It’s pretty telling of how important elektron machines to so many of us by the way in which this announcement set the hearts a flutter. I mean, who hear can honestly say that seeing the “news” this morning, didn’t instantly raise your heartbeat - whether a current owner or not?
There are winners and losers in these new moves. If you invested in say a Rytm and A4 and some sort of racking device for full retail price 30 days ago, I can’t fault you for feeling like your money invested took a bit of a hit - it did. If you sold off a mark 1 Rytm or A4 recently and got a good price and are waiting to decide whether to purchase a Digitakt or Octatrack mark2, then you’re probably feeling pretty lucky right now. Regardless of all that and when emotions settle, I don’t think anyone can fault Elektron for doing what they do - selling great machines. And in the end of the day, there are now more options, including options people have been asking for for years. This can only be a good thing! And of course those pointing out that if you were happy making music with what you had yesterday, not being happy today is illogical are completely correct.
I find these mark 2s exciting. I own an AK and AR at the moment. The AK is going nowhere, but I may well be compelled by the AR to get the sampling, full USB bandwidth, display and new layout. But I will certainly wait….
Which brings me to my one concern that I can’t shake. I’m pretty worried about the pace with which Elektron is embarking on new projects, what this means for current and older boxes, and where their style of communication intersects with all this. As in, we know good and well at this point that we can’t count on getting solid answers to any questions that we might deem pertinent to planning future purchases. And how well (and quickly) will all devices be supported? The case in point for me that really speaks to this concern is with the Heat. I purchased it (and loved it!!!) but there were a few OB related issues that affected the functionality as I had planned on using it. I emailed Elektron support and was told that they’d have fixes for the bugs. I had a sense that perhaps this wouldn’t happen quickly, so I returned the Heat within my 30 days fully planning on purchasing another when the bug was squashed. That was well over 6 months ago and to my knowledge the bug is still alive. This is worrisome to me.
Another area of concern is OB. I’m a heavy user of it and have a system that works 100% as it should. And I love the FUCK out of it - it’s incredible! But I have a nagging worry that I’m going to be trapped in a situation where I’ll be afraid to make updates on my Mac as doing so may brick OB. And how aggressively will Elektron work on the free OB six months from now? 2 years? For this reason, I’m actually beginning to feel like this OB premium thing may be good in that it will commit them to making sure it works for each upcoming OS update in a more aggressive and timely manner. One would certain hope…
Who knows? I will certainly wait and see. But in the larger picture…damn, congrats Elektron…you have officially never made or announced a product that I don’t in some manner fundamentally desire