I spent half of this year fretting over which of the many hardware samplers from Elektron will fit my needs best - Digitakt, Octatrack Mk2, Analog RYTM Mk2, Octatrack Mk1 used - studying their feature sets and possibilities, while also fretting over the knowledge that I can’t spend any money on gear right now. I looked to software solutions, but none (including sw/hw hybrids like Push and Maschine) really satisfied (although, for the record, Renoise Redux looks very cool). Then I came across a video (the Elektron “Workflow” video for Machinedrum) that showed me that a piece of gear I already owned, the Machinedrum UW+ MkII, already does everything I want in a hardware sampler - it live samples in real-time, has a tweakable p-locking sequencer, and has lots of audio mangling possibilities. It also one-ups the Digitakt by having a song mode. Literally everything I was lusting after was sitting on my desk the whole time. I had just never dug into the sampling capabilities, taking it to be a drum machine with unwieldy tacked-on sampling as an afterthought. But that’s not the case at all - the workflow is really easy!
Just goes to show, look more closely at what you have, and learn your current gear before deciding that you really need XYZ.
The synthesis methods on the MD are also probably the best algorithms Elektron have come up with. I keep selling mine to try new machines but always yearn for it when it is gone. I have the beatstep pro now so can even do polyrhythms on it.
I just recently traded my Octatrack, to get a MD mk2 uw again (was my first Elektron, back in the day), and I couldn’t be happier! Amazing machine… And the best looking, of alle the Elektrons