No

Plenty of people make music on the Models every day without agonising over firmware updates - they’re fit for purpose and launched with a bunch of features that took years to be added to the larger boxes. As far as I know there aren’t any major outstanding bugs that need to be squashed - the battery handle was a fucking mess but it doesn’t really have anything to do with adding portamento. If there are missing features you absolutely need and can’t compromise on then buy something else that has them, simple.

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nevermind :slight_smile:

It’s largely a percussion synth. Not many percussion instruments have a slow attack.

Not trying to make excuses, but percussion is kinda a main focus of the machine. From what I can remember, the Machinedrum didn’t have an attack parameter either.

It was designed that way, it’s a drum machine first with some features for getting tonal sounds. This might shock you but there are instruments with arbitrary limitations that are still well loved in spite of or even because of those limitations. The TB-303 is missing most of the features you’d expect from a monosynth, but people are still using it 40 years later and aren’t too bothered about not having an attack phase.

If you want a general purpose FM synth there are plenty of those out there, this isn’t one of them.

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nevermind :slight_smile:

I don’t really know how the Models are optimized and how much resources are remaining for that CPU, I was thinking more of the extra LFO and slide trigs for what might run into constraints.

Redoing the Models UI at this stage around the one knob per function ethos seems the less likely of the reasons, and “we ran out of time” doesn’t necessarily mean that it was ever ready to go in shippable state.

I’d be happy if there were any late updates, perhaps before they go EOL we’ll see a series of smaller fixes for the patient but I do not expect anything offhand. Certainly with dev effort that would not necessarily be backported to the Digitone/Digitakt or Syntakt.

In a world of infinite possibilities and far fewer guarantees, embrace limitations, accept the character of and optimize for what you have today and in front of you!

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What do you think supporting a product means, maybe I can try doing some passive aggressive bolding as well? Presumably Elektron are still responding to customer support requests and honouring warranty claims. I don’t like that the price has gone up, but so have production costs. They’ve released updates to fix bugs and improve performance, the only thing they haven’t done is add new features that weren’t advertised as being part of the instrument in the first place.

I’m not suggesting that you hate the instrument, but it does seem like you are having difficulty accepting the limitations inherent to the design. If those limitations are a dealbreaker for you now then it’s unlikely that a firmware update will change that.

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nevermind :slight_smile:

This thread reads to me like you are trying to get a definitive yes or no on whether these features will be added. However, Elektron have historically not jumped in to threads to talk about future plans (or lack thereof).

Your best bet for a definitive yes/no is either to email feature-request@elektron.se or post in the Model Cycles feature request thread.

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Imagine if Elektron implemented an attack parameter but you had to choose between attack and release like in Nanoloop. The first comment would be “why can’t we have both?!”

Where?

“Groovebox” doesn’t imply full featured synthesis, quite the opposite - usually it’s a tradeoff where you accept cut down or compromised synthesis parameters in exchange for getting one box that can do a variety of basic percussive and melodic parts. The Korg Electribe EMX-1 is an excellent groovebox and it doesn’t have any amp attack parameter. Most of the Cycles machines are designed for drum synthesis.

Bolding is something you do for emphasis and it stops being effective if you do it all the time and bold every point that you’re making.

The battery handle is a mess, this has been covered - I think it was “handled” (heh) badly. Is there a firmware bug that stops you from using the Cycles as intended? If so, that’s an issue and something support should address. As far as I know Elektron support are still responding to tickets for the Cycles.

Pretty much every Elektron device with FM has a reduced feature set relative to standard DX style FM synths. These are deliberate design decisions, done with the knowledge that anyone who really needs those missing parameters can just buy something else.

So you think it’s brilliant, and a very solid groovebox, but you’re fixated on one thing it doesn’t do, has never been advertised as doing, and don’t want to buy it because it doesn’t do this thing that nobody has ever claimed it will ever do. Then don’t buy it, it’s not that hard.

I don’t even know why I let myself get dragged into this, I guess I’m annoyed with the petulance and entitlement of people who believe that every instrument should conform to their expectations and that they’re owed new features or an explanation when that doesn’t happen. The Models have a limited feature set by design, their virtue is simplicity. If Elektron caved in to every feature request, that design would be compromised. If they’re too simple for you there are plenty of more complex devices on the market you can use instead.

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It comes across as such to me.

I don’t find it “passive agressive”, whatever that means (and I also find people are way too squeamish on this forum), but I think it just makes the text difficult to read. It’s ok as a headline I guess, but stuffing too much of it hurts my sight. :grin:

Also it’s perfectly fine to ask for features again and again and again. I’ve done my fair share of asking for portamento on all the boxes. Eventually it happens.

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Absolutely.

I agree when used to excess. That doesn’t apply to the first post, which is how I use bolding … to pick out the important points from a longer post.

Can we all now maybe return to the topic and leave the meta-topics alone for a bit ?

image

Maybe you could just continue your private discussion, well, in private…

To ask for features on an Elektron machine, please feel free to contact
feature-request@elektron.se

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There is not much of a topic TBH, it’s already from the start some kind of meta-thinking about whether a device that is not discontinued is abandoned :joy:

And so is 75% of this forum. (yes, made-up figures)

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The Model:Cycles can be found very cheap secondhand in most markets, and I think that’s worth checking out.

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Only the handles.

Thanks I will check it out :slight_smile: bye

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