r/Elektron

Hello everyone, I've put in the work to find out what my next big gear purchase should be and have reached the limit of what I can glean without asking people who have used these instruments first hand.

Essentially, I am pretty happy with my current setup. I just want to complement it with one more synth, preferably with MPE support (I have a Linnstrument), and polyphonic, that can be a good addition to my melodic capabilities.

Here's the gear I currently have:

• Digitakt 2
• Digitone 1
• Microfreak
• Organelle
• Linnstrument 128 & Keystep 37
• Effects pedals I'm happy with, but don't like to pull out specifically for Synth work.
• Various VSTs. I like Pigments, but have always been more drawn to physical instruments.

Here are the machines I've considered:

1. Dreadbox Artemis - currently in the lead. Looks and sounds great. Looks pretty immediate, and easily transported. The built-in fx look great. Expensive!
2. Take 5 - very close second. Looks really fun and immediate. Just bigger and heavier than the Artemis, and less of a "unique" sound. Can be replicated with VSTs it seems (please assume I've included a ton of caveats to this. Yes everything can be done with a laptop, but i'm looking for a balance of versatility/immediacy/character specifically in hardware).
3. Digitone 2 - I'd sell my DN1 and buy this. A lot more tracks and good complement to the DT2. Even just presets sound great on the DN1, but I feel like analog is the only thing currently missing from my setup. Mostly happy with my digital offerings.
4. Analog Four - Elektron, analog, four tracks which is cool and I know the ecosystem. But I just couldn't find anything online that made this sound warm or un-metallic. I can already make plenty of those sounds with the DN and my laptop!
5. Dreadbox Nymphes - seems like kind of an Artemis-lite. Pretty menu divey but great built-in fx as Dreadbox is known for, and has great analog sounds.
6. Something by Waldorf - frankly I'm overwhelmed by how great some of these synths look. I know they're all digital, but I the recent protein seems to be a popular versatile choice and so is the blofeld (albeit menu divey). Still more interested in analog but I could be tempted if the sound is interesting enough...

I have limited space, which is a consideration. I need to be able to move the machine around shelves while not in use.

Anyway, thanks for reading all this and let me know your thoughts. Have any of you tried some of these and returned them? Would never sell them? Compared some? Have a completely different suggestion? I'm happy to hear it all.

Have a digitakt 2 and tonverk. Workflow wise digitone is the clear winner but the sounds I’m hearing from the hydrasynth are craazy. Plus everyone swears by it. Help!!

I just got the Dt2.up to this point ive only used ableton but ao far this box is great! It seems pretty intuitive. And i like how its only 2 layers of menu.so far ive loaded a oneshot sample bank and made some loops in ableton which i populated on the Dt2. Its pretty fun!. Any tips on workflow? Prog house,and trance if that matters

I can't decide which model to get in terms of programming chords. I heard people say that the overall functionality on the mk2 is nearly the same as the OG. But I am really intrigued about the chord center, bass root note and chord modes. How would you evaluate this question? How is life with the digitone 1 when it comes to programming chords?

How great of a pairing is an op-1 field for a companion to a digitakt 2? Thinking this could work very well in the studio together just wanting to hear others experience. I know the op-1 is pricey.

So I'm currently waiting on a arturia minifreak to pair with digitakt 2...just wondering if i wanted to stay dawless and layer different patches from the minifreak into a pattern in assuming I'd just sample different patches ...then add then as track.... I'm guessing it would be a bit more straightforward to use ableton and just record the different patches in live...but i have no audio interface and never used a daw

People were asking for a video to showcase what the Model-TG custom firmware brings to the Model Cycles so here it is.

It's my own unofficial firmware, entirely unaffiliated with Elektron.

It contains:

* A sample machine with various modes (loop, one shot, slice, granular, stretch, pluck and wavetable).

* A performance screen with 12 master FX, track bypassing, side chain compression and beat repeat.

* Scale lock for when playing the step trigs like a keyboard.

* Filter, attack and resonance for all machines(including stock machines)

* Improved cpu usage throughout and a screen to monitor cpu and ram.

* Compatibility with Elektron Transfer to send wave files to your cycles internal storage.

* Slide trigs

And probably more things that I've forgotten...

You can flash your own Cycles OS to use the Model-TG here: https://tinygregaudio.github.io/Model-TG/

The source code and a full user guide can be found here: https://github.com/TinyGregAudio/Model-TG

Cheers,

Tiny

I was asked yesterday about latency figures for USB I/O on the Octatrack. Here are some numbers:

Octatrack USB round-trip latency, measured (image usb-io-tracks-main-cue-abcd from octabam’s GitHub)

I sent a short sweep into each USB input (A, B, C, D, one second apart), recorded all 20 USB outputs, and cross-correlated to get the gain and lag of every path.

Setup: 8 tracks with THRU machines on A, B, C, D, A B, C D, A+B, C+D at AMP VOL +63, with CUE at 127 on every track.

Routing: every path is correct. Unity on single inputs, −6.02 dB per input on the A+B / C+D sums, stereo pairs land on the right sides, and MAIN and CUE both match the predicted sum. All 20 outputs (16 track channels, MAIN, CUE) have the same latency to the sample.

Latency: 11.2 ms round trip with a 32-frame host buffer, no dropouts. Of that, the Octatrack's own share is about 3.8 ms (150–170 samples across runs, depending on where the USB rings settle); the rest is macOS CoreAudio. The unit's share stayed the same while I varied the host buffering, so the remaining headroom is on the Mac side.

In Logic (32-sample I/O buffer): Logic reports 6.6 ms round trip and compensates recordings by that. I played a click track out to input A and recorded it back through a THRU track, and every click landed 168 samples (3.81 ms) later still. That's the Octatrack's internal buffering, which CoreAudio can't see, so Logic doesn't compensate for it. Total round trip in Logic: about 10.4 ms. Setting Logic's Recording Delay to −168 samples lines overdubs up exactly.

Elektron have just released v1.54 but all the firmware mods are still built against v1.53. Unfortunately I didn't keep my old download of the 1.53 version so .. can someone share it? I was looking forward to check out some of the mods this weekend. Thanks.

Shame on Elektron for not keeping an archive of old firmware versions like other companies do.

EDIT: If anyone is looking for more info and workaround, check out my other comment here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Elektron/s/lmOECNuc6j

Hi all!

I'm wondering if anyone out there has ever found an off-the-shelf part that can replace the Digitakt (and Digitone) buttons. I've been in need of replacing my #3 key for years now, and I'm simply too tight to buy a replacement from Elektron when I know the part itself is likely available (though potentially privately) at a fraction of the cost...

Any ideas would be hugely appreciated!