Watching a small presentation from Vintage Labs on YouTube about the Monomachine I couldn’t help but writing you all my thoughts which go beyond Elektron. Let’s just say that I go way back when this whole techno thing started (yes I’m old) so please allow me to share this. Hold tight and read through.
In any scene there are those who lead and those who follow.
“According to market research” said no leader nowhere.
“I have a vision” is what you would expect.
The Monomachine & Machinedrum were visions from people who dreamed of a different reality. And the artists that used them didn’t do ads about them.
Then came the A4 and Rytm and it was cool.
For the small format Elektron instruments I thought “strange”. Why are they making smaller devices? Artists need big devices with a great interface, portability was never a discussion back in the day. Where are you going to take your device? On the beach? WTF. Back then our 909s would be either in the studio or in the club. But I guess owning a computer that fits in your pocket does change the way you see the world.
Anyway, from all the small format devices I thought that the Syntakt (yes you heard well) had the most potential. But then it just fell in a void. No leadership, no vision. Just market research and how do we make people buy more Elektron. Could the ST become a vision equal to Monomachine? Not really. But the basic idea was good. Create something that has many synthesis modes, 4 analogue drum tracks, 2 sampler tracks, a build-in fx processor and a tube compressor. And everything in the A4/Rytm format with performance macros and insane amount of LFOs for modulation. Am I dreaming? Obviously. But this is where it starts.
Let your imagination run free. How does the ST look like in your dreams? Please share.