The Syntakt filled so many gaps in my home studio. Since buying it last year I hardly reach for anything else, unless I need polyphony.
Since adding SY Raw and adding Portamento I’m now looking at my SH-01A and wondering if I need it anymore as that sound can easily be dialled in, so I might let it go. I’ve even been making my acid lines with the Syntakt and have already sold my two TD-3’s. I still have a TB-03 though if I need it.
I thought about buying a Typhon, but I reckon most of what it can do is already covered in the machines.
What drum machines or synths have you sold as a direct result of getting the Syntakt?
…i was a big hw user and elektron fanboy for quite a while…
dtone and dtakt were the first ones that had to go…even long before i got the st…
… i nailed it all down to THE essentials for me…ot’s are simply timeless audio instrument multitools…need two for a redundant solution, since i always need one for THE live performance backbone…the analog heat is simply THE analog charme to anything and distortion is nothing but an instrument of it’s own…a4 is what it is forever and my personal reason why i once decided a bit like u, i don’t need too much of anything else in first place, when it comes to truu analog drums/percussions/synth…
and a model:cycles, since it has this little different approach with it’s all hands on deck and has it’s very own unique sonic character…
and that’s about it, elektron wise…
but then the syntakt came along and i felt tickeled and teased again for the first time in quite a while…
and yes, it’s really this damned best of swedish hits in one handy box kind of thing…
so, ooook, i got u…and i keep u…
and new elektron hq’s really have to come up with something unimaginable fresh and unthinkable if they wanna ever tease me again…
just spent the st some vowel and spelling machines, give it’s modifiers some further truu macro realtime control purposes and i’m all fine and totally satisfied…pretty much forever, i’m afraid…
I might be totally wrong, but I suspect that a spelling machine would need an AI component, that there might not be room for in the syntakt. Fixed words (with predetermined accent, emphasis and pronunciation) might be easier, but still radically different to any of the digital machines.
no need for ai to handle/create simple vowelchains…
aaaaa…iiiiiiii…eeeeee…üüüüüüü…ööööööö…oooooo…uuuuu…äääääää…au…
all “spelling” would just come from scanning via lfos and/or a dedicated special osc…
no need for real words…just some electronic/vocodish mimickery of throat like sounds…
meanwhile, computers can already sing and talk anyways, all on their own…
no real need for that in a truu hw music instrument…
After Elektron added new features + machines like portamento and SY RAW and fixed some nasty bugs it was hard to resist to rebuy it. Eventually I sold my Digitone and (re)bought the Syntakt.
With the Blokas Midihub I use tracks 4-8 as a 4-voice polyphonic synth. The DN can do polyphony on a single track, but with the same note length and velocity only. I now record the chords while playing them on a MIDI keyboard. Then I can also pan the individual voices and have slight differences in sound for a more organic result.
Then I still have 4 digital and 4 analog voices (4 mono synths!) left.
It didn’t make me sell everything yet, but it’s so close. If the retrig buttons were turned into 4 MIDI tracks, or a mix of MIDI and sampling, I’d probably stop using my DT and DN. Polyphony would make it even more enticing. I’d still probably rock my Micromonsta2 for the polyphony, but yeah, the ST is pretty fucking awesome.
I don’t think I’d sell the DN and DT simply because of how much is on them, but I do love the idea of rocking the super small setup.
I sold Digitakt and Digitone before buying Syntakt. For some reasons I bought a Digitakt again (should arrive this week-end). Can’t wait to try both, ST > DT compressor. (OT won’t be very far).
Concerning synths, I really liked the Digitone, but I was missing modulations, didn’t found it that immediate to create sounds.
I didn’t like mutes at all. I wasn’t using it enough. With ST I can reproduce some sounds I liked with DN.
I wasn’t using A4 enough too. Not immediate too. Sold to fund an Hydrasynth Explorer. No regrets. It can over a very large palette of sounds, lots of modulations (easier to set), deep FM possibilities (unusual, no algorithms, but several operators Mutants interacting), wavemorphing, etc…
I also have a Micromonsta 2, PreenFm2, Typhon, Xox Heart …More than enough.
I took a PreenFm2 mainly to learn from DX7 patches, classic FM, eventually apply it to Hydrasynth.
The Typhon is a really interesting mono synth, a pleasure to tweak live, and it can go to unexpected areas like generative ambient with its sequencer, modulations, fx…
So finally, Syntakt didn’t make reduce my number of synths, but it implied changes in my setup.
Definitely the ARmk1 is on the chopping block here. Maybe the DT as well. It doesn’t matter how hard I try… I don’t enjoy working with samples. ST improves on all the things I liked about the AR.
The ST is making most of my monophonic synths a bit redundant although I’ll be keeping the A4mk2 as it’s just such a great all-round package. I’d like to pair the ST with a fairly portable poly module - something simple but it needs patch storage.
It’s definitely got me using my other (mostly semi-modular) synths differently. In my current setup, I’ve been exploring further-out patches on other synths, sampling them into DT, and sending that through Syntakt’s FX block. I find the ST’s macros and fx let me develop evolving/dynamic sounds and performances that far surpass my ability to live-patch other synths…
I feel like the Nymphes comes close to fitting the bill here? I love mine, and it complements the ST’s sounds well. I especially like how widely assignable the AT and MW modulations are, which work very flexibly from Digi box midi tracks.
I sold mt LXR-02 right after I bought the Syntakt because there was too much overlap and the SYntakt was just a much more modern machine. That said, I kinda miss the immediate harshness of the LXR. You can get there with the Syntakt but it requires a bit more work. Also… no kits and no kit morphing, obviously.
The last update definitely made it easier to sell my Nord Drum and Virus TI, though they were on their way out anyway. I think it’s tougher to see it replacing my other Elektrons, the stuff I make with my Digitone and A4 is completely different.
I sold a Roland TR-8S and a Polyend Tracker to fund the Syntakt. After I bought it, I sold a Behringer TD-3 and my Dreadbox Typhon has sat unused for many many months. I might sell that soon, too.
Even though it is now my music foundation, my Syntakt really can’t replace polysynths (although plugins can)…
