This is something that really should be answered by someone on the design team, such as Jon or Ess. But as always, when we design things there are many options on the table early on in the process. Some people here describes the finished design as lazy (and thats fine) but honestly the design is more intentional than lazy. The UI board on the left side is not just a copy of the Digitone but is redrawn and as soon as you start to change things, you lose the saved time and money that a complete copy would have given.
The design is ofcourse a nod to the look of the Monomachine SFX6 keyboard, and we liked the idea to make a little hommage to our old silver battering ram An important part in our design is that we wanted the Digitone Keys to take up as little real estate space as possible on your desk and the slim design makes it possible to arrange your other gear behind it.
One other important thought was that we intentionally wanted to make something that looks different from the ”standard” layout of so many synths. Its more fun to make something that stands out a little than just to rehash something that has been done so many times before.
As I said earlier, we know that some people will not like the design or agree with the design choises we made, and that is totally fine by us
On a final note, I must say we have really enjoyed all the meme pics that was made of the Digitone Keys. We put up the best ones on the wall at the Elektron office. My personal favorite is the ”Digitone Keys AM”. I laughed so hard I almost choked on my chokladflarn when I saw that one