Well, there are bugs, and then there are bugs. I don’t think people realize just how poorly managed the Tempest was, or just how much of a mess its operating system is, even to this day. Regardless, I was just saying, the prospect of a new Elektron all-in-one workstation (à la Monomachine) is at least plausible. If I were a betting man, my money would be on Elektron’s horse (despite the fact that they have themselves spread a little thin these days).
Cheers!
Great post, it really exemplifies the fact that there aren’t many tiny digital synths with more polyphony than the DN, and zero of them have a sequencer that can do what the DN’s does. Quality DSP with realtime digital control is expensive.
This vid (from @pselodux?) shows what you can do with a single DN track and sound locks
To quote the somewhat-disgraced Louis CK: everything is amazing and nobody’s happy.
So the extra features and things end up getting in the way and convoluting the UI, and you think by limiting it and just extracting the synth engine, it would be more preferable?.. 
Yes absolutely.
Have you used either of the FM engines in the Kronos or Montage? They are incredible. Just a shame they currently come trapped in a huge workstation.
Extract either of these FM engines out into its own synth with a stack of knobs and sliders, is a complete no brainer in my opinion
Thanks for linking my video! This thread was one of the reasons why I was inspired to make that video 
Haha I’m just playing with ya…
I’m surprised you agreed, did you see the word “limit” in there?
No limits
To infinity and beyond is my motto 
ITT: many Elektron apologists
Nah.
It’s so ridiculous to say that.
As with ANY product in the history of the universe there are people who enjoy the product and want to talk about that, and there are people who don’t, and want to talk about that. (and of course some in between)
Just because people argue points on the side of the devices being cool, useful, sounding great, fun to play, etc. does not even remotely mean they’re “apologists”. Just using that term to me screams “I don’t have one, and want to jump on the hate-wagon”.
If you do have one, and have valid concerns regarding the sound or functionality, why not post some reasoned arguments? If not, why come in and make a stupid post like that? It adds nothing to the conversation. I actually value some of the people providing counterpoints to my own point of view. For example, once Psyclone001 gave some actual reasons, I ended up having what I thought was a nice conversation about this stuff. I actually started to see his/her side of some of this (though I still disagree on much of it).
So, what are all of us enjoying say, the Digitone, from the position that it’s adequate or even exceedingly good for it’s price apologizing for again? If you’ve used it, and found it lacking, why not post why that is? Maybe someone could offer a work-around, or provide something useful in return?
Or I suppose one could just respond to you with:
ITT: many Elektron haters
Excuse me, but how do you know what it takes to make something like digitone ?
From what I understand, to get the sharc processor at the 30-40 dollar price range they have to be bought in 1000 unit lots. That is an initial 30,000-40,000 dollar investment into just processors for a synth line.
I think when that aspect is considered a good reason becomes present for the lack of polyphony in synths. Bigger companies can afford the investment while smaller companies may not be able to.
Also, Great job on the research.
Its kinda of a glitch in the matrix…
If a company is really good at making something than folks should like that something no?
But also it somehow becomes “cool” or something to not like them… This only happens if a company is actually good at doing what it does, otherwise it just wouldn’t get much attention good or bad…
So if a company makes good products that you like for a long time, and people have complaints, worries, or issues with them and you decide to share how they’ve had a good track record, make good products, and want to give them the benifit of the doubt that they will make things good,
All the sudden your labeled as a blind company promoting follower…
Where’s the middle ground?
It seems if you say anything supporting or on “the side” of Elektron you are labeled in a negative way, brandboy.
What’s up with that?
Your not allowed to like a company that has made products you’ve enjoyed for years just because things are a little shakey for them right now causing other people to have complaints… Why can’t you like a company and have trust in them?
Why is it so “cool” to be picky and selective, why is there this general “if you like and trust this synth company your a blind follower, I’m better than that because I disapprove of most of how they act, and am generally on their case treating them as almost an enemy, yet I really want to use the products just like you and I’m going to pay for them, but you won’t see me acting like I like them, I will keep being on their case and scrutinizing their every move”. You should do the same because if you like them your just a blah blah blah…
I relate this more to the sociological reaction of wanting to look “cool” by not supporting a company seen as “cool”…
Everybody has their own opinion… And their opinions are based on various different things and are not necessarily even based on the same things as those who have a different opinion. You can’t even assume why someone has a particular opinion if not stated specifically in the reply, without further inquiry for clarification…
Out of curiosity: who here actually knows how to program for DSPs or FPGAs, or has done product management for something that requires either? So much of the argument here seems based on speculation, so maybe that would help clear things up.
No DSPs or FPGAs, but I’ve been fiddling with general purpose microcontrollers, some of them quite capable in the audio field. However no need to be a tech specialist to notice the great decrease in synths prices since the 80s.
OK, synth prices are down - what does that imply?
Components got cheaper… but also more efficient and easier to work with. The fact that now a single guy can release a great sounding 8 voices synth for just 303€ illustrates this. It’s been discussed above, I think there is really no such thing as DSP austerity other than managing costs and making instruments more and more accessible, opening up the maket to a larger panel of hobbyists like me rather than just the pros. Provided an equivalent amount of money than the price of 80’s flagship synths, you actually get DSP monsters, like the Yamaha Montage. I personally don’t need such power but I understand others do… it’s just that Elektron didn’t chose this path.
I’d rather have Elektron give us 8 voices of polyphony than “up to X” voices that may randomly drop out without notice. I briefly owned an Electribe 2, which claims to have up to 24 voices of polyphony. In practice the voice count would often drop below 10, and it was very frustrating to work around as you never had a clue when voices were available or not.
There is even a “voice priority” setting if I recall…
Yeah you could tell it what sounds to cut out first (high/low priority), but other than that you have no control over it. Voices could cut out at random times in a single pattern, depending on fx used, complexity of the parameter sequencing, type of oscillator and filter used, etc. Overall it was a pretty lackluster implementation of probability trigs.
It’s nice to know exactly how many voices are available, no matter what you do. Nothing worse than voices starting to cut out when you’re halfway into programming your pattern. Instead of just programming around a hard voice-limit you now have to account for complexity of patches, p-locks, etc all while being completely in the dark with the amount of available voices at any given step.