I’m in the minority here. Had the OT for 3 weeks. Loved it. Easy to learn, but due to needing that extra cash, and honestly not being much of a “live show kinda guy” I am selling my OT and bought a Digitakt to use in conjunction with my op-1. And that’s something I use heavily (Op1)
I had an OT for a year and I hated it. Everything is a pain with it. Organizing samples sucked, I never got a good workflow. When I finally did wrap my head somewhat around the OS I was consistently disappointed with everything I tried to do. I tried to use it as a mixer for my other live gear, it was a tone and volume sucker, lost all my overhead, it’s a terrible mixer. I tried to use it as an effects processor, the effects are abysmally bad, like 90’s digitech stompbox bad. Just garbage thin digital effects all around. Maybe I just had too high hopes for it,
The DT on the other hand I instantly could get music out of it, the effects are nothing special, but they’re acceptable, certainly not as bad as the OT. Little things make a big difference, the button size and placement for one. It’s much easier to program on big square buttons arranged in 8 over 8 than it is in a 16 straight across. It’s just instantly more intuitive, much easier to make patterns with the sequencer laid out this way. The screen is a million times better, menu navigation feels simpler. The OT was needlessly complicated for my needs.
I honestly hated the OT I feel it was a half baked concept, or perhaps an overbaked concept, burnt to a crisp. I already like the DT better and I’ve only had it for three days. Of course there’s some minor bugs to work out, and I’m really hoping they follow through with software on this one. THe OT still has some pretty significant bugs and it’s years old. OT updates are vaporware at this point.
To each their own I guess. I’ve found that the OT has been an instant source of inspiration for me; every time I sit down in front of it I manage to go off on tangents and make something interesting. The effects take a bit of work to get to sound good, and the reverb is certainly no BigSky (or Quadraverb), but I’ve found that doesn’t really matter for what I’m doing, as it quickly becomes a “whole greater than the sum of its parts” thing… I dunno, maybe I just clicked with it in a different way than most.
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A few people have, It appears to be an extremely niche machine. The people I know that like it are typically engineers professionally and are able to dig in comfortably.
It ‘is’ one of the tougher units to learn inside out. But sampling/scenes/p-locks/lfos/resampling/Slicing/chromatic is all day 1/day 2 stuff after reading manual/watching videos? And that’s a lot of fun to be getting on with straight off 
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In the vid, Most of its drum sampling. Plus I believe the video is transferred samples, The ot is not so great sound wise in my opinion for sampling.
Last time I had one I’d sample into the it… the heLl out of a Jupiter 6 or another monster analog, save the sound in the OT. Next day I’d play back the samples and they sounded flat, and really weird.
I’d do it again, the sampling from analogs, into the daw and nice dac and transfer them to ot. The samples would sound better.
Maybe I just sucked at using the ot, but I get the feeling the ot dac or whatever is flat and just not to my taste.
When sampling/processing with internal fx and filter/recording back out OT seems to definitely steer things toward a slightly more ‘cassette’ kind of sound, to my ears at least. Not sure whether that’s the Convertors or the way I lean in to the filter etc. I like that kind of sound so no problem here, but if it isn’t something I’m imagining then I could see a lot of people being a little disappointed in the sound if they’re looking for totally transparent.
Love the OT; just requires a bit of practice and discovery. Every instrument I have works well with it.
When elektron finally starts to beat the drum of a new OT on the horizon I think I’ll block elektronauts on my router. Won’t be able to stand the tension until it is fully unveiled!
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Cenk arriving at future Namm with OT2 prototype 
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Perhaps elektron’s cunning plan is the next product is another half sized box that together with the DT effectively sums up to OT2?
Thus the next box = OT-DT
Slicing, warping, loopmangling, lots of fx, looper, tape machines, crossfader etc
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Christ another OT2 digression…
Whatever I’ll bite.
Now that everyone (Akai, Pioneer) almost (…er, Roland? and of course leaving out modular) has show their cards, I think Elektron can rest easy on releasing an OT successor. Perhaps that’s why we have the DT (which, don’t get me wrong, is great)?
I agree that it’s convertors and FX are lacking, but it’s not designed to be a professional production suite. It’s designed to be a live, hands-on, inspirational instrument and it does that better than anything else save the computer. While people can nitpick about specific flaws (which I agree with but at the same time think is unfair), the sum of its parts add up to something incredible.
OT2 will undoubtedly have OB and thus making use of it for professional production easier. Add all your outboard and VSTs to your manglings and happy accidents.
And, fwiw, using a compressor on the Master 8 or even an outboard compressor changes issues with sound dramatically.
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this. i got a 500 series lunchbox with a decent eq and comp and it made a world of a difference
The OT is a PITA compared to the DT.
Also, I see a difference between what you “can do” versus what you’re “actually doing”
Sure I can draw my own arp/lfo on the OT, that doesnt mean I actually do it. More of a novelty.
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I like the older elektrons with depth, complexity and opportunity for other users to discover cool workflows. I hope elektron doesn’t dumb-down their product development, most of the fun is Sound exploration: in fact it would be great if they are working on something like an FS1R-monomachine-vsynth hybrid that takes a lifetime to figure out 
But different users need different things, so understandable for those that need to be able to push one button and be instant Euro-techno whilst others enjoy a deep navel sonic exploration approach.
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I still kind of want a DT in spite of being underwhelmed by it overall. Does a few fun/interesting things that OT doesnt and has new filter etc and also I often run out of OT tracks. But it’ll be through half-gritted teeth when/if I grab one…
With OT and AK I was/am crazy blown away by the depth and options and longevity in terms of discovering new things to do. That kind of felt like the defining thing about ‘Elektron’. Would have been nice to grab a DT feeling the same way instead of purchasing just for a handful of different features and something new to play with.
More depth/imagination/options/memory etc needn’t have made it significantly expensive, complicated or stolen OT sales… Maybe Elektron just unforseeably did things the wrong way round by spitting OT out ahead of the game. DT is what it is tho, Elektron are shrewd peeps and I’ll probably buckle on grabbing it in the end…
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i need stereo realtime recording and looping from a bass guitar going through the electric stereo mistress … also a korg prophecy with a wide array of stereo effect modulations … so must either endure using a software midi connection to the machinedrum, and a daw … or first reinvest in an octatrack.
ironically enough i pan everything centre on the machinedrum, for club performance potential, essentially.
maybe utilise stereo imaging when doing some kind of drum fill after 8 bars.
When my OT went kaput last year, I used my OP-1 as an emergency sample player. All I did was export the prepared audio files out of the OT (was still functional enough to let me connect my computer to it via USB), and arrange the audio clips into track regions for OP-1 playback for use with the region looping feature.
We got through the gig fine but I’ve been thinking about getting a backup sample player ever since. Was thinking Electribe Sampler but the Digitakt throws an interesting twist.
I do mean to keep the OT either way, unless it’s totally beyond repair. From what I understand the fix might be as simple as deleting all those test/learning projects I created on it.
I’d use a DT/Electribe for the basic sample playback - if DT, the condtional trigs would be useful for on-the-fly pattern variations - and OT for the improvised sound mangling/looping
Does anyone know if it’s possible to use sequences interchangeably with audio and MIDI tracks on the Digitakt? i.e. Could I sequence a pattern using samples and then reuse it to drive external gear?
Well, I ended up getting a great price on a new Digitakt that was too tempting to pass up, so mine will be here tomorrow, so much for sticking to my guns 
My OT will be staying, at least for the time being.
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This all comes down to if you read and understand the manual. OT Does have a bigger learning curve, but in the end it is just as functional with more and different possibilities. It’s a machine with a completely different focus.
Just because you don’t use your equipment to the fullest potential, doesn’t mean the rest of us don’t. LFO’s and Arps are awesome, I would even say under-utilized. The only way this could be seen as a novelty is if you don’t know how to use them correctly.
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