Now I mostly record midi into it with various ipad apps and keys and it’s awesome to record nice simpler parts and then jam over them.
After a couple good sessions with the DN as my primary sound source, I can tell you I’m only getting MORE into this machine. I do drone/un-sync’d looping with synth patches and then lay beats over the top. I’m VERY into having synth style controls over my percussion.
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Except that the Digitone has a much more warm (and cool!) sound — probably a hardware sound. I have said this before but try to listen for that crisp and realistic sound which has character and depth. Something that I never found in Operator. Listen to the Digitone demos on Elektron’s site and it should be pretty clear 
It’s nearly like the difference between a hardware analog synth and a VST synth.
Anyway, It’s a marvelous synth!
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Sold my A4MKII and bought a Digitone. Everything I disliked in the A4 (narrow sweet spots, few happy accidents, doesn’t invite to explore, dull presets/sounds, UI completely not intuitive, strange memory structure, etc) is gone now. Really fell in love with this one. Instant inspiration and a great companion for the DT.
For analog things I still have a Neutron (which, in my opinion, sound much warmer and grittier with less hassle than the A4)
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Extremely happy. It’s a future classic. The three Electron machines I love are 1. RYTM 2. Digitone 3. Octatrack. The other machines don’t really do it for me.
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Now I can confirm. Extremely happy. Best synth I used.
Basically one big sweet spot, which is quite surprising for a fm synth
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not really sure about funk basses but I love it for short, snappy, deep basses.
Two short examples
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I think it is hands down one of the best values in a modern synth, period. The variety and depth of sounds you can create, the multitimbrality and dead-simple MIDI implementation, the sequencer, and the extremely musical FM architecture are legendary. It instantly became one of my favourite synths.
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I am quite happy with the DN, it pretty much does everything I expected it to do. However, I am not too happy with the crippled/limited paradigms of the small elektron boxes (no indiouts, no mastertune, no swingtrigs, no global slots, no songmode, no kits). And I would have appreciated if we could have more uneven ratios at our disposal. But overall, the positives still outweigh the negatives.
However, if I had ever used a monomachine, I might feel differently so YMMV
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I had preenfm2 but sold it. First I did notice is that filter is cold and without character. It has much more operators, so I guess it can produce much bigger tone.
It was easy to use, and randomizer was really awesome and easy to get new sounds. Possibility to randomize only operators, modulations or ALL-total chaos.
Digitone is blast but I miss randomizer.
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I love mine. My favorite feature is the X-Y mixer, in a way a specialized performance macro that can be used to create smooth transitions between sounds while changing the mixed down operators (depending on algorithm).
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Tha would be a blast. So cool in the Phasemaker Ipad app