What I like about Elektron machines is that they feel like labours of love - like someone has designed exactly the machine they want to use, without too many compromises. It leads to some eccentricities, but also to depth in the device. That’s why it’s worrying when they start doing customer surveys. I want someone’s vision… the vibe of Elektron has always been ‘an engineer cutting loose’, not ‘Market research and Accounts meet, tell engineers what to do…’
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I bought it for live use and it does exactly what I want in that regard.
But it’s also a fun instrument to play and to create new, unique sounds with, and sometimes that leads to something I would never have come up using a DAW only. And multitracking those certain things is something I find excessively troublesome with no OB. 
But I do appreciate the machine’s limitations and I love it for what it is.
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I think it’s time to rerelease the monomachine in honor of Sophie
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I answered the questions aswell - i actually bought the A4 because it had overbridge announced - i went to Musikmesse Frankfurt and got introduced to it - although it didn’t really worked for me at the beginning - i still bought the Analog RYTM and Octatrack, because i really liked the whole overall package.
I had to answer that Overbridge was a major selling point - although today after buying a mixer, because OB didn’t work as announced - i would still recommend Elektron because they did deliver and update the device to a workable state - even if it took a year or longer to get to the point.
So i would say the selling point isn’t that you developed Overbridge - its that you keep your promises and provide updates for 10 year old equipment - that is why i would recommend you to everyone i know. (And in fact some of my friends bought the full line after my recommendation.)
Even without this questionnaire - you will know for sure - that we all want that Octatrack MK3 , the new Mono Maschine MK2, the new Maschine Drum MK2 - the Overbridge enabled performance mixer etc.
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In quantitative research, when using Likert scales such as these, it’s recommended to randomize the order of items in order to eliminate bias.
For example, if you’re testing a long list of features, randomizing that list can ensure that an item’s score isn’t being affected by the fact that it was always at the end of the list, by which point users could have become tired of clicking.
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sustainable seemed like a weird question to me. Music gear is by definition out of these standards to my eyes but that might just be me.
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I dont understand this at all. Working purley hardware means you have to mix somehow, usually a mixer. Then record in real time. Working in a DAW with no hardware presents exactly the same workflow paths, mixing, mastering, resampling etc but its all offline, or outside of time. Working in a DAW is tedious to me…
If you are making your own music, including the recording mixing and final bit (call it mastering if you want) then all that stuff has to be done. How and when it gets done, and with what tools and methods is a very personal choice.
So I dont see a problem with OT being overbridgeless.
I don’t have overbridge, and never will. Because I dont have a use for it. Horses for courses though innit.
this would be cool!
Zoom Livetrack does most of this.
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Which parts are on the “can’t do” list?
It can be tedious, I totally get it. Even if you do it in real time on DAW, everything is virtual and non-tactile. If I’m working fully in a DAW without external gear, I tend to make very strictly composed music with a lot of complexities and structures that I even couldn’t play in real time on a physical instrument.
But I do mix outboard instrument recordings in a DAW because I don’t have the space for an actual mixer nor FX racks. So a DAW allows me to shape my raw recordings to my liking without taking up more space than my desktop computer does.
But my point was not to criticize the OT for no OB support. As I said, I love it for what it is. But it seems that there’s a possible use case for an OT-inspired device that would be less of a sampler/instrument and more of a mixer with DAW connectivity but also allowing stand-alone recordings to internal storage. The best of both worlds.
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I also feel like this. As others have pointed out, sustainability can be defined as making well built, long-lasting hardware and offering software upgrades, repair services and customer support for as long as possible. This way the piece of equipment will be usable for a long time, creating less e-waste.
But if you dig deeper, there’s always some shady business involved, such as the mining of rare earth metals. It’s not a pretty job, and it’s usually performed by unerpaid workers in extremely dangerous conditions that lead to deadly accidents and long-term illnesses. And it affects all consumer electronics.
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“How would you describe elektron ?” In 3-5 words.
I had to be honest : Resting on its past glory !
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This is almost exactly what I said lol. I think elektron is in a unique position to create a new innovative tool for the next generation. I said it half jokingly up the thread, rerelease the monomachine in honor of sophie, but I hope they’re seriously looking at what she did with that box that they made. How they made something that was perfectly primed to be manipulated and exploited for some new ends that no one saw coming. They need to build another box like that. Which in some ways, maybe that’s like catching lightning in a bottle, but also I imagine the people designing boxes are smart. They can see that what the monomachine did was offer deep complexity and modularity, like an open ended thing that could be almost anything the user wanted it to be.
If it is so hard to make something new that can do that maybe it is time to transition to a legacy brand and just make iterations of the mnm 
Save us from spending $2000+ for that kind of focus and freedom, give us one for $1200 
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I hope elektron reads this
Sorry if this was asked a thousand times, but my wish to elektron fairy was for my AR MKI to sample in directly, and my question is - omitting the obvious marketing reasons, is the lack of sampling in the original AR dictated by the hardware or software reasons?
Hardware.
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Oof. At least I won’t be getting my hopes up anymore.
One of the things that makes this really difficult is the need to make money. They need to release products that they know will return a profit. To put out another machine that is as innovative as the Monomachine or Octatrack would require a lot of R & D and take a long time to develop. Nothing wrong with that. But along with their talented designers and developers, they’ve become a large enough company now to have a room down the hall full of executives that are all about the bottom line and profit margins.
If they catch that lightening in a bottle again they can do both: create another forward thinking product while making some money to keep the company afloat. Releasing products like the Model series is smart because they’re sure money makers while introducing Elektron to a new market segment. Hopefully those lower end products will be successful enough that they’ll push the envelope on some innovative premium gear. It’s a good sign that they’re doing some user research like this, so we can tell them what we’re interested in.
It seems like as companies become larger, and in some cases beholden to board members, they become loath to take chances. Roland is a good example of this. But then you have Arturia, admittedly tiny compared to Roland, making cool stuff like the Matrix and Poly Brute. They’re not selling many of those, but hopefully enough to justify the risk.
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I always wondered just how big or small is elektron? Clearly they have more customers now than they did in 2008, but like, in really numbers how many Digitakts and model:cycles did they sell? Also seems clear that it was as far back as the analog series where they decided to go after the market instead of their own ambitions, those came out at a hot time in analog mania, and maybe die hard silver box users saw it as too simplified. Are they selling enough A4 and AR now to reinvest in some serious R&D? I like that your take seems practical and hopeful, that maybe they are at the right level where they can in fact still innovate and keep the bottom line people happy (even though I hate idea of keeping the bottom line people happy, seems that only breeds compromise.) Let’s hope elektron isn’t too big for their own good, if their good is being the hands on flexible innovative hardware synthesizer box makers. I do love my Digitone so far, so there’s that. but Can I push it as far as a Monomachine?
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