I agree with @RobertSyrett, and it’s the main reason I prefer the Digitakt over the Octatrack. The Octatrack is such a complex machine and can do far more than the Digitakt (including acting as a big Digitakt), but all these options makes it slower to work with, in my opinion. It takes more care and attention to set up the way I want, and if I don’t plan ahead I’ll trip over my own decisions later down the line. There’s so much inertia if I change my mind about how to use it in the middle of a project.
In comparison, the Digitakt feels like a “best of” mini version of the Octatrack. All the tracks are identical and you can’t customize the FX like you can on the Octatrack, which makes it easier to rely on muscle memory when navigating the Digitakt. Don’t underestimate how much energy it takes to double check what you’re tweaking when performing live, especially when you have to double check every time you tweak stuff on a different track.
If the Octatrack isn’t behaving as expected, troubleshooting can take a lot longer than on the Digitakt. The Octatrack’s flexiblity can work against itself in this case, since there are so many places it could go wrong: is the track muted? Which volume has been turned all the way down? Is the delay set to pass or not? Is the current scene silencing it? Is the filter cutoff all the way down? Has the sample accidentally been overwritten? The Digitakt’s checklist for when something goes wrong is a lot shorter because it’s a way simpler machine.
TL:DR; The Octatrack does it all, at the cost of speed/ease of use. The Digitakt is relatively simple, but laser focused and lightning fast. With my sometimes short attention span and limited music-making “stamina”, I tend to pick the Digitakt because I always spend less time on the hardware and more time on the music when using it.
