What synth would you add to a Digitakt?

Can’t believe more people aren’t recommending the A4 MKI.
The price they are currently going for is hard to beat.
Such a versatile synth, excellent pads with a unique sounding character.
Sort of has polyphony, pairs perfect with any other elektron box.
If you figure out some of the sweet spots it can sound massive.
It’s hella fun, especially the longer you have it and start dialing in perf macros and using it’s other features.
It makes incredible drum sounds and doubles as a fantastic drum machine

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What about a Synth that sounds good to the OP. :rofl:

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i agree with the above, a4 mk1 all the way. Fits also perfectly beside the digitakt, unlike the mk2 and price is very reasonable these days, some eurorack modules with a fraction of the functionality cost more

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Looking at the Take 5 recommendations in this thread, I would add that IF I owned JUST a Digitakt and no other samplers/synths/etc, the Take 5 might be at the top of my list for an ideal value-for-the-money true analog poly option. That’s a lot of analog synth for the price, keyboard included.

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I don’t see why we need to bring the OP into this. They’re just gonna get their own synth anyway.

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It’s always good to read a re-listing of every Synth available, in case you missed one.

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The OPs posts seemed to suggest that polyphony was important to them and also a classically trained pianist. I love the A4 but lot of folks seem to find the 4 voices to be constraining.

On the other hand all of the above can operating as simple subtractive synths with standard waveforms, so it’s easy to “start slow” if that’s what you’re going for. I’d have to say that the Hydra has one of the clearest sound paths of any synth I own. I don’t have a Peak but it looks pretty clear to me as well.

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I’ve had all three in my hands, and I’d rather program the Take5 over the others by far - but I could see someone with a different brain reversing that order. It also has the advantage of the nice Fatar keybed but maybe that won’t feel “pianish” enough for the OP.

Really, pretty much any polysynth released in the last 10 years would do.

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Thank you SO much, everyone - some fantastic advice in this thread and a lot of food for thought for me. I really appreciate everyone piling in. Thanks to those who also explained concepts and nuances - particularly re: monophonic/polyphonic/multitimbral. That clears that up!

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I’d also recommend MM2 and Hydrasynth.

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Micromonsta (v1) was the first synth I added to my DT years ago. Great little synth and the v2 is even better!

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I will chime in for the Sequential Prophet REV2. It’s incredibly versatile, and you can go very deep into synthesis with it, or just use it for bread and butter sounds. It’s basically two synths of identical architecture that you can either stack (two layers playing together) or split (have one dedicated portion of the keyboard playing one layer while the other portion plays the other). You can also choose to have different MIDI channels sequence each layer. It really works great with the DT. If you play keys and get the key version, you can use it as a solid MIDI controller for your DT as well.

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I’m gonna say Moog One, but you gotta go for the 16 voice version. No ones doing anything with 8 voices these days.

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Hey, this isn’t the “Synth prices are too high” thread!

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Without doubt a syntakt

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Or maybe two CS-80’s!

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The OP doesn’t want a mono synth.

That being said, I too love the Digitakt/Syntakt combo. :sunglasses:

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simultaneously learning a dt and dn can be overwhelming

something with some refreshing simplicity but also flexibility and depth would probably be best

a minilogue xd would be awesome / everything is pretty much knob-per-function and the ui is very inviting

it also sounds really good and can do anything from basses to pads with a beautiful massive reverb

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There are some analog Eurorack oscillators (I have some of them) that make amazing sounds. They are monophonic. To get polyphony one would have to duplicate the circuitry, and then add a UI that lets you use them effectively, at a considerably higher cost (and Eurorack is already expensive). I realize your original question was more about something like a Micromonsta 2 (a digital VA synth), and I’m not urging you to think otherwise, but I just wanted to defend monosynths, which have their place (including ones outside Eurorack, like an Erica Synths DB-01 or Norand Mono).

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Also many traditional instruments only play one note at a time such as woodwind and percussive so I guess in composition you often have a mix of instruments that play single notes while others play chords etc

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