I currently own a Digitone 2 and have been loving the drum synth machine and all the new features it has to offer compared to the Digitone MKI - I’ve also always been curious about the machinedrum and will occasionally see them online for sale. I’m curious if anyone out there has much experience with both machines and can talk me out of buying a machinedrum if they think the Digitone 2 acts as a formidable competitor to it in the year 2025. Thanks
Be over the moon with DNII unless you need the ram machine stuff.
I have a MD without samplng, and prefer the DNII. FM Drum and Wavetone make awesome drums and you can micro-design your sounds, and then there’s the OG Digitone FM Tone on top
The Machinedrum is unique - a clear master piece -
I do not have a DN II, I have the OG DN so I cannot comment, but the features of the Machinedrum make it still unbeatable in my opinion
I have both MD UW+ mk2 and DNII.
As much as I absolutely love its immediacy, I haven’t powered on the MD since I got the DNII.
On DNII you can save and recall Presets so that you don’t always start from scratch but can expand on earlier work. But even without this, I find DNII quick enough for jam sessions.
There are so many things that make DNII an excellent drum machine. There are many more modulations btw.
I bought my MD in 2016, a couple months before the retirement. This means that any Machinedrum you’ll find is 9 year old or more. There might be parts that will show their age, at some point, e.g. the screen…
In my opinion, you’d better stick with your DNII and push it as far as you can.
I don´t own both. Syntakt and Rytm here. But I really doubt that there is any sound you can´t recreate. I would rather say that the MD has an overall soundcharacter that the Digitone does not have but for that alone I would not buy one any longer. It´s like rytm and syntakt. Same machines but the rytm has a different sound character. It terms of sound design they obviously can do almost the same in terms of synthesizing.
If you really need something you don´t find. sample it or create it on the computer. beatsurfing random makes a lot of those sounds everyone is looking for.
Both my MDUW and MNM are gripped by a cold sweat after I’ve got DNII
As someone who never had or played a DN, but own and love an AR, I recently acquired an MD non-UW, to check out the raw synthesis possibilities. It seems to me that the DGII especially will knock the MD out of the park in terms of FM drum synthesis, but the MD still has its P-I
synthesis going for it, which seems to be pretty unique, at least within the Elektron ecosystem.
As a complement to AR it is awesome because there is little overlap between their methods of synthesis. Compared to the DGII though I hypothesize you might find it less convincing overall.
I actually was interested in the MD primarily for the PI Synthesis - since I love physical modelling and metallic sounds -, but found it to be very limited and samey. At least it sounds a thousand times better than Cy Alloy on M:C/ST
That’s where the Monomachine (and Analog Four) has an advantage over both of them - the chorus being useable as metallic heaven.
However, on the Digitone one can do metallic sounds by using FM together with comb, like here.
Of course only applicable for people who want their music to sound like someone is throwing wrenches into a stack of cooking pots.
if you still feel you’re missing out then get a machinedrum sample pack. I’ve got this one on my Digitakt2. I still seem to prefer the DN2 for kicks, hats, and snare though
If you’re looking for some more presets, there’s this free DN1 preset pack. Had them on my DN1 and moved some of my favorites over to my DN2. Same w/ Jeanne’s Curses pack. Can use those and whatever you’ve built to make some kits using the new kit management stuff
Thanks for all the input everyone! I think I’ll resist the urge to buy the machinedrum and dive deeper into the drum synth possibilities on DN2. Would love to see more videos on ppl experimenting with the drum synth and other new machines if anyone has any cool sounds to share!
I do believe it’s a good choice and you’ll have a lot of fun in such path.
Both FM Drum and Wavesynth are nice for drums. With 3 LFOs, the noise generator, the two comb filters, SRR and overdrive, you can shape sounds in many directions!
With all these options, I’ve found the band pass filter extraordinarily useful. At first to isolate the tracks, but now as the last and maybe more impactful element in the synthesis chain (as you can put it after everything): with this and an LFO on the base or width, you can drastically change a sound.
Also if anyone can share any good resources on modeling somewhat believable acoustic drum set sounds ie - snares and ride cymbal specifically. I’ve been able to get some pretty solid snare sounds but am always interested in seeing how other people approach things.
i’ll throw my opinion in the thread : machinedrum is overrated !
i had it back in 2017 , synthesis modelisations sound like a 2000 model ( in a bad way for me not like a nord lead or nord drum). lfo are fucking ssslllloowww, sound is very aliased . workflow is antique. you’re better with a DN2 unless you are looking for this exact sound or the ram machines like said earlier
you shut your mouth
Sometimes, nonsense is humor
tell me for 3000$ that is asked nowadays for a used machinedrum it’s worth the price ?it’s a very personnal opinion and i just want to point to OP that some people ( at least myself) don’t find this piece of kit really enjoyable especially for the price asked nowadays.
I do think at least where I live that DN2 is playing a big part in why there’s loads of MnM & MD’s not even getting a sniff of an offer around the 2k euro mark on my local classifieds at the moment.
no ones even low balling the ads & most have been up for over a month.
maybe it’s got nothing to do with it but I have my suspicions.
having said that, an MDuw mk2 got posted on my local ads for 1200 euro the other day and it got snapped up in under 2 minutes. I’d say 1 minute 30 seconds it lasted.
that price is more what I’d pay personally. so yea id say they’re overpriced nowadays.
This is true. I love the machinedrum and find it the most creative and surprising drum machine I’ve ever used…but the prices these days are insane. I think I got my mk1 for $600.
mine was a used mk2 UW but without the +drive, i had it for 680€ and resold 650€
to answer pidgeo 1200 euro is still less of the retail price asked by elektron when they’ve done the last sale , considering the inflation and the fact that it’s used it’s a good price
Nobody except rich fan/collector would pay this price. This price is not the real market currently going. Even 2k won‘t goes quickly.
So, it’s not a question of overrated gear, than abusive exploitation of rare things.
Nobody here would pay this price.
If it was (3k) the currently market price, yes, it would be overrated. That’s what i wanted to say by my “abusive” precedent post, must apologize.
I won’t be late untill putting mine on sale, but i would not even think sold it more than 2k. Not even sure to find buyer. Never mind, lo e to use it.
The important thing about MD is the sound and the immediat UI (except for mannagment of samples)
I really understand MD lovers and when listen to some of us producing lot of nice sounds out of it, i think That’s quite original and satisfaying piece of gear. With X11 os, quite standalone box.