I am not one to complain about gear specs. I thought it was odd that the A$ did not come with individual outs, but I accepted it. Now that the AK has those out, I am feeling a little burned in that regard. I really would have liked that option, especially in the day and age of multi-channel home computer based recording.
fair enough, but were you happy with the price?
D/A converters cost money so it would have pushed up the cost of your A4
trade it in maybe? thinking more its d/a added cost to the octo but the a4 may just need direct analogue audio outs
They added an entire keyed to the A4, joystick etc of the AK (in addition to the individual outs) and increased the price by what, $600-700? I doubt the increase would have been that much related to the functionality increase realized by having individual outs on the A4.
+Drive wasn’t in the specs of the A4 I bought… I can see why AK buyers might be annoyed that A4 peeps are getting one for free!
I can assure you that A4 buyers are not getting one for “free”. The hardware for the + drive was part of the machine from beginning.
i take your point, but you know every elektron machine has shortcomings in one way or another. in order to keep the price down something always has to give.
if you like, i can list them all?
starting with the omission of the letters U & E
and there’s limited space on the rear panel of the analog(ue) 4, not enough physical space for another 8 outs
elektron could easily have charged an unlocking fee. Plenty of other synth manufacturers do that. Blofeld, for example, sampling unlock is something like EUR100 to enable 60mb even though you already physically have it.
personally I’m quite happy to get the +drive for free, very decent of elektron. Not deliriously happy mind you, as I did expect a few chunky updates from electron anyway when I purchased as the A4 was sold as ‘nearly ready’ rather than a complete OS. So another internal machine, another effect, user waves etc would be a fair expectation to match the elektron custom of looking after their users post sale.
I agree that I’d much prefer separate outs from the A4 like the AK has, but I didn’t ever expect it to happen after I bought it… though I will take this opportunity to again nicely ask elektron to consider an A4 menu option that allows you route one stereo track audio out to the CV sockets, or a single mono to each CV! Surely it can be done! 
I only have a Monomachine, and after 20 years of owning a range of what would considered to be classic synths, it’s hands down the most amazing machine I’ve ever used. Love it. The Elektron lads, though clearly geniuses, are a weird stubborn lot, and the outputs on the last two releases (Octatrack and A4) did seem to rather cripple them in some respects. The studio mode on the Octatrack did also look like a bit of an afterthought to me.
Though not universal, I do think Elektron HQ generally see their machines existing standalone, that is, outside a more conventional mixer/DAW setup. This is great to see. Lots of guys here run multiple Elektron machines chained together and you don’t hear much of a gripe about the outputs. I couldn’t live with it myself though.
Outputs is the only reason I didn’t get an A4, and why I will be getting the A4K.
not sure, may depend on the hardware. although they must be DC coupled & potentially incompatible & not DACs!!???
you’re probably right analogback.
Perhaps, after someone has had a look inside an AK it might be make it easier (by way of comparison with the A4 PCB) to deduce where to solder to A4 pcb points to access the track audio routes, insert a breadboard DAC and create your own outs ( drilling two new holes and re-purposing the CV outs).
I dare say an easy, cheap & low risk mod if you knew what you were doing and tested carefully.
I’m interested in such a mod, even had my A4 open and probed for the right spots a while ago. should be doable. not feeling confident enough w/ electronics though to design the output circuit, must be buffered, likely needs gain boost…
The good thing to do would be to use stereo outputs like the AK does. It will be tricky/impossible though to remove individual tracks from the main stero outs (teh AK can do this)
nobody was sold a donkey as a racehorse, everyone bought a racehorse at a fair price. elektron make stuff, they listen, then they make better stuff - if you can’t appreciate the a4 for it’s beauty then you are focussing on the wrong things, throwing the baby out with the bathwater … this ‘bass’ hysteria being discussed elsewhere is comical - honestly if you’re sat with a ferrari and moaning that it can’t carry your kitchen table you’re out of touch with healthy levity, these are different products for different people - if i got wound up about my non retina ipad not having a camera it’d drive me nuts - it didn’t have one when i bought it, they didn’t make me buy it, i like it for what it is, not gonna worry about what it should be or became - the next a4 derivative will be better still, go figure, enjoy what u have and upgrade if u can justify to yourself but do it for sound reasons - of which multiouts might be one, but you knew that when you got it at a price that reflected that no doubt - they don’t cut corners from what i can see, the products are well made and premium and fair
my opinion for what that’s worth, but let’s get some levity and joy back to the discussions before we reach the 9th
Hahaha
Getting burnt is buying a Beat Thang.
This is just simple economics.
I certainly don’t feel burnt, but it would be good to get a firm answer from elektron on whether it would be technically possible to use the CV and/or headphone outs as separate audio outs with a software update.
Personally I suspect it’s a hardware change
Oh I am sorry Avan- to bring you down. I am a big fan of Elektron. I took the A4’s limitations for what they were. I generally have no complaints and Elektron has been MORE than great with their customer support when I have needed it. However, I think it is fair to feel a little frustrated about having this major functionality left out of a the A4 when it was placed in AK less than a year after the A4. Why would one have expected this major functionality addition in such a short time? It is not like it suddenly occurred to the engineers at Elektron multiple outputs was an important feature and that people would want that and thusly made that change in the next model. I think this is not a case of “improvement”, but rather a case of you have to buy the new, more expensive toy to get the multiple out put functionality. It a market move not an evolution of the device, I think this was in their plans all along to be honest. Companies have to make money, and this is tactic to do that. I get it, it does not mean that I cannot feel annoyed.
I truly cannot understand how you could feel burned.
When you bought the A4 you where 100% aware of it’s features and limitations. At that point you decided it was worth the money and YOU decided to get one.
Now Elektron introduces a more expensive machine based on the A4 but with added features and you feel burnt.
In the EU the AK costs 590euro more than the A4. That is almost 51% more than the A4 itself. For that (almost) 51% more you get a 3 octave keybed, some leds, a sligthly tweaked PCB and individual outs.
Existing (and future) A4 owners get all of the other stuff for free.
You could even say that a lot of the extra functionality (like perhaps the poly mode) would have never been available for the A4 if the AK wasn’t developed.
Really, I don’t see anything but positives here. And if you need the seperate outs…sell your A4 and get a AK.
BTW: I’m not questioning if the A4 would have benefitted from the extra outputs. It would have…but at the moment that we decided to buy one this was not one of it’s features. So it’s not a surprise nor has Elektron forced us to get one anyway.
I don’t understand the problem. The A4 has never been promoted to have multiple outs. So you knew what you were buying. If you don’t like it you shouldn’t have bought it. If no one bought the A4 because of the lack of multiple outs elektron would be sitting on a big pile of trash and would have rushed to make an A4 with multiple outs. Customers have this certain power, choose wisely on what you spend your money or be the market’s toy boy (or girl) (or whatever, you know what i am trying to say)
No shit that the A4 never was promoted as having multiple outs, not shit that I knew what I was getting and never expected the A4 to have multiple outs. I also never expected them to release the exact same thing with so many upgrade within a year. Did you? I have been sitting on this for awhile, I do not think I am just flying off the handle.
Having an A4, I DO want the AK but think it would be more annoying to learn there’s no way of easily linking the A4 and AK other than being perhaps able to play the external A4 via keys…do not have all those specs and answers yet to make a choice yet.
A separate product is a great thing because it further enlarges the customer/musician base of Elektron because face it, not every musician works the same and those especially of us that are keyboard/synth players and sound designers, the AK is the exact thing that is attractive and the size factor is perfect.
Those separate outs are gold plated, really high quality DAC’s are indeed expensive and when comes to sound Elektron does not cut corners there.
About sound: The extra resonance for Filter 1 is VERY welcome as felt Filter 2 was/is more utilitarian…and hoping that gets into the A4 as well but hey, if it’s a hardware change that made it only possible for AK, certainly no reason to moan!
These are indeed great times because the bar is being set higher and higher by handful of smaller independent companies, in the end each and everyone benefits from new and fun instruments to make music with.
A4 Keys announcement does not bother me at all.
Yes individual voice outs would be nice, but I knew what the limitations were when purchasing the device. The price of the original A4 is very reasonable too, considering what you get.
Although Elektron have never disappointed in terms of keeping OS updates flowing (10 years in the case of the Macheindrum - not many companies can say that!), the addition of the keyboard model means the A4 will continue to be updated for a long time.
The unlocked +drive is going to be great. Polyphony is a major win. Can’t really complain about any of that. Well you can complain - its’ the Internet - but I don’t think it’s particularly fair to Elektron 
My 2 cents.