Both are great. I think the DN has a broader range of sounds though.
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I think the main question needs to be ā what kind of synth you want to work with?
And what you want to do with your synth?
Iāve bought the A4 - because I like to have that old-school raw analog sounds for my live setup. And its a good tool if you need to work with CV (for a modular system).
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The answer is surely both, no?
Love the A4 MK2. I wish Elektron guys had an update on the horizon for similar nasty Lo-Fi, degrade, muddy tape FX like the OT-2 does. I was just getting into those great FX before I needed to sell the OTā¦ I guess with the A4 being Analog there are ways to get that outside of it being an effect 
Just reviving this thread again! Iām teetering on the brink of buying a new Elektron box as a standalone groovebox to make music without the computer. Iām well-versed in the Elektron workflow (trigs, sound and parameter locks, multiple sounds on one track for drums etc) and I donāt want to go sample-based because I get sick of trying to ācurateā samples on the computer first before I can start making anything.
What I really want is some opinions about the sound design process. I previously owned and returned a DN quickly a coupel of years ago because the FM scared me off. I thought it sounded great and clearly very versatile but I still find FM quite impenetrable and itās more of a āexperiment and see what happensā process compared to the analogue/subtractive engine that Iād get with the A4. I appreciate that they have different sound character but both are clearly capable of making one-box music whether it be drones or some not-too-complex techno etc.
Have DN users found that it gets easier to understand the engine and get subtractive-style sounds as well as more traditional glassy FM sounds etc? Iām watching a lot of videos to try to get a feel for things and the A4 looks very easy to get going and Iām sure Iād feel comfy with a subtractive synthesis method based on experience with soft synths.
When Iāve watched some of the sound design videos for the DN it looks like the users are basically āwandering aroundā with the various parameters and hoping to end up somewhere they like, rather than understanding exactly how to program the sound they want. Iām not criticizing either approach and I understand that there is a lot of enjoyment to be had with FM by not knowing where you are going to end up but rather by enjoying the journey!
I think I can make one-box music with either device. Iām very conflicted! And no, Iām not going to buy both!
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What initially drew me to the DN was the fact that it has more voices. I had initially written it off because I wasnāt sure I wanted to get into FM, but Iām really enjoying it. I think with subtractive synthesis, itās definitely easier to previsualize and then create a sound, but I find that the DNās implementation of FM does make it relatively easy to tame. Iād still like to try out an A4 at some point, but I havenāt done so, yet. I would think as a stand-alone, the extra voices might be nice to have.
I owned a DN for over a year and while Iām no expert I was pretty proficient in it.
And even I started to grasp the operator levels and such I still felt like it was always one inch away from mayhem (in a bad way).
In the end it always felt like I always ended up doing the same patches even though I was going about them differently each time.
Probably due to me not being proficient enough in the device.
I own an A4 since about a week and itās a great sounding synth, I really like it a lot. It is really deep compared to the DN imo.
At first I though DN would be a greater choice due to polyphony, but Iāve learnt during the years that you donāt need big chords to provide emotive soundscapes.
Iāve found with a4, that I take two tracks with different Arps and then one track which I allocate two voices to for pads, and that really fills out the sonic spectrum. So I donāt think you should worry about polyphony to much.
As I also have a small euro system Iāve found that the A4 is a great companion in that regard as well.
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FM synthesis is not complicated. Granted, substractive synthesis is even easier. But the DN can also be a substractive synth anyway. Read a bit of theory and youāre good to go. In the end, they both have a very different sonic palette, and you should really pick one based on that.
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I had the A4 for a few years and I still have the DN. Iām pretty sure the DN is my favorite hardware synth at the moment. I still donāt totally understand FM (I use other more traditional FM synths on my iPad and computer) but the DN is easy to get along with once you give it some time. In fact, itās the synth Iāve created the most presets for - itās a great tool for sound design of all types.
With the parameters, the kind of āwandering aroundā you may be seeing is more artistic than confused. What I mean is that the āscienceā behind subtractive synths makes more sense and is easier to picture - when you think of a filter on a saw wave, you can visually picture the wave getting more rounded and smoother. FM, however, is confusing as hell - how the fudge do these two sine waves make this gnarly ass sound? What the hell does that waveform even look like?! However, once you play with FM in the way the Digitone has it setup, you begin to know how turning a particular knob will effect your sound based on all their other settings, you just wonāt know why. Does that make sense?
The A4 was probably my least favorite Elektron box out of all the ones Iāve had - OT, MM, MD, DT, DN. While itās cool, I found getting good sounds out of it were not always easy or enjoyable, and the 4 voices made it to limited or useful for many situations. Thatās not to say itās a bad synth, it just didnāt really do it for me. I also have a Virus C, which handles most of the things I could have used the A4 for, but better.
Hope that helps!
It took me some time to appreciate it.
More than the other Elektron synths, indeed.
But itās a very rewarding synth if you focus on it and donāt want it to do what it doesnāt.
This last track Iāve done is almost only A4 mk2.
Iāve found lately that if I had to keep one between A4, MM, Peak and OB-6, Iād keep the A4.
So, if youāre not into FM yet, this is a good choice IMOā¦
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Nice! I had the A4 for about 3 years or so and did use it a bit on our last album, so itās not like I didnāt get anything good out of it. I just didnāt get enough usable stuff to warrant keeping it.
Thanks for all the input, some really helpful perspectives here. One things I find interesting is that I have been āawareā of Elektron since about 2017 and Iāve spent a lot of time on Youtube and on these forums etc and anecdotally it seems hard to find anyone with a bad word to say about the Digitone. It seems to be many peopleās favourite hardware synth of all time and there are LOTS of users on Youtube etc who are making whole tracks or even whole sets (30-60 mins long) with just a Digitone. For all my concerns and usual reservations about buying gear (software is cheap, hardware is expensive) it seems that this is a real ādesert islandā device for many people and Iām sure thereās a good reason for that.
Oh, and itās Ā£450 cheaper than the A4!!
Coming from years of using full featured FM synths I would say that the DN is a great first step into FM synthesis, because itās thought out very well and its concept makes it possible that no FM specific knowledge or experience is needed, to create useful sounds out of the box. But it would be well invested time to get some FM knowledge at the end of the day
At first I was a little sceptical about the DN and its limitations, because I compared it to typical FM synths. But the DN has some tricks up its sleevels, which I would never had even tried on a conventional FM synth. I love this machine and itās a keeper.
As for analogue sounds ā¦ donāt expect too much of the typical bread and butter analogue or VA world. Itās a FM synth after all. FM is not only āglassyā. It can do so much more. It can be full, deep and rich, it can be crispy and harsh, it can be metallic or woody, hollow and nasal, but it will never sound like a Moog, Oberheim, ARP, Sequential, Roland etc. VCO going through a VCF.
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I certainly didnāt mean āglassyā as an insult and really itās just a shorthand that Iāve fallen back on to describe FM sounds that weāre all familiar with. Itās good to get reinforcement that itās capable of so much more. I watched a few more videos since yesterday (including some ones Iāve seen before) and it clearly has a very wide sound palette if you take the time. Jeremy RMR has a video I just watched 5 mins ago about one of his own sound packs which is very inspiring and I watched some more āone-box digitone technoā videos yesterday that are very impressive that arenāt āglassyā at all!!
I have one other quick question for all you good people - am I right in thinking that I can feed another device into the inputs of the DN and essentially have it act as a simple mixer and possibly even use the FX on that input? Iām talking (right now at least) about an MS. To be more specific, can feed the MS into the DN inputs and then sync the two devices so I can play them together and hear both through the DN outputs or via USB audio or overbridge? I think Iād forgotten about the inputs altogether but I saw something on youtube that made me curious. It wouldnāt be critical if the answer is no, it would just be a nice bonus.
edit - I wouldnāt know Moog, Oberheim, ARP, Sequential, Roland sounds in a blind test anyway so I doubt it matters!
Haha ā¦ 
maybe, but if we were in my studio together you would definitely tell apart the sound of a real analogue subtractive synthesis from a subtractive synthesis of the DN.
Just as a clue ā¦ there are a couple of VA synths, which in my ears sound convincing āanalogueā. AFAIK this is possible, because the emulation software tries to emulate the natural fluctuations of real analogue circuits successfully. This said, even those tiny fluctuations would kill a FM synthesis and make sound design quite unpredictable. Typical FM oscillators should be very stable and keep frequency and amplitude fixed, which is not very hard, because they are maths and software. But that wouldnāt be a great foundation for creating natural analogue sounds as close as possible. We can do something on the DN by creating fluctuations with modulation, but this is not exactly the same behaviour, which is going on in a natural sounding VA or an analogue circuit.
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Once you had those Synths, its easy to recognize them. 
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The answer to your mixer question is yes.
(You could even plug in 2 mono instruments and pan them centre, as long as you want the same FX on both)
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I guess the key thing here, regarding the sound palette and analogue vs digital etc, is that if youāre more interested in making music than trying to slavishly copy the sound of some other device then it doesnāt matter so much. Iāve seen discussions going on for years on KVR about which VA software synth is more accurate and it sends me to sleep. To put it more politely, youāll probably be happier if you accept something for what it is. Iām not a professional musician or producer, Iām just a hobbyist who wants to enjoy noodling with electronic music away from my computer screen and Iām sure most of us would agree that for that purpose, the DN (among many other great groovebox products on the market) can go a LONG way.
Regarding the input/mixer thing - thatās great news and one more way to have fun.
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Absolutely agree.
I wanted only to point out, there are differences, which we canāt change. I love my DN and my analogue synths for what they are. They complement each other.
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Used as a standalone box, I have more fun with the A4 than the DN. That is less to do with synthesis and more that the A4 has the mini keyboard buttons as well as the 16 step buttons. I find it so much easier to play and tweak melodies on it than with the DN. Also far prefer the A4 for drum sounds.
I often contemplate upgrading my DN to the Keysā¦
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