BAD quality assurance at Elektron?

Elektron Gear Octatrack
#1

I received my Digitakt a week ago and its build like a tank!

I love the Digi but I need more features and ordered the first Octa MK2 right away. Big disappointment when the Ocat arrives: three knobs are wobbly (A, C, F - C the most), rest of the knobs are solid like on the Digitakt. The display was kind of diagonally build in - not much, but noticable. And the crossfader sticks when you are sliding not 100% horizontal.

I ordered directly a second one with hope - but got no luck :frowning: it arrives today and also here Headphone Vol, LEVEL, C and F are wobbly. Display and crossfader are better.

All wobbly knobs also can be turned too easy. The other knobs got a nice resistance and gets you the ā€œpremiumā€-feeling.

So two Octas badly build and I have to return both and wait for a third one - but what if the third one is also this bad? very annoying :frowning:

Is it a bad charge my reseller got from elektron?

P.S.: sorry for my bad english skills - school is over 34 years back :smiley:

#2

Buy an in-warranty mark 1 second hand from a reputable buyer on here, itā€™s barely different to the mk2 except lacking a couple of unnecessary buttons. Youā€™ll save a lot and get a (allegedly) superior product. Someone will have even test driven it for you to tell you itā€™s mint. The mk2 quality control has been pretty riddled with problems from what Iā€™ve seen

#3

no option for me - I love the new design and display :-/

#4

This seems to be more to do with testing things like the full range of colours on LEDs - stuff like that should really be picked up - thereā€™s no way the encoders are actually faulty or incorrectly attached, but it would grinds my gears too if they were all displaying a different feel - this sounds like a sourcing issue where thereā€™s a small difference in the rotational stability across a batch of encoders, but Iā€™d be surprised if this was a legitimate aspect to test (so Iā€™m not so sure bashing the QA in this regard is fair) - having said that, Iā€™d want to swap it too on the basis of inconsistency ā€¦ although even that is one of those areas where after a bit of playing-in the feel can even out ā€¦ that all said, the encoders should be closer in feel/play to begin with, maybe it costs more to guarantee that

It doesnā€™t matter if the Headphone Level feels different (imho) as itā€™s a potentiometer, not an encoder

It narked me on my A4 that there were certain button caps higher than others - I found out some time later that was just down to them not being pressed down enough, simple

talk to support about what is normal and how to resolve the issue to your satisfaction

#5

Has anyone got a list of batch numbers? The same happened with the OP-1 where certain numbers were more problematic. Id be interested to know how many units have been sold and how many returned.

#6

From the things Iā€™ve been reading I wouldnā€™t even consider getting a Mk2 until the reports come through of continued high build quality and operational stabilityā€¦

Mk1ā€™s are solid, trusty, and stableā€¦ Seems like another eraā€¦
Hopefully they sort it outā€¦

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#7

yeah, bad batches might explain it. fwiw All my elektrons, including the OT mk II and DN, have always arrived in perfect condition. No idea if us Finns just get lucky with this though, living so close to elektron HQā€¦

IMO these QC concerns thrown around are pretty hard to form an opinion onā€¦ Would be interesting to see statistical data of this to contrast with the comments online. Right now I donā€™t really know if things are as bad as they seem, and my personal experiences have been much better wrt this somehow.

#8

One key point about gr mkiiā€™s that people miss is the balanced inputs and double the sampling headroom. That lack of dynamic range was my #1 complaint of the mki

#9

Thatā€™s sounds awesome if they would all ship fully functional, stable, and built to a high quality standardā€¦
Some people have had to return 3 times and are on theyā€™re forth unit, there is absolutely no way Iā€™d trust that personally if that happened to meā€¦ Especially for the amount of scrill involved, these should be fully tested and shipped rock solid, with perhaps a rare occasional dudā€¦

Maybe some folks got lucky, or maybe some folks are unlikely, after two units personally I would return for good and not even consider a third, until reports come through of that not happeningā€¦
The mk2 upgrades sound sweet, but this thread is about quality controlā€¦ Not if they are betterā€¦

Elektron I hope you are listening, I love you guys, but this is not goodā€¦

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#10

Yes Iā€™m just replying to what the person above said about the mki and mkii being functionally the same minus a few extra buttons and aesthetics. Thatā€™s factually untrue. Fwiw I had a mkii, everything was fine with it, but sold it because the sound of the sample engine and effects are dated and donā€™t match well with the new generation of elektron gear imo.

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#11

Oh, I think I read every post but that one some how, so, whoopsā€¦
But I meant what I said, theyā€™ve lost my trust for the moment, expect my trusty mk1ā€™sā€¦
I do think theyā€™ll gain it back, but theyā€™re going to have to gain it backā€¦

#12

I can already tell you that a continued stream of positive reports will never happen. Most of the happy customers will never post. So you can only guess how the ā€œaverageā€ quality and stability is.

Actually the rate of negative reports here seems very, very low to me. One unhappy customer every few weeks? (just guessing, but it feels so). And there are many postings from happy MKII users coming in every day ā€¦

I wouldnā€™t draw any conclusions from single examples unless they sell only a single OT every other week.

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#13

Exactly.
Apart from the bug when I disconnect USB (without consequences), I have had absolutely no problem with my OT mk2 nor my Digitone in a 4.5 hours live set. Same can be said for the numerous live jam Iā€™ve done lately.
Same for my A4 mk2ā€¦
In my mind, these products feel as solid as mk1 or both silvers.

It is crucial IMO to systematically report defective units to :3lektron: before returning a problematic unit : if they have the serial number they can act to improve.

1 Like
#14

My experience with quality on Elektron stuff is to never ever buy the new stuff close to release. ALWAYS some pad or connection that isnā€™t working. If you hold out for a few months - when the first initial batch is sold out - quality is just fine.

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#15

My OT MKII was batch 1 and my DN was batch 2.

Zero issues with either.

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#16

Iā€™m naturally not allowed to share any statistics, but I can point out that we have shipped more units than ever before, and by a huge margin at that. (For example, the Digitakt in its first year shipped almost as many units as Octatracks in total)

Statistically, the quality is not worse, but the volume is greater. The community is more active, and our user base is larger. Even if the failure rate is 1% or lower, that would result in a fair amount of Elektronauts posts, if everybody affected made one, for example. Often with these things, it looks very bad when concentrated (e.g when answer support tickets or reading topic on QC/QA), but when looking at the actual statistics itā€™s pretty good.

That said, weā€™re constantly improving and itā€™s looking better than it ever has. We have more people working with QA and testing than ever before, which has made the work both quicker and better overall.

One thing we did have a big QC issue with was the new buttons with labels on them - during production the staff accidentally assembled them wrong. To mitigate this issue entirely, we now have an AOI (Automated Optical Inspection) unit.

I hope this post doesnā€™t come across as some sort of marketing stunt, I am trying to be as open as possible without giving away information I am not allowed to share.

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How big has the Octatrack been for Elektron?
How are Elektron products made?
#17
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#18

I know itā€™s not gonna be constant streams of positivity, For me the fact thing that stands out is Iā€™ve seen a lot of people returning multiple times. I think itā€™s reasonable to be cautious at least.

I try not to be too much of a conspiracy theorist but itā€™s hard to form opinions based on what elektron workers and the moderators of the official elektron forums think about it. Itā€™s nothing personal against any of the guys but there is a high probability of a bias. I donā€™t know why elektron canā€™t share figures so we can see what the problem rate actually is for ourselves. Iā€™m not trying to be disrespectful at all, but as someone who reads the forums regularly and the opinions of users the mk2 rollout has seemed more problematic than many other pieces of gear Iā€™ve seen released. Itā€™s up to people to make their own decisions about that though. Regardless good to know about the issue with labelling being resolved

#19

More digitakts sold in one year than all octatracks combined?? I guess that clarifies this to me at leastā€¦ But it also makes me worry that the new ā€simplifiedā€ UX will become the norm for new elektron boxes, if it indeed is that much more in demand of.

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#20

The number of complaints from this forum is surely more than 1 percent of owners. Say if we accumulate all failures for the new OT2 it appears that we have what 10 or so? That would mean that there are 1000 active members with the OT2?? But again hypothesising there are about 100 at most. That puts the failure rate at 10 percent.