I think elektron needs to stop arbitrary limits,

every one their machines have designed limits and t least one thing that makes you think, “what the fuck where they thinking?”

the a4 for anyone not a crazy maniac, would of put 4 outs, the guy who suggest 2 shoulda been fired. if it wasn’t bad design, it was on purpose to sell the ak, and that’s just fucked up, same as with the chord ability,
did they hold it back to launch it with the a4?
i still love my a4 though,

the mono, that thing had all kinds of issues, like, an effect takes a voice? stupid.
the fact u can allocate voices is insane too/ either 6 or 1, and i recall in 6 the midi isn’t available.
the 12 bit sample thing is stupid too,

i cant think of the issues with the ot and md, but i know they have them, the 12 bit samples here too,

i think every machine should try n be the most it can, if that involves improving older machines, do it,

i would rather see an ar with fill sampling, full fm, full midi, and any other good synth or effect from an older box,

i hate that it takes 2 machines to really have 1 full machine,

I like the limits. Though, I’ve owned a monomachine for almost 7 years and I’m still learning new things with it.

Limits can be inspiring.

That said, I’d still like to have an RLEN on the Octatrack that goes to 128 or even 256 as 64 is no longer a sensible limit since dynamic ram came in.

Elektron could probably churn out a machine removing most “limits” we could think of and it would end up costing a fortune! And they would still not tick absolutely every ones boes - folk would still moan about something or other.

In both the A4 and OT I own there are certainly restrictions but they mostly seem required to me. Sure I’d like longer than 64 step patterns, for example, but there are work arounds.

When I want the whole shebang, I boot up Live & Push. When I want to work under limitations, there is nothing better than my Elektrons.

I only have one question to help me understand the OP.

Arbitrary to who?

This part i agree with. Putting 2 outs on the A4 was the dumbest move by Elektron instead of 4. I would rather get rid of the 2 inputs as i have no use for them, and have 4 mono outs instead.

Elektron do listen if only for OS changes, but not hardware changes.

arbitrary to me, as in the limits at times seem to defy reason and common sense and seem to be there for the hell of it,

the outputs on the a4 were the biggest example, how much complaining and loss of sales did that cause? maybe a tiny bit, maybe more, but either way it woulda been easier to just put n,

but why limit samples to 12 bit? when they are loaded and take up as much space as 16 bit? yet they use an effect, to make it 12 on output, any sane person would put an on n off button to that bullshit,

i just say don’t try n make an all in one machine, those suck ass, but if something is really stupid, or not added cause it conflicts with other gear, i think its bullshit,

i am not saying a workstation or anything is needed,

the machines are 95% awesome, with a few weird design choices. at times,

i have all 4 boxes, i like then a lot, its mostly just a thought i had,

In the past, when I have used only my own thoughts to deem what’s arbitrary, often, I’ve found in the end, it was just my ignorance.
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I know why they chose 12 bit. Whether they were successful or not is subjective. There was a lot of nuances to the sounds in the music that was produced running 80s analog drum machines through late 80s early 90s samplers. It was notices that there were differences in the sound produced by different samplers; even when, the same source was used. Many traced some of this magic back to the A/D and D/A converters. Believe it or not, sampling at 16 or 24 bit and then bit reducing to 12 bit then back to 16 or 24 before hitting the D/A, does not sound the same as sampling at 12 bit then directly to a 12 bit D/A. Particularly with the fast transients associated with percussion.

“Believe it or not, sampling at 16 or 24 bit and then bit reducing to 12 bit then back to 16 or 24 before hitting the D/A, does not sound the same as sampling at 12 bit then directly to a 12 bit D/A.”

I thing Mythbusters would like that one…

It’s important to remember, much of the same music, was made by people and for people using lots of drugs.

So, mythbusters would have to add that variable to their tests. Would make a fun episode. In the end, given enough “testing” Jamie would see the difference in sound.

i don’t need to appeal to authority before i can make a decision,

its based on info i have now, if that changes my opinion will too, simple really,

on the monomachine, an effect taking a track is a weird limitation considering the date it was made, same with poly mode blocking all the midi tracks, if that made it 12 voices i would get it, but nope, just no midi.

but i think pretty soon i will get another mono, love the fm,

i still think the monomachine was/is a state of the art instrument.
Please don’t forget it’s over 10 years old now. What did you get back those days with that power?

a mythbusters on pop music would be depressing,

they need to test pop music and lower intelligence,

dont know if its true, it seems it is, thats why it needs a test.

Just like every other company which is producing goods. Why does the fucking iPad i write this on has only this stupid connector for which i need to buy an overpriced camera connector from fucking Apple, if i want to connect USB to it?

truer words have never been spoken/

Cam’t say I really “get” the A4 outputs issue myself. I’d rather have the inputs! Did it hurt potential sales? I doubt it. OT sales were probably hampered by lack of understanding mind you. Going off topic a tad but the amount of folk not understanding what the 8 tracks are capable of and writing it off has been huge!

Anyway, it’s horses for courses. One mans grievance on design issues is a non event to another.

Weird DA, you jumped all over me, calling me a complainer, whiner, and all kinds of names a few months back for daring to be annoyed with the fact that the AK has individual outs and the A4 does not.

How do we even know the MnM’s DSPs can handle synth + reverb/chorus, etc on every track? There could be a reason why they put those effects in the way they did that doesn’t stem from the fact that the effect page’s knobs are all spoken for as well. I don’t really see an elegant way for them to add in these effects to run along with a synth on a given track.

LFOs are always being calculated even when off, every track as a delay w/ filter, a hp/lp filter, sweepable EQ, SRR, etc. Not even the Octatrack can run reverb on both fx blocks (though it’d be very nice to be able to choose which block got the reverb), it might just be a DSP power thing.

Personally, having reverb, chorus, etc taking up a track makes me try stuff I never really thought about before, I love this ‘old’ fart hehe. Not that I would be against a new Monomachine with the OT’s dual core DSPs. Imagine what it could do, then…

the way i use it i only would use 2 out, i don’t mind actually,

but the whole thing was from more of a design philosophy standpoint,

i can say damn near objectively, 2 outs is , bizarre choice, unless they wanted to keep a standard feature off the a4 to make more buy the ak … i don’t know, don’t care,

i would call what i am doing at this point, a musing, much like Descartes did soo many years ago, now i am not comparing myself to him, ohhh noo,
he was an idiot who believed in god,

but the aggressive way i said it earlier, made it seemed like i was emotionally invested,… that, i am not…

an elektron is as complete of an instrument as a Les Paul, what they choose makes it what it is,

but at times, i question their design choices,.

I am more concerned about Elektron’s latest pricing policies.

But back to topic:

My Spectralis has 8 seperate mono outputs and it’s from 2004!
It’s digital but it is nearly in the same price region.