My first two Elektron boxes were the Digitakt and Digitone. After using them happily for around a year I ended up trading for an Octatrack. I sometimes regretted it but would never think about letting the OT go so I still think it was a good move. This was around 4 years ago. Since then I’ve used the AR, A4, MD, and MM, which are all fantastic but I still sometimes missed the digi boxes.
Recently, I had the chance to trade another bit of gear for a Digitone and decided to go for it. After getting to play with it I think it’s still a great box but, after using only flagships for so long, I missed a lot of features, the main one being parameter slides! I know there are LFO workarounds (kind of) but it really made me realize how important parameter slides are to my workflow and how much I love the unexpected sounds they can create. I can’t help but imagine how awesome they’d be in conjunction with the DN’s sound engines.
Why do you think Elektron ditched them? Is it just a classic case of incentivizing flagship sales? It just feels like an absolutely vital part of the Elektron sequencer to me now. Do you guys feel differently?
They’re simpler machines and that’s one of the simplifications
One of the things people value about using a Digi is that the workflow is streamlined - as much as it would be nice to have all the features of the flagships if they did they’d also be flagships and wouldn’t be streamlined any more.
Think of it less as a feature they don’t have and more as something you don’t have to think about when using them.
Elektron are legends though and add a lot of features to their gear, drop them a feature request email (feature-request@elektron.se) and you might get your wish.
Slide trigs are very cool. But even OT only has them for audio tracks. No midi slide trigs. Which is a shame. I would like slide trigs for DN sure, but its no big deal that its not there.
If digi prices see yet another increase and speculation proves to be correct about DN being the next platform on which machines are to be implemented, then without lifting a finger and before you even know it, your wish for slides and/or other mysterious “flagship caliber” features might yet be granted.
Some might argue DN keys IS the big-boy version of the DN.
I, however, am not one of those people. Sure wouldn’t might a mod wheel plopped right onto the side of my desktop dn though…
I don’t think any of the Digi’s are really small versions of the flagships though - even if comparisons can be drawn, I just mean that in their architecture and execution they are intentionally streamlined in comparison to them, so asking for features they have that makes them more powerful seems counterintuitive to their purpose.
That’s not to say that I wouldn’t enjoy some of those features, just that it seems counter to their purpose somewhat.
So from a ‘why doesn’t it have this feature’ perspective that’s the rationalisation I’d assume. It’s an extra manual item, an extra feature to learn, another bit of UI to navigate etc. You’ll hear folks sometime describe a Digitakt as more immediate than an OT and part of that is due to the increased feature-set. If you never stray from Static machines and ignore all of the features that make it special then it becomes no less immediate to use - so that extra stuff can have a detrimental impact from a design POV.
I’ll be honest I never use slides But I don’t see anything like that on the AR.
Sure, but I mean if you want to slide param X of a digi, you can pick a bigger box and get it unless that is an FM-related feature. Then you’re SOL. Plus, generally, the DN really deserves more resources.
It would be cool to get a flagship digital poly synth - something that has FM and Wavetable machines and some of the big-boy features from those boxes. For me Wavetable is more appealing than FM and that’s something that could open a lot of interesting doors.
CPU Resources / UI Space / UX Focus / Market Positioning
That’s ironically the classic fallacy that never dies
If you think about it it makes no sense, besides the DIGI’s are far better specified in some terms that the ‘flagship’ devices
Slides are terrific, but they’re not free by any metric and i wouldn’t hold my breath for them showing up where they just weren’t intended … i guess you can never say never with Elektron though !
It’s not like any of these devices are slouches without slides anyway, they’re impossible to exhaust creatively speaking
I think the team who set up the mindset for delivering flagships has long been gone and the new turn things took is small boxes.
Why? Why do we people buy from Alibaba? Why do modern houses have cracks before you end up paying the loan? Why do we destroy planet?
Money.
Slapping all the digital synths in a box and calling it a day seems less inspired than what I’m used to seeing from Elektron. That isn’t to say WT is a poor fit, but a big-boy FM should get things like analog filters. Really non-linear ones like the MS-20 filters, with the option to send one of the x/y taps straight to the second pole like the monotron delay does for the aux in.
WT carriers could be an interesting intersection though. I’m not sure it’s kismet, but someone should try it.
To be fair FM synths don’t tend to have filters at all It’s one of the things that Elektron did that’s made the Digitone special - but I don’t see differing digital machines as counter to that mission.
Perhaps this helps demonstrate how personal these needs/requirements are.
But I don’t see anything like that on the AR.
It’s one of the things that Elektron did that’s made the Digitone special - but I don’t see differing digital machines as counter to that mission.