Introducing Digitone II

[LyingDalai]

@Matoshi

wonder if the Elektron sound packs from DN1 are compatible with DNII

They are.
DN1 Sounds and Projects can be loaded into the DNII

[thermionic]

@tm_christ

Your snarky comment totally changed my mind, I’m ready to stop expecting anything now

Unsarcastically the way to inner peace.

@daniel-pl

Hard to call it a studio-in-a-box with 16 voice polyphony. It is 2024, isn’t it?

Fine, call it a “portastudio in a box”

[LyingDalai]

@Fin25

Porting the Swarm machine over isn’t my favorite thing about the DN2,

Me neither. It’s cool for quickly getting a bass, but the unique page of synthesis parameters shows how deeper the other engines are.

@Fin25

I like the more open ended sound design nature of making percussion with something like the DN2 than the ST.

ST: faster
DNII: deeper

[J3RK]

Agreed, the new Swarm machine seems quite a bit more useful, where I didn’t really ever use the version on the ST. Well, I did use it once, just not as intended.

I do like the analog machines on the Syntakt a lot though. It’s like having a small Serge setup in a tiny box. Pinging the state variable with the impulse machine, and modulating that makes some lovely sounds for example.

[Tchu]

@J3RK

Agreed, the new Swarm machine seems quite a bit more useful, where I didn’t really ever use the version on the ST

I like to use Swarm on the ST for rising transition Sounds.

[Tchu]

As I see, you’re still on the positive s(l)ide of things.

[J3RK]

Can never understand applying a date to anything related to musical instruments and music gear. Half of the people into any of this are all about old gear. Half are into new gear. ALMOST everyone likes to see improved versions. The whole “It IS 2024” and “is the xxxx still relevant in” thing just perplexes me.

Something is a studio-in-a-box if your style, musical genres, and “workflow” (for lack of better term) will dictate whether something can be used as a studio-in-a-box. Not what year it is, or any numbers on paper.

There are people that still use four track tape porta-studios. So, 16 tracks is a relative Studio 1 in comparison.

[Naboo]

Will be interesting see what cpu(s) are inside the DNII. If remember correctly the DN is limited to 8 voices to avoid aliasing, so wondering if they’ve made compromises to add all this stuff or more likely upgraded the processor etc

[J3RK]

The Digitakt II also has a SHARC DSP in it, which the old/original Digi-format boxes did not. So it could be a faster processor, or it could be a combination of processor and fast DSP. Guessing the latter. I don’t know exactly what the division of work is between the DSP and Processor though, so it would be interesting to compare what’s in the DTII and the DNII. If I remember correctly, the DN just had two of the same processor that was in the DT for comparison.

[RustyRoses]

I will definitely be upgrading at some point. Need to replace my Digitakt with the Digitakt 2 first for those 16 stereo tracks

[stnrp]

I’m interested in the DN2 despite lack of PARAMETER SLIDES, but my enthusiasm lessens when I think of sticky buttons. I’m guessing/hoping screen issues won’t be an issue with the DN2.

Out of all the Digi-boxes, it has the most stuff so far. It’d be nice if it had 4 LFOs instead of 3 too imo.

[thermionic]

The eternal paradox is that persons chasing the future find themselves running in place, trailing into the past.

@J3RK

The Digitakt II also has a SHARC DSP in it, which the old/original Digi-format boxes did not.

This is also a good call.

From a brief reminder search, the original platforms had just a MCF54415 ColdFire MCU to run everything.

The new platform added that SHARC ADSP-21569 (to offload DSP), which gives a little more headroom for the sequencer AND since the machines have been ported over will allow a ton of optimization and extension.

[J3RK]

I would absolutely insta-buy it if it had parameter slides. I still very much want it, especially since I’ve been without a Digitone for quite a while now. But the slides would have just pushed me over the top. As it is now, I’ll wait until it’s convenient to pick one up sometime in the future.

[stnrp]

I have a feeling they’re going to drop Tonverk with MOTION LAYERS after all the DN2 hype dies down, just in time for Christmas…

[pidgeo]

spring 2025 imo.

tenner bets

[stnrp]

Yeah, you’re probably right. DN2 is supposed to be the stocking stuffer.

[J3RK]

True! It’s pretty easy to determine of something is good for one or not. If it doesn’t check your boxes, it simply doesn’t check your boxes. Find something else. 2024 has nothing to do with anything.

[Gino]

@Autopoiesis

Can Track Layering be used to trigger a MIDI track with an audio track, or vice versa? Or only audio tracks triggering other audio tracks? If audio and MIDI tracks can trigger each other with Layering, would be cool for triggering DT or OT for synth+sample layering

I’m checking into that. Currently in 1.0A you can layer midi and audio tracks in the UI, but they do not work as expected. I will not be surprised if this was simply an oversight and it’s supposed to be audio tracks only (like the OG DN). Still it would be very cool if we could mix track types in layers, but I’ll let Elektron clarify how they intended it to work.

[myhrman]

It’s all DN2 without any external processing. Distortion was made through the new post-filter dist routing. Happy to share the .syx if it’d be of interest.

[Hawk]

DNII Keys please Elektron, this new version in particular is begging for a keyboard to be built in, not to mention individual outputs! Can be the same number of individual outs as the OG DN Keys, with the option to route tracks to whichever output. Please and thank you