They should have named it Colour instead of Overdrive and suddenly all the complaints about it not being an Overdrive would have never existed.
Take it as it is.
this “take it as it is” attitude really annoys me. while of course i can not change the product myself, without people having wishes, ideas, constructive criticism, we wouldn’t have had a lot of the great changes/additions of the firmware updates so far.
but i agree, if they wouldn’t have labeled it “overdrive” i for one wouldn’t have been under the assumption that you can, well, overdrive samples.
just played some more with the tr6s, and while this one has other personally unacceptable downsides, it has a really nice and useful variety of iirc 6 different colour/drive/fuzz/distortion algorithms that all sound great. and all i want from the DT is the SRC pre-gain to have a wider range.
I mean…these are your words? I was just trying to offer you advice based on everything you’ve said. The DT overdrive is subtle, like you say, more a saturator than anything else, and it sounds like other people’s proposed workarounds (adding resonance on the filter, bit reduction, resampling, etc) don’t give you the results you want, or impede/kill the pleasure of your workflow
Not every piece of gear is for everyone, and that’s okay. The DT is not a perfect device, there are loads of features I would love on it (kits that span multiple patterns, for example). I still love it despite its limitations, but that’s just me.
There’s also a whole thread dedicated to feature requests, and you might get some traction from Elektron there. I was just honestly trying to give you genuine advice. Sorry that it seems to have bent you out of shape.
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Well… it literally is overdrive in the sense that it saturates the signal. I agree it would be nice to have a couple extra db of gain before the drive but they can only oversample so much, and too much gain = too many harmonics = bad digital aliasing.
I too was disappointed by the overdrive at first until I figured out how to make it work for me. The compressor is the key. The overdrive feeds the compressor, which has its own nonlinear characteristics. The interplay between those two and the filter is what’s gonna give you a much fatter sound. End of the day it’s not an analog heat or a tube screamer but it can do a lot more than you might expect.
I was kind of perplexed by this thread so I fired up the DT and had a go. If you turn up the overdrive all the way and expect distortion, I can see why it might be disappointing.
If I’m disappointed with anything in the DT it would have to be the bitcrusher. Just kind of adds some fluttery noisy high-end unless it’s turned up super high. Not really a compaint since it’s just not my thing - but I would much rather have a sample-rate reducer which I would use all the time
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Yeah, never found any use for the bitcrusher either. Overdrive was at east useful if underwhelming.
For the OP, if the overdrive is a deal breaker, sell the DT. It wasnt for me either, but for different reasons. Get an Octatrack and be happy.
Well now, an OT effects thread would get even more contentious! 
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i am actually intrigued by the analog rhythm. if i understand it correctly, that one boasts an analog overdrive per track, which you would hope could yield some more in your face results. but both this and the OT eat up way too much desk space for my liking. also they’re overkill fo rme, wouldnt use half of the features.
also checked the loopop comparison of DT and modal:samples, and when he turns up the VEL+DIST knob on the m:s, it bcomes obvious - no overdrive at all, just volume change. i don’t understand this.
personally not a big fan of bitcrushing in general, but on the DT i foudn some nice use cases if you envelope-filter most of the high-end harshness afterwards and jsut leave it for the attack phase.
my problem is - the digitakt is ticking most of my boxes, outside of this OD problem. there aren’t much alternatives, and all the ones i personally tried before or am trying right now have even more downsides 
i just imported a ton of my own drum samples, properly levelled, and on an average, first glance, the overdrive does a bit more here than on the factory samples.
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