It does only have four voices, lush to me is the depth from lots of voices…
With the filters and multi mode filter pretty easy to shape for a mix imo…
agreed each synth has its strengths!
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The DX7 doesn’t have a filter!
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When the DX7 was all the rage, due to mortgage and other family financial commitments I could not really afford one so had to settle for one of the 4 operator models.
When the SY77 came out it was within my means and so it was my first 6 operator FM synth. The SY77 was great for its time but IMHO has since been eclipsed by subsequent synth offerings from Yamaha.
The post SY77 stuff definitely seems like a step forward but it’s too pricey for me, I managed to get my SY77 for £200 and for that money it’s still crazy good. I’ve seen some people who have both prefer the sound of the SY77 though and as far as I understood the flexible feedback routing and also the RCM stuff is still unique to the SY / TG? I could be wrong there though.
Let’s get back on topic please. 
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I think low-mids are very prominent on the A4 which is great, because that give the sound body. But that is also an area which is very sensible when mixing. With only one sound coming from the A4 that’s totally fine, as I add more I feel there is more build-up in this area compared to tracks where I use the Nordlead 2 or Virus Ti.
So, the “muddiness” might be just my subjective perception. The synth still sounds amazing and is fun to perform on. But maybe that the analog-character?
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The title of this thread is:
“The sound of the A4/AK… like or dislike?”
My comments were made using the thread title as context. The thread title states that the A4/AK can be both liked and disliked.
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I’m perfectly aware of the title of the thread - I was challenging the implication in your comment that anyone here who doesn’t like it has ‘missed’ something or simply dismissed it and thus has an unfair judgement.
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I find this all a bit pointless as every synth can be like/dislike. Also the saying
“Nobody kicks a dead dog”, seems appropriate here.
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Possibly some of the ‘A4 sounds muddy’ comments come from using it as a 4-voice poly. For example, I recently remixed an old track of mine that used the A4 in poly mode and indeed it sucked the life out of the mix, so I ended up replacing the A4 sounds with M4L Poli which sounded infinitely better and slotted into the mix perfectly. After all the A4 was never designed in the first place to be a poly synth. Anyway, just some food for thought. I experienced the exact same thing using the SH-01A in 4-voice poly mode. Both of them weren’t originally built to be used in this fashion.
You’re acting kind of paranoid lol
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I will preface by stating that I do not own an Analog Four or Analog Rytm at this time. The only Elektron products presently available in my studio are the Model:Cycles and Model:Samples. However, I did own a Analog Rytm MKI a few years ago, but regretfully sold it.
Now, to answer the question, I love the sound of Analog Four and Analog Rytm. Furthermore, I love the integrated package of functionality that is included in both products as well.
Over the past few months, I have debated whether to purchase an Analog Four MKII and Analog Rytm MKII in an effort to minimize the gear setup in my studio. The sound and functionality of both products have been a big selling point for me to potentially move forward with the decision.
Having thought about it overnight I think it can also be related to running four independent tracks with sounds that might cause sound clash if tones and notes are not in harmony. This is really something the user can control.
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Yes definitely. Even just four sounds that are stealing each other’s space in the frequency spectrum. But the filters could solve that! 
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Did a live set with the OT and the A4 a while ago, both machines work wonderfully together but you have to be conscious about arrangement and sound selection to prevent or reduce masking.
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I love my A4 for percussion, with a couple of modular buddies it’s killer.
On comments about the sound quality, if you pass through ext audio, you can hear a band limiting effect with the default filter settings. I find you need to use the HPF with high res, or feedback, to get some back.
Also on notes about muddiness / poly, I definitely find keeping volumes med-low works wonders, fortunately it’s super low noise so you can yeah bias towards low mids doesn’t help but often you have a tool left with poly patches to bring back some high end sparkle.
Does anyone know if the individual outs help? I’m planning to mod my MK1.
I have only owned the A4MkII for a few days, so it’s too early to draw any final conclusions. However, if you look at the synth engine (I’m not talking about the sequenzer in this post), this is a classic analog synthesizer which has been around for over half a century. Like all other modern analog synths it has a lot more modulation power than the old synths, which contributes to versatility. I see no reason why the sound of this synth should be significantly more/less useful for certain types of analog sounds/genres (although Elektron work hard on their electronic music-image). Of course every analog synth sound slightly different, but this synth should be able to make the same types of sounds as other analog synths. I have earlier owned the Prologue, Prophet Rev2 and Prophet 6 and the only very useful feature I’m missing in the A4 so far is voice spread in poly mode (please tell me if it’s just me that have not found it yet). Voice spread contributes to a larger/wider/less muddy sound. However, there is a workaround for this if you want to play the A4 as a classic poly synth (I assume most of you know about this): In the poly config, enable “use track sounds” and set “allocation” to “rotate”. Then copy the same sound to all the four tracks and pan them slightly different to the left and right symmetrical around center. You can then save the “patch” as a kit. If you still don’t think the sound is rich enough you can fine adjust the “fine tune” and/or “linear detune” to slightly different values for all 8 oscillators for some more movement and fuller sound. Well, it’s time for me to make more sounds, but I doubt I will change my mind about the versatility of this synth.
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iirc, you can spread voices when playing polyphonically by setting one of the LFO’s to hold-mode with the random shape and assigning that LFO to the pan parameter. if i’m not mistaken that should pan each voice separately each time a note is triggered even though you’re just using one sound on one track.
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You will then only have one lfo left but it works as intended and is a great workaround, thanks a lot for the tip!
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Each LFO can have two destinations. So you lost half a LFO…
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