I will pay mine this week at elektron 
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I got mine today and found some surprizes:
There is no audio-interface driver and it doesnt seem to be class compliant. For computer use it seems youll need overbridge, which isnt available yet.
if you put in a mono signal either on the left or right, you just get mono out (either on the left or right channel) so if you wanna plug in a mono synth and you wanna listen to it over headphones, you will need a splitter cable to go in left and right channel.
there are only around 16 factory presets in firmware 1.0.0, the rest is empty
nomen est omen, it gets really hot, when in use.
Built quality is really fine (but that isnt a surprize)
usage is very easy, just two different menu pages with four parameters for filter, env and lfo. youl learn everything within half an hour without looking at the manual.
so it will need Overbridge and a firmware update to become fully explorable. I hadnt had time yet to listen carefully to the sounds, so I cant comment on that
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Canāt use it as a soundcard?? Thatās lame.
I suppose this is because of lack of drivers currently, it is advertised as a sound card so the drivers must come soon. Nevertheless seems a lot rushed, maybe they needed the cash? strange to deliver a product with such a big featrure missing.
Their releases usually come out somewhat half-baked; I remember I bought the Rytm because of Overbridge and wound up waiting 2 years for a working OB! Seems the same for the Heat, unless they upgrade the OS and Overbridge to include the Heat then it might as well be a fancier new Analog Drive foot pedal.
I do get the feeling that since the Drive is available now, they may have better functionality since it has less features.
Not about to take my name off the Analog Heat waiting list though 
No waiting list hereā¦ Got my Heat today!!
insert club air horn
Tomorrow i will dig in
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ok, now I got time to play a little bit more around with it:
The Filter is much better than the one in a4 and ar. If you crank the resonance up, it goes into self oscillaton, great for nasty sound design.
With the filter pan you can get nice stereo effects
lfo and env can trigger the filter and another choosable parameter at the same time.
env has 3 different modes, attack, release and threshold can be set, also the frequency spectrum it should react to. combine this with the drive, and youll get a nice compressor, set dry wet at 50 % for parallel compression.
lfo is syncable to bpm, but also goes up to 2 kHz. Combine this with drive or filter frequency and full resonance for tunes that sound like an fm or ring modulator.
you can switch between the types of distortion and the other parameters stay the same, so you can choose, which type fits best.
Round Fuzz is a very interesting distortion type as it also adds some kind of short reverb to the sound
I dont know any daw plugin with this range of capabilities and sound of the analog heat.
one annyoing thing: If you loose power, everything is reset, if you power up again, you cant continue with the same setting you left off. So when performing live, make sure, the power connector has no stress and save important settings to a preset slot.
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That seems to be the beauty of it. A lot of stuff very quickly accessible in the one box with presets. Not entirely convinced it sounds ābetterā than plugins yet but possibly and even if not, ādifferentā is often just as useful. Yesterday I began to consider grabbing Drive, but after sleeping on it I think if I was gonna grab either Iād just save and get the AH. Seems almost infinitely more useful across more studio/sound design tasks plus I could still throw it in my guitar pedalboard chain if I wanted. Wouldnāt want to stomp on it at shows tho
Really? That sounds weird considering it hasnāt been mentioned in any of the marketing descriptions etc? Would also contradict Elektronās firm āthis is an analog distortion box. Not a multi-fxā response when I asked if tape warble would be possibly added in OS update?
The Filter is much better than the one in a4 and ar. If you crank the resonance up, it goes into self oscillaton, great for nasty sound design.
Oh man I wish they could tweak A4/AK filter with a software update if they have a better sounding filter in Heat.
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Agreed. A4/AKās main weak point for sure. Surprised they were happy enough with it themselves tbh.
Itās not ābadā, but easily the most finnicky/narrow sweet spots filter to use on any of my synths. A lot of people say āitās great cos itās different, adds another character to your setup, gives A4 a different soundā but I donāt really buy it. Pretty sure everyone would prefer something less glassy/squelchier if there was a choice (like buying Heatā¦). Often reminds me of the Mininova filter 
But then with some work it normally gets me where I want (ishā¦).
Maybe a big part the filter sounding better in Heat than A4/AK is its processing in stereo mot mono.
Obviously doesnāt explain self oscillation discrepancy but being stereo should make it sound naturally bigger and wider than A4 filter, particularly if stereo field is modulated etc.
That is just psychoacoustics. Round Fuzz is a very special effect.
There are no digital effects inside and the signal path is fully analog from start till the end.
No, the A4/AK filters are analog circuits.
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Are there pictures from whats under the hood of the Analog Heat?
I have the impression all the Analog Elektron products are based on analog chips instead of discrete analog?
I have no idea of the difference/benefits of each approach but would be nice if Elektron gave some insight and saved the curious people busting open their Heats Iāve noticed similar questions being asked a few times. Shouldnāt really matter tho I guess? If it sounds good it is good? And vice versaā¦
Excited to see the next gen A4 or whatever the next instruments/grooveboxes turn out to be. Seems like a ton of R&D has been going on in distortion and filters. Can only be a good thing for future instruments 
i was lucky enough to be able to try one and iāve been more than impressed by the AH!
i wonāt go into technical details as i think what matters is the sound that comes out of it (and better to let those things be done by technicians 
)
at the beginning i was a little bit sceptical about it asā¦wellā¦i was kinda looking at it like: aach well, just a simple FX machine bbbutā¦!
i tried it with the AR and the A4 and the way the AH was āchangingā the sound(s) coming from the machines made me (and not only) go something like: EEH! WTF!?!? 
i personally prefer the right side of the characters, nonetheless, the other half is as good as.
the envelope generator, together with the LFO, gives that extra in shaping the sounds with the 
(thereās also a modulation page from where an extra modulation parameter can be selected) as it makes the AH react differently depending on the audio you are feeding it (so does the audio level) - you can have it so that it sounds like youāve a compressor in your chain
it is pretty much easy to use it as all the main parameters are right in front of you and there isnāt so much menu diving needed. being able to store presets (wellā¦to be expected right? ) itās somehow a plus as i didnāt really find myself wanting to actually store what i came up with as itās easy to just turn the few encoders on the front panel and get back to what you had like half an hour before or simply start from scratch again
being able to control both wet and dry/wet levels is really nice as it gives you the freedom of dialing in the right amount of whichever character youāre using, from subtle to āall inā 
(and pretty much all parameters can be controlled via MIDIā¦mmā¦it has been fun to have some SMD action with it as well )
i was really impressed when i ended up with a 16 steps hihat sequence (tztztztzt) turn into a proper rhythm with kick and whatnot (no kidding!) 
i think the best way to experience the AH is to try itā¦words (and videos) just donāt do justice. as i said, i was somewhat sceptical about it at the beginning but after having spent few hours with it, my view changed completely (being able to afford oneā¦well, thatās another story 
)
the AH is not just an effect box, once it takes its place in your setup, itās hard to listen to the same audio without it, i would most probably have it always there (and probably always on )
the only thing i probably miss from it is Elektronās step sequencer which i believe would have played another big role in affecting sounds, even likeā¦i donāt knowā¦4 steps? i would be happy with thatā¦bbutā¦you can always do that with an external MIDI sequencer i guess
overallā¦i would probably get 2 of them!! 
(no fanboyism involved hereā¦) so yeahā¦if you have a chance, go and have a play with the real thing
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Well itās matters for me in case of the Analog Heat in this prize segment. Thats also my choice for the Elysia Karacter 
For the A4/AR itās ok to have analog chips because of the form factor. But from my experience sound wise, discrete analog sounds much better.
And for the analog purists, seeing whats under the hood is ultimate gearporn
http://www.elysia.com/fileadmin/%21content/02_hardware/karacter/download/karacter_guts.jpg
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No, the A4/AK filters are analog circuits.
You already enhanced A4 filter in an OS update once before (1.1 with the āresonance boostā feature) so I assumed it could be possible to tweak them further despite them being analog circuits.
Iām slowly becoming more and more sold with this thing. If I play shows this thing will be top of my list. Elektron, book me some gigs 
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