My impressions [ TL;DR … the M:C is a bit special ]
The packaging is excellent, great design and pampered premium vibes from this budget box, affordable is different to cheap. It somehow appears waaaay smaller than i imagined by some margin, that surprised me when i teased open the lid, no videos or images prepared me for this. I love the clean welcoming aesthetic, this is also totally solid it’s just a delightful thing to behold and touch/turn. Jumping ahead, the size has zero bearing on workflow, this is just right, It’s also just more relaxed as it’s all soft touch buttons. I really appreciate the concept of this and the industrial design with perhaps just one raised eyebrow.
First niggle, the super neat (multi region wall socket slot in adaptor) psu is not running inline with an IEC cable as usually, and it’s short, cute short, so you are tethered close to the socket, so close it forced me to change environment. (Looking at you Elektron, smart way to upsell that lovely battery handle too huh !! 
so gonna get )
Next (and last) niggle, my one real negative, although i understand why it is so … those output jacks are criminally close, it’s a measure of good gear if it takes old school Neutrik plugs imho, if not then at least said gear will handle the newer slimmer Neutriks, right, well not this baby, nope, not unless you want to ease those tightly bunched jack sockets away from their pcb over time (Looking at you again Elektron, smart way to upsell those patchbay sized moulded (and lovely) cables, huh !! so gonna have to get those too, checked with the CV kit ones, they do look just right tbh )
So, i genuinely had to use the headphone out to my amp for the listening part in the spot i was camped in. I was already minded to avoid listening to all preset patterns and sounds (and also to avoid the manual) and so it was. The respective machine starter positions are fine, a little vanilla if sound design wasn’t your bag and you mistakenly took it on first impression. It soon became evident that to explore the hefty sonic depths of this properly (without fearing for the neighbours) whilst experimenting and exploring all the corners that i had to switch to Beyer DTs … nine hours later. gotta. stop. must. sleep … woke up to way harder to ignore tinnitus than the normal high just about manageable levels, might take it easy today with it (or try), slow things down, this box is here to stay, i have no concerns about honeymoon creativity spikes, this level of personal connection will last longer as the sounds are hovering right around my sweet spot (plaintive, brutal, snappy, hollow, rich and dirty/nasty but never harsh on the ear or unmusical) by which i mean i could dial in timbres and dynamics and seq/sculpt over time with those without breaking sweat … that’s what’s spooky about this, it was effortless creativity because the quality of the sound played in would solicit an immediate response, i was filling up patterns with copy forward because i was worried i may forget to dial in these sounds (the palette is wide, this is not a superficial or limited set of machines, especially when you take all possibilities on board) … honestly, there was a moment of such euphoria at the satisfaction in the quality of the sounds emerging that i got sorta chemically elated and overwhelmed.
All the machines are terrific, they can all go off-piste enough to keep them interesting (and then there’s the distortion and punch to take it up a level) and there’s good balance between them all, but i have no issues leaning on just one across all tracks. I must say that i do not doubt the advantages of having an attack option on some sounds but i personally did not miss it, i wasn’t using it in that way. I pretty much put this plan into action on all voices and found no major lack of sound design potential across the board, there’s only one knob i wouldn’t want to dial in or lfo by mistake and that’s the chord machine chord shapes, it’s fantastic that it’s there but it could ruin a moment if you hit that wrong. I prefer easy kicks from the perc machine as the Kick can be full on (in a good way, but could be fatiguing if not tamed, especially if it’s not your thing). It’s all more inviting to delve deeper due to apparent constraints and a relative safety net, but ironically it’s easier to get more from it, or certainly quickly (where it counts). I have had quite a few senior moments twiddling teh Pitch knob (immediately right of screen) as that top left enc can often be used on the analogs for menu items, but i adapted to the UI quite quickly only resorting to the manual late in the day to check on lock clearing options. I hadn’t read in the manual but for LFO assignments you hold the trig tap LFO and when you are focused on LFO still holding the trig and tapping clear will erase it, alternatively you can just grab another destination or depth shape etc on that step - quite speedy. I got used to the push encoder but found some parameters were inconsistently highlighted, like the note/vel/len params are framed and tweakable (select via click thru), whereas the parameters framed on the right of the lcd need to be focused to change by clicking in, so there’s two paradigms there it’s not so bad the way the priority is focused though i.e. it’s good to scroll the trig note fast and bad to scroll the LFO shape by mistake. Muscle memory will clash back and forth to the older gear, no doubt at some point that UI will feel dated, there are some nice touches here and everything is close by that needs to be. Yay no chorus, but the reverb is defaulting too bright to my tastes, but this is easy to set up along with a default ‘kit’ and Track transpose settings and retrig yada yada so that a complete vanilla starting point for your tastes is only a copy away (bonus is that the pattern needs no track data to be viable, so templates are super easy) Plus Fn clearing a pattern doesn’t reset the setup (permanent Track transpose anyone !!) - having a pattern name helps clarify what you have beneath you too - it’s super slick and a step forward (but i’ll miss evolved kits spilling across patterns)
Ironically i am less sure about whether the MS can be as good as this now, i think the workflow and Ctrl All are amazing and it’s not just about the sound generation, there’s a lot more to admire, but i don’t know if samples alone will be serving the same secret sauce that these machines do, plus there’s all the admin with samples. having said that, the whole experience is so good it is certainly raising the question. It could make a nice complement, particularly if the care that’s gone into making this painless has gone into the sample management side there (plus it isn’t burdened with the AR’s start+end sample scheme) I am looking upwards? at the DN and wondering why it passed me by so easily, in some ways it could even be a bit disappointing compared to the simple direct joy of using this and in particular its (DN or deeper gear generally) tendency to draw you in to tweak endlessly rather than play. What i like is that the whole takes on an instrumenty vibe (pick it up and in no time it’s happening), the whole thing is accessible and playable (except realtime sound locks sadly, going to FR that each day at dawn). Hands on swing in preference to something else wouldn’t be my choice but you can’t have everything. Also had a couple of ERRs at the place where you get prompts to return within a few seconds of tweaking a param (nice touch!)
The words of the naysayers briefly passed through my thought when i recalled the many reference to toys or dumbed down before these had even shipped - well, if only all their gear was this good as a whole and this productive, that’s all i can say, but this is fantastic where it counts, sound and playability - these are surely going to sell well and show that Elektron know what they are all about, some of this progressive thinking will spill over into deeper gear, so there’s a lot to look forward to.
I know it can’t be the best Elektron, but it’s good enough that i questioned myself for daring to wonder about or share that notion. This is certainly not for everyone, thankfully, but i think it will remembered fondly looking back as it has something very special about it, it sounds so damn good, if it did [realtime soundlocks like the analogs can] (opening up chromatic recording of locks)(Plocking sound from drive) (auto populating the 64 slot pool per track) it would be utterly without hindrance to my preferred workflow, but it’s already a formidable and covetable bit of gear that ranks right up there with my other choice studio pieces.
I must look into the DN because it’s been clear from this and having seen a few demos of the MC and since heard the presets that there is always room to find your own path. In contrast to the DN though I knew instantly that this was for me though, normally i have waited, i am even more convinced having had time with it. I’m also minded to reflect that i see that it’s more than just a one man show (Ess’s vision for this has hit the mark ) but it’s a bit built on the DN work (and the rest) and the Model: vision of Jon et al and is made transparent by all the folk who deliver the firmware and the ideas behind the workflow and the (cough)product design etc [Bad product designers, come on, u coulda put the headphones in between Left and Right mains if they’re gonna be packed like sardines, keep that for the emmkay two, love the rest , well perhaps not the small grey font on grey surface bit, thankfully it’s easy to learn 
]. Yes, it’s a glowing, indulgent if wordy review, but this is by all accounts the general consensus and rightly so (i write the odd love letter to the A4 and AR, not so much the OT tbh), there’s surely nothing this special sonically, self contained, uber cute and such a joy to use for serious ends for the asking price (or even more) #notatoy #limitationbreedscreativity #supermodel