OT opens endless roads of options too, though… But unified under one paradigm.
About endless EQing: that’s funny because I was trying to process an old drumbreak with a long chain of EQs on neighbour tracks. After hours of fucking around, I A-B’d the break…and it sounded better pre-processing. 
Hey, I followed the same path and got an OT MKII after an amazing year spent with the DT. Yes the Octatrack is great, but YES it feels dated. Especially compared to the DT.
The OT definitely is unique and powerful, it’s very inspiring. I clicked with it pretty much right away and still use it all the time after 3 months (for this kind of stuff). But the complex UI is kind of in the way sometimes, some of the FXs sound a bit old school and harsh, the timestretch algorithm works but probably not as smoothly as Ableton, the chromatic mode only has 2 octaves (so frustrating when you’re used to the DT’s 4 octaves), obviously no Overbridge… Also I use pick-up machines a lot and they still have major bugs when the OT has been out for like 6/7 years, which is sooo annoying but oh well. You can do amazing and one-of-a-kind stuff on the OT but it will never be Ableton in term of audio quality and possibilities. It’s a matter of what workflow you prefer!
I still really-really love it and would buy again. I just thought I would talk about the darker side because I feel like people tend to overlook those things, just because the OT is so iconic. To me it’s iconic and dated (in many ways).
I think OT is timeless just like people find the MPC 1000 jjos or 3000XL legendary and timeless.
I tend to look at it from a perspective of it being an instrument that has already moved to a legendary legacy product even though it’s still in production.
Hello
I love my digitakt and i have the same interrogation , since 5 years i look every month OT !!!
But the price was the principal problem … and the new workflow to learn .
I buyed recently IPAD mini A12 ( just for music) and i use drambo with controller ( axiom ,nanok , or other cheap controller ) , you have scene fct , sampler , synthesis etc )
The only things i always want buy an OT it’s for dedicate usage it’s wonderful harware machine , wonderful look and mixer .
L’ipad can’t have this … ( With soundcard it’s possible … But 3 équipement instead to have just one …)
But ipad with digitakt can replace some usage of octotrak , i wanted digitone but , i put stroke machine or dq fm with , and it’s veryy power full, with drambo you have a virtual OT and more , maybe it’s way to considering.
It’s not replacement but i do so many thing ( to much ) with my ipad now .
Im not a apple fanboy …
I m free Elektron 
The problem ?
i always want all Elektron machine
So maybe the only answer is , if you can , buy it !!!
If you can’t you have this solution .
( Sorry for syntax , vocabulary etc…i’m french )
The most overlooked limitation is it doesn’t make any sound you have to feed it.But it doesn’t need much feeding.
100% still worth it and always will be. The amount of techniques and features you will discover seems near limitless. My use of it is still rudimentary but I know I have a whole world of exploration on the desk. And as others have said - buy, try, sell for the same money if it’s not for you.
Yes haha 
I think the biggest mistake is to consider the OT as DAW replacement. The term “performance sampler” is great because it highlights that the OT should be viewed as an instrument, not a workstation. Sure, it is a very versatile instrument, that can be used as a sampler, granular synth, loop machine, live hub, mixer, midi sequencer, effects machine, audio morpher and many more. But there are still things that the poor time stretch, the limited number of tracks and effects make the octatrack bad at doing. And for these, having a DAW around will make your life much much easier, and your time with the OT way more fun.
Recently i worked on a Dub like live setup with 8 tracks playing loops and stems, and the OT acting as a mixer + effects, and I would never have even tried that if I had to prepare the stems and loops using the OT itself. All the preparation has been done in Ableton, the stems are set to the correct BPM, level and pre-mixed in there and then are exported to the Octatrack to be performed, which it does very well!
Even sample editing (and particularly sample chains creation) is easier done in dedicated software than in the OT. But once they’re edited, it becomes so fun to manipulate them inside the OT.
One key aspect of the OT is to know what you will enjoy doing with it, and what you should better use something else for.
As much as there could be said for or against it, for me it just comes down to the fact that I simply couldn’t do without it. The OT as a combination of sound source, live looper, effects box, and more then anything as a mixer that brings everything together, just makes it irreplaceable to me. Especially if not wanting to use a DAW and keeping the number of boxes in your setup to a minimum.
Like every other piece of gear out there, the greatness or otherwise of the OT is always going to be an individual’s subjective decision.
I am primarily a synth man but have always owned a hardware sampler, the first being a TX16W.
I have owned an OT but my current hardware sampler is the E2S, which for my needs is actually better than the OT. But, as always, YMMV.
IMHO no hardware is equivalent to a DAW so I would always only compare hardware to other hardware and software to other software.
Me personally was a bit disappointed from
the FX / the sound and the lack of good MIDI implementation (not off … and other culprits).
So I am giving the OT a new chance in combination with the blackbox 1010 which seems to be easier for sampling and it has polyphony. Will report back this weekend.
The OT right now is a pure classic. Nothing comes close to it YET in terms of breadth, usefulness, and timelessness. There are obviously some flaws and effects will always start to feel like a certain time period, but this thing is legit. Just as you see people doing real work on classic mpcs, you will continue to see this.
I once thought the Force was coming for it but Akai messed that up so much it’s comical. Maybe one day.
I am weary of the new devices with touch screens as their primary mechanism for depth. Without a doubt the interface let’s you do things that would be so hard on a traditional device. And they open up the UX so that the depth of the machine is more accessible to people. But this also adds a layer between the user and the device. For many aspects, you cannot make the machine an extension of yourself because it requires full operator attention to use. As a horrific straw man, imagine a drummer who needed to focus his attention and eyes directly on the kick drum to play it well. It would significantly limit his ability to do many things at once.
I think even Akai (as dense as they are) knows this. The latest round of mpcs (one and live mkii) have more buttons and more shortcuts. And still while the the classic mpcs continue to get use today, the touch screen ones will fade away with each subsequent generation. The touch screen gimmick and system architecture will necessitate that (along with the greed of the corporation).
These newer devices are literally general purpose computers that have been neutered. They try to hide that from you by doing things like disabling the mouse (while forgetting to disable scroll wheel) or by artificially restricting features like adding an audio interface. These devices want their cake…
This is not to say that the modern devices should be avoided (disclaimer I own an mpc live and would consider a second round on the force or a newer model once they actually complete it) but rather that they won’t have the longevity. They will be trivially outdone by competitors or the greed of Akai. They will fail in ways that are too expensive to fix compared to the latest gimmicks and technology as that’s what is driving them.
So, is the OT worth it? Yeah. It recently got revival in the form of an mkii because people just kept buying it and the parts were no longer easy to get in bulk, not because there were things that needed drastic changing (we did get a few more buttons and shortcuts though). You will continue to see this device on peoples desks and in their shows for a long time coming; it just takes too many additional devices to replace its usefulness.
(Last bit: I own a decent number of other Elektrons that I really enjoy. But I wouldn’t say the above about any other Elektron gear. They are all replaceable and in niches that others continue to build and sell in. People will keep using many of them for a long time, like the heat, DN, and the other classic boxes, but they won’t retain the same level of success.)
I’m quite the opposite from a lot of people here. I find it fun using my DT, my new microfreak and boss rc202 to jam out songs quickly.
But where I have the most fun, what feels most rewarding, and where I feel most comfortable is using ableton. I play instruments and sing, so recording and manipulating that kinda stuff might make it feel less clickey-mousey than if I was programming everything.
It’s funny to see them go that way because all the people I knew at Akai used to talk trash about the Beat Thang for running a general purpose Linux variant in a proprietary box, and not being “real hardware” etc.
That was during the run up to the MPC Renaissance though, and since that mess all of them have left.
all true
Also keep in mind OT apparently was designed as a sort of cohesive eco system that follows its own logic and conventions. There is an underlying logic to its complex layout which totally makes sense although it might not be apparent at first glance.
Don’t try to bend it in order to do things it wasn’t designed for. Major headache guaranteed.
It won’t bend, better use something else for that task.
How much headache OT will induce also highly depends on how you use it. For example, midi sequencing:
I’ve been using OT as my main midi sequencer for years (recording audio and midi into daw for further editing and mixing) and while it’s fun to use the OT as midi sequencer for techno and similar styles in which you’re mostly dealing with rather simple midi patterns as soon as you’re trying to work with long, evolving sequences, multiple track length, chord progressions and stuff like that the amount of planning involved can become a little overwhelming.
Stuff like using multiple midi tracks sequencing the same synth for more variation, trig conditions across several midi tracks that interact with each other etc.
Actually I can enjoy building patterns that way, but if I have to change something on multiple tracks across multiple patterns I tend to get lost fairly easy.
This trig on step 13, page 3 has to be changed to to a 3:4 TRC and I need trigless locks on step 5 page 2 and step 15 page 3.
Then I’ll have to put a 8:8 TRC on step 9 page 4 and listen to the whole 1024 steps if everything is working as expected and move on to the next pattern…
But when you got everything set up, press play, turn up the levels and slam the crossfader around OT starts to shine! 
Well worth the headaches^^ 
I think it sounds pretty good within 10 bpm of the original. Beyond that I think it sounds like granular synthesis, which is fine with me.
I obviously will be happy if/when there are more timestretch algorithms for the OT, but the one we have is pretty good and works in real time.
I feel these issues in my bones.
But then again is there any other device which allows all that? And handles it any better?
OT is timeless… can’t think of any gear that combines that lot in such a flexible way in such a small box and, although it needs some getting used to.
(mk1 owner…)
For an overview:
https://loopopmusic.com/review-octatrack-at-year-8-is-it-still-worth-it