Introducing Syntakt

It’s certainly not the end of the world or anything but it is very odd. I have a minagarie now with the grey OT and these two. All different colors lol

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Yeah mine is the same. Definitely blacker looking next to my digitone and digitakt

You can see it in my video. Syntakt is in between the two.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CeHs0XOAHVW/

I remain on the fringes of GAS for a Syntakt. One thing I’m not sure about is the “effects track”

This track seems to consist of additional filter, overdrive and some automation for the delay, reverb and that’s all. Other than the overdrive, nothing here seems to say “effects” to me (the name makes me think of insert effects like chorus, phaser, bitcrusher, flanger, even a compressor).

I think I’m missing the point of this track, so what are people using it for? Sell me on it! :smiley:

No, you’re missing the amp envelope that can be reverted and act as a ducking effect, faking a compressor side chain.
And you can plock the filter, open and close its envelope with dedicated trigs, as well.

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I’ll add that with lfos the delay can be used as a chorus, flanger, and that the double notch filter can be used as a phaser, amp as a slicer, tremolo…

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Besides you can send a sound to the Delay/Reveb and not to the AFX bus, and vice-versa.
You can also send the AFX bus to the digital FX, or vice-versa.

One thing I like is having a beat and chopping it with the amp envelope.
I also enjoy the phaser trick @sezare56 talks about above.

There some room for experiments with plocking and using LFOs on FX, plus what offers the AFX track.

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It can be used for several purposes:

  • You can use it as a bus track: Route x tracks through it and the filter / overdrive / reverb delay send are applied on those tracks. Heck, you can also only route the global delay and reverb through it if you like
  • It has an AMP envelope which you can use to sequence a create psuedo compression effect on the tracks routed through it
  • It also has two (sequencable) LFO’s on top of the LFO’s you already have on exisiting tracks for some weird other things

I use it now mostly to add three or four SYBIT tracks through it: With the separate envelope, filter, overdrive, reverb and delay send effects and LFO’s I created a “polysynth” on my Syntakt (with the help of Round robin MIDI of the Blokas Midihub).

In other projects I only route the external input through the FX track: Then I mainly use the filter and AMP pseudo compressor effect. And then it’s awesome that you can sequence the filter / envelopes / LFO on the FX track.

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Nice idea, as the delay is shared send effect, will applying an LFO to it effect all tracks going through the delay, regardless if they are routed into the effects track/block ?

As the delay is a (shared) send effect, applying an LFO to it affects all tracks going through the delay.

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Thanks for the replies, sounds like there’s some creative uses and options possible with the effects “block” (seems to be the official name for it), but it’s not acting like the per track insert MFX or master MFX like on the MC-101/707 or TR8-S

I still think the name is a little misleading, but I can’t change that :smiley:

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I think fx block is fine wording for it… considering that effects definition " a change that results when something is done or happens : an event, condition, or state of affairs that is produced by a cause."

Doesn’t mention anything about chorus, flanger, phaser in that definition :stuck_out_tongue: lol.

Just being sarcastic, but I get what you mean. :smiley:

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What about analog fx bus ? :content:

AFX bus.

image :bus:

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Still loving this box :heart_eyes:

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That’s… weird?

I just got a new Digitone and although the black is maybe 0.1% off from my Digitakt I’d put this down to sun exposure etc. - it’s very subtle and nowhere near as different as in the above pic.

Surely these cases are all made in the same place and the same paint is used?

Either this was a bad batch or Elektron have changed the paint and the other devices haven’t caught up yet.

I’d be contacting Elektron about it personally, if it was a bad batch maybe they can send you a new case when the paint is right, if not, then I’d want a new one for the other device :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

@nedavine

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I managed to not bite through the initial hype period but when I saw it for AUD$250 off, I didn’t hesitate. Mine arrives tomorrow. I do have to say though, it wasn’t the YouTube synth crew that sold me, it was having a play with one in a local store. I thought it sounded amazing in a way that didn’t come across on youtube.

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I clearly have too much time on my hands at the moment

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I’m not worried about the color. From what I have seen all syntakts look darker black compared to digitakt and digitone etc.

So how are people liking the sound of the ST in comparison to other Elektron offerings? I have read various opinions ranging from it is a box with very narrow sweet spots to it being the best sounding Elektron device yet.

I have watched endless YouTube videos and the usual suspects are, of course, making really good music but I also read the opinion above that it was the in person experience that sold that user on the sound.

Not looking for the ultimate “truth” about the box lol (because it’s all subjective), more just anecdotal thoughts like “the bass is unbelievable” or “the analog filters really set the ST apart” or whatever. Particularly interested in sound comparisons to the DN and A4.

I am obviously GASing hard and trying to resist jumping on the “sell to buy” wheel of doom…

FWIW when I played with it in person I was sold pretty instantly and got one. Before that I was on the fence.

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