A thought about Elektron "marketing"

Elektron Gear Octatrack
#1

It might be a weird topic, but I wanted to share how I was able to “miss out” on Elektron devices for years.

I’m a jazz/house/funk musician - not Herbie Hancock by any means, but I’ve released a dozen of 12’’ records in a decade, and I own a fair amount of equipment. Two electric pianos, 4 synths etc.

Octatrack is absolutely a centrepiece of my studio and Digitakt is close second.

But I often feel bad that I only bought both of them 3 years ago. For years I was trying to achieve what I now do on OT with a lot of different samplers or combination of them.

I knew about OT when it was released, but this is the where the issue is - most of product presentation in last decade was focused on techno/IDM and people showing OT capabilities that were not of interest to me, or broadly speaking to musicians that are in similar genres (jazz, hip-hop, etc).

Only by my obsession of watching YouTube videos of people playing with their machines that I learned what Octatrack is capable of doing for a musician like me - for example I play keys, and what OT is capable of doing in terms of using 6 tracks as a looper for 64 step jazz phrases that can be immediately sliced on track 7 and randomly rearranged blew my mind.

Even now when I go back to some of the official videos and presentations I can hardly find anyone actually playing a piano or similar and recording it into OT…

I also think Jon Wayne did more for promotion of OT by showcasing how incredibly potent it is for hip-hop then anyone.

Don’t take this post in a wrong way, I for example also watch EZBOT videos (even though his music has nothing to do with what I do) to learn tips&tricks, I just want to point the Elektron team that they are missing out on a huge market of musicians with the way the instruments are presented to the public - even when I see some promos for new boxes or OS updates the artist they use to showcase them (absolutely great artists don’t get me wrong) all fall into similar use case category.

I “sold” 4 OTs to my fellow jazz piano playing artists in last 24months, and thats quite a statement considering its a 12y old machine. I’m wondering does anyone else have a similar feeling, or came to the Elektron boxes quite late because they had a totally misunderstanding of who they are aimed for.

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#2

I very strongly agree. I’ve had nights out in techno clubs that would make grown adults cry for their mothers. But it’s not the kind of music I want to make. I understand that it’s probably the most common style of music made with this kind of kit. But I think companies and the user community - which I firmly and soppily believe is an important cultural entity - lose out through the idea that there is only EDM in the world.

I’d love to hear your non EDM octatrack work. I mess around for my own pleasure making odd pop.

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#3

Do they really need marketing when there is a forum like this? Seriously, this has to be the busiest music forum going. What more do they need?

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#4

Playing mainly guitar, keyboard, and different stuff, I was using RC loopers and MPCs for midi recording. Started with Roland MC303 concerning grooveboxes. I heard about Octatrack as an 8 track looper, but it was very hard to find demos about that ability. All I could find was minimalistic electronic music demos, a few basic tricks with the crossfader.
So I had to wait to buy it second hand to try it and check if it could suit me.

Personnal experience

I was very disoriented at first, then frustrated to use it as an audio looper (Pickups? Wft?) or midi recorder (Bad quantize? no overdub?). I was very dubitative, bought an MPC 1000 again, kept my RC505 looper…
Then after a pause I gave it a second chance, and understood the strength and the flexibility of Recorders + Flex, slices, plocks, lfos, and the scenes + crossfader…

Didn’t use the MPC after, sold the looper to concentrate on OT.

That said, I still miss RC loopers immediacy and freedom to record long loops played directly. Some workarounds I found, have to make videos with them ! I also worked a lot on direct recording mangling, different approach, recording small audio chunks (2 steps), in order to use pitch, reverse and other stuff on the fly. Loopers can’t do that. And btw there are not much examples with instruments, I think Elektron don’t communicate much on realtime incoming audio mangling/sequencing…

Example below, no samples, only guitar audio processing in OT :

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#5

Marketing ?

Looking for some examples of looping (and sampling) from Elektron…

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#6

Hmm, personally the genre of music in gear demos has little influence on my purchase decisions, most samplers today are marketed with lofi hip hop demos, and come preloaded with those kind of samples. I like lofi hip hop, but don’t make it myself, but I still bought some of those samplers, and deleted the unwanted samples, filled it with my own samples.

A sampler is a sampler, it doesn’t care what it is recording, and is no more suited to one genre than another IMHO.

Not trying to be dismissive, that is just how I see it.

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#7

They want to sell products. “EDM” is most popular. They focus on people doing EDM. Coca Cola doesn’t focus on people wanting coffee during breakfast either.
Also, why do you care? Do you feel left out? If you are this sensitive to marketing “tricks”, the problem lies with you. If you don’t know a sampler can be used for pretty much anything, you lack understanding of basic concepts. Not everything has to be spoon fed. It’s okay to think with your own brain and make decisions based on that.

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#8

Hope you got commissions!!

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#9

Wowzers. Tough love doesn’t translate very well on the interwebz.

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#10

Interesting. I was listening through some of the sound packs on offer on the Elektron site and noticed how similar the example tracks were, despite being from such differing target areas as ‘Kosmiche’ drums, ‘DSP’ drums, and ‘found’ instruments. All low tempo, drenched in reverb, glitchy, and nothing I would ever want to make myself. They seem like the auditory version of the visual style presented by modern Elektron. I’d love to have heard more focused examples of isolated patches and sounds being played like an instrument. Don’t know where I’m going with this but thought it seemed relevant somehow.

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#11

Great topic -

it’s funny and true that what we see on youtube is merely a sliver of how people can and might use the machine.

Teenage Engineering seem to be more enlightened in their USP: grid sequence abandonment and instead adoption of a linear tape model in the OP1, which appeals to a lot of guitar/piano + heart/soul musicians trying to be creative with the assistance of nice tech … more of a focus on recording ‘you’ rather than the ‘grid perfectionism’ USP of the elektron sequencer which will gift you quirks that you can claim as creative without a skipped heartbeat … which really sells the OT short in terms of its capabilities.

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#12

I only found this forum after buying an OT (as I initially had an issue with it and went looking). At the time it seemed as if Elektron gear was only known to those who knew about it. I don’t recall much in the way of mainstream marketing or reviews in mags etc. I was in the market for a sampler and had my interest piqued by seeing one in a store

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#13

Interesting topic, I’ve wondered about Elektron’s marketing strategies myself. Mostly because I’ve worked in marketing and I would love to help promote products as cool as what Elektron makes — so if anyone from Elektron is reading this, please consider me for future marketing opportunities. To see some of my past work, just search my username in the “Music Memes” thread.

I think there’s been a shift in recent years in terms of how Elektron positions itself and the overall vibe of the brand. You could point to the transition from Dataline to Ricky, or from machines like the Octatrack to the Syntakt, but those specific examples don’t tell the whole story. Maybe it feels a little more vibrant/creative these days, and less serious/technical than it once was.

My sense is that they like to stay true to what they’re interested in at any given point in time, which is to say that they don’t have a track record of pandering to trends or optimizing for market reach. Elektron does Elektron things, which can be confusing but is ultimately pretty admirable.

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#14

I don’t speak swedish.

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#15

We are the marketing machine :robot:. Share what you do with your machine with the next wandering soul.
Remember: other people made you buy your OT. Not Elektron.

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#16

I think you’re maybe missing the point of the OP, which seems to me more, “wow, what an amazing instrument the OT is for experimental jazz musicians, Elektron may be missing an opportunity by not pursuing them” than “how come Elektron isn’t catering to my needs”

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#17

I agree with your perspective on his post, and I agree with his post.

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#18

agree the marketing from Elektron is less than larger companies like Roland and Korg. I discovered Elektron gear by pure accident meeting people at synth meetups years ago with Elektron machines. After tine using a friend’s MachineDrum, I wanted one and my friend who has a ton of modular recommended the A4 as first Elektron.

#19

I think people not making EDM will relate to the OP. We are probably 0,5% on this forum though :wink:

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#20

I get it, OP. I’m not skilled enough to make jazz, but I use my Elektron samplers to make glitchy folktronica with guitars and keys. It’s not a market that they advertise to (lol is anyone trying to cater to that niche), so it took a while for me to realize that I could use these tools to chase that sound I was after.

The main thrust of the marketing is the techno thing, but there are breadcrumbs (especially from the Cenk days) that show the world of potential. As much as I think Ricky Tinez is a cool guy, I hope they add another demo person who can show the side of the machines that isn’t house and IDM. There’s plenty of cool people on these boards making interesting music that way (happy to dig some up :slightly_smiling_face:)

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