I know the machine drum you had freely assignable LFOs that could be trigged by a different track than the one that they were affecting, so you could do volume ducking effects triggered by other tracks. With the modern lineup you can get similar effects with the sequencer, but not with tracks automatically affecting each other.
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Ah so was the triggering based on trigs in the sequencer on the Machinedrum? Because that would be useful too. I’d really love it if every track had an audio sidechain though.
The lack of recent flagships (over whatever leveraging of existing R&D) is entirely a series of problems of scale and capital, not will/ability/vision.
I can’t imagine future plans haven’t also been compounded under continued pandemic logistics SNAFU.
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I just wish they’d add MIDI over USB for the current OT.
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Probably not possible because of hardware limitations (USB for storage only).
It would be useful for sure.
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Yeah I figure there’s only so much they can do with the hardware as it’s currently configured, why I put the sidechain comment in this thread as I’m imagining it would might need additional hardware resources/circuitry to give every track an additional sidechain output that would be available for others.
Sidechain would be possible using inputs or internal routing, but I doubt it will happen. Pretty sure there will be an interesting update for OT, but it will be limited.
Btw I have to try sidechain with Zoia, linking an inverted envelope follower to midi CC48 (OT Crossfader). Zoia can cover most of OT fx feature requests, and do midi scenes morphing.
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Would love to see a MKIII to address a few annoying things like no Overbridge,
not very good file management, and it shouldn’t be too hard to make it support a wider variety of file types.
I’m still only 3 months in on owning mine, but so much of how you use it seems added after the fact.
Its kind of crazy watching people use MKIs in videos. They have to use even more key combos to do stuff!
I think it can’t possibly be true that one person departing the company prevents them from moving forward on the OT hardware or codebase.
I get that they are not as big as Roland or Yamaha. So they have less resources. But people have reverse engineered plenty of gear before. Its not like this device was found on Mars.
It’s not impossible, just challenging!
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A lot of it was, there were far fewer fx, no pickups, much reduced slice functionality, much reduced audio editor, and a lot less in the 1.0 days.
It isn’t, that was a baseless speculation debunked by an Elektron employee.
The actual reason given was that there is very little room left to add much else.
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This thread is 4 yo, there were threads like this before. My advice is to learn how to use OT as is, with its great dawless limitations (
) or sell it for something better for your needs. Don’t loose your time or creativity expecting something that probably won’t exist. If it exists one day, maybe you won’t need it anymore…
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Even in the years since I bought my OT, so much was added. We had two huge updates that adressed many wishes from the community.
But in its +10 years OT has come such a long way…just check the older manuals… 
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You are correct, it’s not true. It was never true. Just because somebody on the internet said it, that doesn’t make it true.
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I sincerely hope not.
The OT is quite perfect as it is (MK1 or MK2)
It’s eccentricities are what make it interesting and what makes me work differently with it than I do with other gear.
It’s quite possible to over develop a product (especially an instrument)
I think Elektron would do best to focus on new flagship product(s)
The only rerelease that would be smart would be of the Machinedrum and Monomachine since they’re so beloved and would benefit from updated sequencing capabilities.
Other than that rereleasing would be a step backwards imo
I’d love to see Elektron go back to making interesting and unique instruments that push limits
An Elektron box that focuses on mixing and effects would be very welcome, an Elektron box that is various kinds of synthesis would be very welcome as would an Elektron drum machine (that isn’t just a repackaging of what they’ve already done, like the Digitakt and Syntakt)
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Funny that you mention mixing and effects.
I know a few musicians that use their OT just for this.
One person mixes several signals from modular to ABCD then uses scenes to change what is happening with the mix.
I was frankly kind of pissed when they told me this.
Surely there is a mixer with effects that could do this better!
But its not so simple to find a mixer with scenes.
I know a few audio for video mixers and mixers intended for Broadway productions.
Of course the latter are massive with 40+ inputs.
And AV mixers often don’t even have EQ.
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Why?
Flexible mono/stereo input and output routing (Each input can go to any output, you can mix A, B, C, D in one track, or use several tracks to process one single input), three lfos per track, step sequencer that can (re)trigger amp and filter envelope, highly modulatable effects, neighbour tracks to stack fx, master track for bus processing - all under scene control and midi tracks to modulate effects makes the OT such a powerful, playable instrument.
If you have effects that let you control output level and or input with midi cc, you can also control them very nicely from OT, making up for a few things like audio muting (OT´s mutes cut the audio, it´s not muting on a trigger level which makes sense for long loops and mixing external sources, but if you want effects to ring out you either have to fade out tracks (scenes) or use external effects.
If you have an external effect that lets you control the input signals like on the Audiothingies Doc A (bypass buttons activate the signal going into the effect or cut the input going into the effect, so bypassing lets the effect ring out), you can use midi tracks from OT to send tracks into bursts of delay, reverb or other fx by using an lfo designer wave or p-locks. You could have several different midi tracks ready for controlling effects and mute/unmute as needed.
Some effects work very well (no hiccups or glitches) when modulated with midi cc, Eventide for example and the aforementioned Audiothingies Doc A.
Outside modular, what even is there? Roland MX-1?
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Pissed because I often overreact to things. But in this case because I thought they were misusing it and wasting their resources.
But then that could be said of almost anyone with a modular set up these days 
When I was first introduced to the idea of just using the OT as a mixer was quite some time ago. I’ve grown up a little since then.
As far as mixers that can do similar things. There are mixing consoles used for Broadway stage production that do all kinds of cool things, have midi mute and level control, amazing preamps and EQ, and along with an external effects box under MIDI control can do anything. You can even find them cheap used in areas like NYC, Vegas, Branson etc. Everybody is upgrading to digital mixers with touch screens. Those are pretty capable. But you are right, there are few tricks the OT can do they can’t.
It’s a shame it just has 4 mono or 2 stereo inputs.
If they made the same box minus sampling, but with 8+ inputs it would surely sell.
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Haha, fair enough! 
I find it hard to focus on more than three instruments at the same time and since OT is flexible enough with its routing, a small mixer going into OT is an easy way to add more inputs to OT.
I sometimes think about adding a second OT dedicated to mixing, though - One OT for sample playback, midi sequencing and processing of external instruments, the other one for mixing and mangling, controlling effects with midi and overall balancing the sound with gentle eq shapes and limiting…probably overkill, but only one way to find out…
Sounds interesting, I´ll check them out.
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I think that would probably be an architectural overhaul, not a small annoyance. I don’t believe the hardware could handle Overbridge, and the software definitely can’t either. Maybe this fictitious Octatrack with OB would be a whole new instrument, and not a mk3?
Personally I don’t want OB, and the only machine where I find it useful is the Analog Heat. I could probably think of 30-50 features I would like to see on the OT before Overbridge!
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