I’m lusting after a digitakt. I already have a deluge, and it does sampling. But maybe the digitakt does sampling better? I dunno. The screen would be nice. I’m thinking, if I got a digitakt, I could do drums on that, synth on the digitone, then sequencing for both on the deluge?
Does anybody here have a deluge and a digitakt? How useful do you find the combination to be?
I’d hang on till you get the digitone - that way you can see if you prefer the elektron sequencer to the deluge one. As the digitakt and digitone already have sequencers that sync well together, it would seem a little superfluous to use the deluge only to sequence the other two.
Previous discussions on the same scenario:
and there’s plenty more comparisons if you search the forum.
Thanks. General consensus seems to be that there’s too much overlap and it’s not worth it. My deluge arrived with a slightly bent knob and, even though it’s really only cosmetic, the knowledge of the bent knob has infected my brain like a worm and I can’t stop thinking about it. I even tried to straighten it with some pliers, but I immediately heard a crunching sound and noticed that I’d messed up the plastic of the knob a little. So, I dunno. I started thinking about digitakt for some reason. Because I’m an idiot I think.
GAS is a sneaky beast. Once it’s in you’re compelled to get EVERYTHING.
It’s become a hallmarkism, but you should really try to get the most out of your gear and only consider expanding your hardware collection once you run into a wall- from there purchase pragmatically.
I’m hardly one to give this advice, unless with an asterisk of: learn from my mistakes
Too much of a muchness. Limit your boxes and create more.
"a slightly bent knob "
This can be corrected with minor surgery.
“‘would a Digitakt add anything?”
Yes. Complication.
Less is more.
But the keys are clicky!
I say order one, try it out for two three days next to the Deluge and see which one sticks. The other one goes out.
…takes discipline lol, but a good way to work out which piece of gear suits YOU the best.
A general rule of thumb: Don’t buy a new instrument until you’ve spent two months playing the last one you bought.
Otherwise you don’t even really know what your music needs or what works and doesn’t work for you.
You’ve got the incredibly powerful Deluge… you could spent six months still learning new things on that. You’ve got the Digitone on its way, and that is another two months of exploration.
Don’t worry - you’ll be able to make incredible music with what you have. You’ll not be lacking for drums - as both the Deluge and Digitone can do totally cool drums.
One side note for the future: Half the point of an Elektron device is the sequencer and its tight integration with the audio engines. So start with getting the boxes in sync, but letting each sequence itself. Later, you may have occasion to want to sequence the Digitone from the Deluge… but wait for the music and workflow to dictate that… don’t start there.
Some good advice here, especially about taking the time with the gear you have. I cannot imagine that anyone would have a lack of creative musical options with a Deluge and a Digitone. That should be a beastly combo.
Also, related to your post, I haven’t had the urge to make one particular piece of my gear the sequencing “brain”. One reason is that I like to mix and match sequences from different devices during live performances. Also, even though the Digitakt is technically the “drum computer” of my setup, my Digitone and Circuit Mono Station can each take over the “root” musical and rhythmic duties from moment to moment, so then the Digitakt is free to take different roles than drumming.
At any moment, maybe the DN is laying down the groove while the CMS is playing a dirty analog bass line and the DT is throwing out the atmospheric samples. Or maybe the CMS is sounding like some analog modular drum thing, the DT is adding synced drum samples (hey kids, DT + CMS = poor man’s AR?) and the DN is serving up pads and a chiming melody. It’s all open season when you have more than one device that can do more than one thing.
The above isn’t meant to give the OP extra GAS over the Digitakt, but only to illustrate some of the value of letting each device control its own sequencing as a flexible creative tool. Again, the Deluge is deep deep deep, and very powerful. As much as I personally love the DT, I agree that the Deluge should cover that territory and maybe then some. The OP should definitely spend some time with the DN to decide how much the Elektron way and this form factor in particular is appealing. I went through a similar journey and because of the DN, I ended up swapping in a DT and swapped out an MPC Live. But I’m glad I spent the time both with the DN and the Live before making that decision. It was an informed choice after several months or more of creating and performing live music on the Live and the DN to finally decide the Live was overkill and to confirm that I loved the DN/Elektron way. At that point, swapping in a DT and losing the Live was not painful at all because I knew deep down what each device was all about, but a different person could have come to completely different conclusions and if decisions were made in haste, they could “hate” the DT and deeply regret giving up the Live.
tl;dr - I agree. 
Or 1 year, with Octatrack. 
If I can sum up: don’t get the Digitakt right now.
Take the time to learn your machines, they are both powerful beasts and you shouldn’t need more!
Once you make these two your magic combo, then you will know what you’re missing. It might be something different, like an analog synth, or drum machine… But when you’re there, you’ll know it.
I haven’t bought a machine since dn and I’ve had it for almost a year. Thinking about model samples a bit or a few pedals
Sequence Elektron boxes using their internal sequencers. Buying them as sound modules is a waste.
how do you sync them up if they’re all being sequenced individually?
MIDI, you just connect them up and they are synced nicely. First in the chain sends transport and controls clock. Elektron sequencers exist as a totally integral part of the sound engine, so you’ll definitely want to use the internal sequencer. You could always send more control from another device if you want, but yeah use the internal sequencer. You’ll see once you start using the Digitone, and please read the manual before it even arrives.
If you click with the Deluge, chances are you won’t even need the Digitone.
Get that Boards of Canada / Tycho-inspired sound pack to the Dellie and you’re on your way to outer space.
I didn’t even realize stuff like that existed. Are there also any good synthwave packs?
I think the Boards one is, actually. But I’m not sure.
The Deluge has a rep for having a bleak synth engine. But this is not entirely fair. It’s just hard to find its sweet spots. It’s quite crude in its settings. But as the Board pack shows, when you find the spots, it’s a very capable engine.