Digitone Vs Analog 4 SOUNDS?

Elektron Gear
1

I’ve got my eye on the Analog 4 mk2.
I don’t have any Analog synths and the limited voices/tracks is appealing to me.
I currently have the DN2. I absolutely love it. I’m trying to move towards writing music with a “1 box rule” to stop me over complicating things.

My question for those who have used the Digitone (OG or 2) and the A4…

How different is the sound? Is the A4 noticeable in it’s warmth. Is it pointless having both the A4 and the DN2?
I will end up with an analog synth one day. So my thinking is that a groove box style synth with a sequencer will help me simplify my music making process.

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You can definitely get some different sounds out of the A4 and it’s an amazing synth. If you can pick up a good condition MKI then they’re generally incredible value for what you get. It can do a few things the DN2 can’t do but the same is true the other way round.

Personally, I think you’ll find that there is a lot of cross over, and if you want a ‘single box’ then I think that the DN2 is a bit more versatile.

I wouldn’t get too hung up on ‘warmth’, personally - where the A4 shines is in sound design and its ability to be pretty wild and gnarly. You can get ‘analog style warmth’ from either unit.

If you just want something different to pair with your DN then there are probably better options, i.e. something from Dreadbox, a Micromonsta or maybe an Ambika - these would all be smaller and you wouldn’t be doubling up on the sequencer.

But honestly you can probably do it all with your DN anyway - don’t let GAS take over.

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I’ve not used a DN, so take this with a pinch of salt.

I doubt you can get some of the twangy, glassy, metalic or bell-like tones that FM is famous for out of an A4.

Overall, I find it “mid-forward”.

You can easily get buzzy, noisy, screachy sounds, and dry or sandy sounds. It’s “warm” the way an MS-20 is warm (i.e. a screaming banshee), but not the way a Moog or Prophet are warm (i.e. not an alluring siren).

It’s excellent for getting novel variations of classic analog sounds because the oscillators are “not quite normal”- all the core waveforms are slightly irregularly shaped, and all of them have pulseidth/tilt controls which do a lot to alter the harmonic content away from the standard balance. E.G. you have to turn the pulse-width control slightly off zero (5 or 6) to get a proper square wave.

Alongside this, the oacilator and filter controls are all very, acurate and detailed, and the oscillator drift control is optional. Taken together I find this makes it easy to get clean, bright, chip-tune noises from it. You have to get creative and disciplined to make it do more standard “warm” analog sounds out of it. The low polyphony count foces some workarounds which have an impact on the tone. E.G. you can make chords using the oscilators and sub-oscilators, but these all share their track’s filters, so they’re more like a paraphonic synth. It’s very useful towards the “one box” workflow, but it nudges your choices in certain directions.

If you pair it with other devices, you could make more use of multi-track polyphony and the voicing modes. This might get you closer to the rich Phophet/Oberheim type sounds. I havn’t tried.

I think it’s an amazing machine, but I pair mine with a Rytm. I think it pays dividends to consciously work to get each track’s sound significantly different; have them occupy different frequency bands (mix in the box). Consider dividing up the delay, chorus and reverb so that only one track uses one effect (to avoid mushing everything together). Then break all those rules occasionally.

(It does LOADS more besides: can be a filter bank, an effects unit, a drum machine, a CV sequencer & controller.

I sold my Phophet Rev2 and a Specral Audio monosynth when I got my A4. I occasionally miss the Rev2 (it’s a very different instrument), but I’ve been way, way more productive with the A4 than with the other two.

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4

Personally I’d say that the A4 isn’t warm at all. You basically get four monosynths in a box and once you embrace it, it sounds exceptional and interesting. But if you just want a classic analog sound that’s easy to dial in, look elsewhere.

On the Digitone 2 it is much, much easier to create complete tracks because you rarely have to deal with lack of voices or tracks. The A4 forces you to think and that can be a plus sometimes and it sounds modern and not dated at all.

Buying something like the Donner L1 will give you that classic analog sound with a very intuitive interface - that interface plays a major role in the sound of the instrument. You’re much more likely to move some faders and see where it goes.

I ended up selling the A4 because I’m much more accustomed to the quicker workflow of the Digis.

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I dont find it pointless. I use both on the majority of my tracks and they are very different. DN is (your mileage may vary) a well behaved synth compared to the A4. I can get the A4 to cut through pretty much any track. I guess in that sense it can overwhelm the DN, in my use case at least.

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its completely different. very versatile, but takes some getting used to how to process it (internally) & patch it to make it sound how you want. the overdrive and filters are gorgeous. id highly recommend the mk2. i think the qperf potentiometer really turns it into an extremely powerful sound mangling tool (like having the octa crossfader in knob form)

if you want a one-box song creation and sound design box, the a4 is the absolute best analog version of that you can get (outside of maybe a syntakt, depending on what you want, but a4 synthesis is more deep than any 1 ST machine)

its very satisfying to wrangle that analog source tone into a beautiful unruly hamonicallypleasing timbre and then run it through a sequencer, process it through a feedback osc on another track, use trig slides to make crazy slippery morphing basslines, overdriving a heavily AM’d osc and pushing that through the delay, setting the qperf to filt 1 & 2 on all 4 tracks and sweeping through every filter at once (some lp, some hp, etc)

i also think the delay, chorus, and reverb sound better on this box than any of the other elektrons. if you like spending time sculpting a sound from a pure raw analog dco, taking the time to actually experiment and learn how to make complex tones, then getting very complex and creative within four very powerful sequencer tracks, i think its one of the best pieces of gear you can buy

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I have OG DN and A4 Mk2 and I love them equally, my personal Elektron favorites.
I hope you’ve seen them already, if you haven’t, be sure to check them out.

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8

DNII can get very close to A4, but if you want to add another Elektron to your DNII, I would indeed suggest the A4, because this will give you “the most other sounds” and “the most other possibilites” than other Elektrons.
(Or in other words, the least overlap.)

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Definitely. We have an entire thread on this topic.

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Yeah. For this reason I very much like all my synths to be coupled with a sequencer. And the A4 makes great use of that sequencer to make evolving, dynamic sounds via locks that are not always easy with other non-elektron synths.

But it kind of depends what your goals are. The thing is, the A4 is an excellent adaptation of an analog-style synth to the Elektron Way. That means:

  • If you want analog sounds1 but don’t want to learn a whole other workflow or UI and would prefer to just kind of slot them in to your existing DN setup, the A4 is going to be much closer to that dream than, say, a Prophet.

  • But, if what you want is to expand your sound design and synthesis chops beyond the FM and macro stylings offered by the DN2, then the A4 might be more of a hindrance. The things that are up-front and always visible on a classic analog synth are hidden behind the Elektron-ness of the A4. They’re all there — but they’re behind property pages and adjusted with nameless encoders. Getting a sense for what analog synthesis is and why it sounds the way it does might be easier on a box with more straight-forward, historically accurate controls. And then get an A4 which will let you take all those principals and apply them with a sequencer and plocks and slocks, etc.

But, if this second option appeals, don’t think you’ve got to go out and buy new hardware. Thankfully, the legendary analog-style-sound-design machines like the Prophet and Minimoog are amongst the most emulated synths ever. So if you have a computer, you can get plugins for cheap that are recreations of the original synth layouts, UI, and sound. You can learn a ton from these. They will give you that “here’s how to detune oscillators” or “the difference between shaping with amp envelopes vs filter envelopes” experience without committing to a whole new hardware synth. Then you can get an A4 and really appreciate it :wink:

1: Like others I caution against classifying this as “warmth”. Warmth is a sound design technique, not an inherent quality.

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In my opinion, having both is nice, but also with DN2 you might not miss much A4. Digitone should cover a huge range of useful standard sounds like leads, keys, drums.
A4 has some nice “singing” and “breathing” leads and allows a lot of experimentation due to flexible configuration. It could be hit and miss route initially, mastering the sound design on A4 is not easy

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12

That’s on point. With something like a 101/Roland synth, anything you do will sound good and is easy to understand. A4 is the complete opposite. If you’re not a synthesis (or A4 more specifically) expert, chances are that things will sound shitty most of the time you start to tweak some knobs on a patch that sounds good. It rewards those who want to go deep with one synth and are more into programming exact performance macros that sound fantastic instead of organically playing with things in the moment.

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The key to the A4 not sounding sh_tty was in my experience getting to know the filters, and use filter 1 as filter and filter 2 as EQ. Then things will sound great instead of harsh grey gobbledygook :pl:

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I have also owned a Rev2 and an A4 and I can relate to this perspective.

If I wanted a ‘warm and characteristically analogue aesthetic’ then I’d lean much more heavily toward something like a Rev2 - but the A4 is a much better user experience and better workhorse synth.

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15

I absolutely love that ‘wamp-wamp-wamp’ pad in the beginning.

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Yeah it’s my favorite factory preset, its called Anthem.

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oh yeah good point. i love that thread

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I’d love to emulate that on the Syntakt or Digitone II, but that’s above my abilities for now :slight_smile: Not even sure if they actually CAN.

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In fact you can. Sort of.



A bit more on topic:
I owned both twice. When I had the DN1 I mostly tried to mimic analog style subtractive synthesis with it. I was doing well but it always felt like there’s missing some grit around the edges. The A4 can do a far wider spectrum of sounds. And due to maxed out modulation options it can you really wild into unpredictable territory. The A4 is still with me. I doubt we’ll ever part.

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not to trash your recc, but as someone who’s first analog poly was the rev 2, i honestly think that a first analog synth should be the take-5. the vco’s and filter capture that sound much better in my opinion, and its an even more versatile sound design machine than the rev2 due to its crazy deep mod matrix and fm