A one potential speaking here. I’ve been reading through miriads of forums and couldn’t find any, which would give me any reasurance.
Some background - I am semi-professional guitarist, which have came to the point, where one instrument is not enough and a year ago have started exploring the world of synthesis.
The music I make I would describe as simple electronic music, some lounge & sometimes towards rock - no techno or smth similar.
I have Korg Minilogue to cover my melodic needs and now I am looking for a groove box, drum machine sort of thing to get the rhytm going.
I am mainly deciding between:
Drumbrute - very hands-on approach, simple to use, what you see is what you get. Yet, I have heard mixed opinions about the sound
Digitakt - seems to be far more advances in features, there is a bigger palet of sounds and also MIDI sequencing
I am a type of person, who is afraid of getting overwhelmed with menus and I really like the gear, where you sit down and start making music - that’s why I ditched software editing at all.
In general, I would go for Digitakt, but I need you opinion, from the point of usability, how harder it is in comparison to Drumbrute?
P.S. at least for the first year, I would use the built in samples of DT.
The Drumbrute is maybe a bit easier to learn but it is an analog drum synthetizer. So if you don’t like the sounds it makes you’re pretty muck fucked because the sound palette won’t change much.
The Digitakt on the other side is a sampler so it can read whichever samples you feed it (could even be samples of a recorded Drumbrute…).
If you’re not religious about analog gear, I would stick with the Digitakt, which is much more versatile.
I have owned both. Didn’t like the clap on the drumbrute. Digitakt needs overbridge which is not out yet. What kind of soundcard to you have? drumbrute needs a lot of audioinputs on your soundcard if your gonna record anything else than the main out which is mono! Digitakt can only record stereo out but will get overbridge (probably at some point…).
If you can’t decide between sample based drum sounds or drum synthesis and you want hands-on, why not consider the tr-8s? It can play samples, has drum synthesis and is hands-on.
Digitakt or all Elektron machines are very deep and page / button driven. Digitakt isn’t complex to use at all, but if you e.g. want to change the decay of an instrument, you have to select the instrument, select the right page and then you are able to change it. You are constantly switching between instruments and pages.
At studio we use an Apogee Duet, but when in need of serious recording, multi-outputs is not a problem, since we can handle live drums, that wouldn’t be a problem. A bit more limiting while at home, but let’s say it does not influence everyday use
As mentioned before - I am now really lacking time to spend on music, so it comes down to really sitting down and making it. can’t imagine myself going through packs of sounds and then selecting and editing one of hundreds samples.
The shining peak of the Digitakt is it’s quick, efficient and simple method of sampling. Just find a sound you like from an app on your phone/from a song/from a YouTube video/from a different instrument or object and record it in. You don’t even NEED to explore around the audio files!
Make music quickly! Record something in and then see what you can do with it!
Neither, get an MFB Tanzbar. To me, that is the best drum machine out there right now. Either that or a Jomax.
The MFB Tanzbar lite and Tanzmaus are great as well. The problem is that no stores in the USA carry the Tanzbar machines which is surprising considering how good they are. I ordered a Volca Beats since I only had budget for 2 Elektron boxes. The Elektron Analog 4 does drums as well.
Reading the other responses on this thread, I have to agree with everyone else suggesting you get a TR8-S as well. A very immediate machine with built-in fairly malleable sounds, but with the potential of loading up your own sounds into it if ever you should want to(but it doesn’t appear to be necessary). It appears that it has step locks on it too.
It looks like something you could quickly make something that sounded pretty cool with- and will only eat your precious time if you really want to put that time in.
Definitely sounds perfectly aligned with your music-making needs.(and I say this loving the Digitakt immensely- it’s my favorite piece of gear at the moment(after the MDUW))
i definitly choose a sampler to make rock or the boss drum machine are made for guitarist ( there’s one with a bass section) you will not have a very rock 'n roll palette with analog drum machines. for lounge do i should understand trip hop too ?
a sampler is a must go. definitly i love samplers !!! there’s a learning curve with every sampled based instruments but this is so rewarding.basically you could only have one sampler and do it all !
Thanks for the responses and your quick support, guys!
I will be definitely looking at the TR8s, somehow I knew it existed, but was never really drawn to it.
Anyway, Digitakt is still the sexiest on the street (I think they have some kind of iphone-synth feel to it), so the next few weeks will show us, where will I end up
I had the DB and now the DT. I loved the ease of use of the DB but ultimately found the sound lackluster, sound sculpting too limiting, and the footprint way too big. That said, if you like the sound and have a big empty place to put it, it’s a blast to use and super easy to build beats.
Having played with both, I say the Digitakt, hands down. You can make it any drum machine you want, and even after that it’s so much more than just a drum machine, it’s a full music production solution. I found the DB to be thin and uninspiring personally. A night with the Cuckoo tutorial on youtube and you’ll be up and running in no time.
