I have DT 1,
after I bought my OTmk2, I started using the DT less and less.
I’d resigned myself to selling the DT now I have an OT,
But… now the DT2 is out, i’m interested in if it’s really worth a look for an OTmk2 owner, and what your thoughts are. Or if I’ll feel the same about it as I did with DT1
OT owners, thoughts?
They’re all too busy making music 
But as somebody who was eyeing an octatrack, then Dt2 happened I would also very much be interested in the opinions of owners of both
It might be used differently than the OT, but if you gelled more than the DT I don’t think the 2 would make you want to give up your Octa.
I think that the DTII has a better sound quality than the OTmk2. Its also NEW, so it’ll be updated and new features would be added, where as the OTmk2 will almost likely never have anything added to it.
The workflow of the DTII is much different than the OT, but you’ll probably be aware of this having been an OG owner. I think that with the DTII, it seems like Elektron recognized that it needed more user friendly performance functionality and mixing capabilities, which the OT had the OG beat on. It seems much more balanced now in comparison.
All that said, I can’t offer a good opinion though, as my OT has been mostly left unconnected in my setup for the past year or so after 5 or so years of using it. Its probably worth looking into if you are asking this question.
This is definitely true for myself. I haven’t had the OT long but the DT2 has just made me love it even more. They work very well together and the OT does things the DT2 can’t and vice versa.
I can’t see myself giving up either of them any time soon.
How I’m using them together is basically
DT2= sampling, track building
OT=end of chain live fx
My Digitakt 2 is still in the post, but I’ve used the MKI Octatrack since 2015, and helped at least one Elektron certified trainer refine some online course material. I know the unit fairly well (though around here I suspect that quality is par for the course).
I think it really all comes down to how you use the OT, and the style you write.
Personally, I came up step writing individual hits in programs like Cubase VST, and old school sequencers (Roland MC-50MKII, anybody? Bloody nightmare). I feel more comfortable writing drum lines in an environment geared towards arranging individual hits, and while the OT can do that with various inefficiencies (sequenced sample chains, or just loading a single hit to an entire track) it’s clearly geared more towards loops.
I think the Digitakt 2 is a useful accompaniment to my Octatrack as a generator of loop lines that can then be extended by OT resampling. The OT offers the ability to extend the Digitakt in both master FX options, and live set transitional opportunities. The Digitakt is also teasing potentially intriguing innovations I suspect Elektron is currently working towards; Cuckoos seems to suspect this is a soft launch for a whole new era of Elektron releases, both in terms of upcoming product reveals, and updates for the Digitakt 2. Below is a link to more on his reasoning.
In the end, I long ago stopped ranking Elektron boxes in tiered hierarchies - they ALL offer something unique which is lacking on the other boxes. Similar ideas implemented in slightly different ways (and this even extends to those very toy-like Model boxes). I passed on the original Digitakt thinking it a toy compared to my OT, but in the end that was just misplaced hubris (as such always seems to be).
I personally sold my OT Mk2 after trying it out for a month or so, because I wanted a stereo sampler + more. Coming from the digitakt I found the workflow not as intuitive and if you wanted master effects track you had only 7 sample tracks to play around with.
Where as now that I got the DT2 it is everything I wanted from the DT1 and more. Great workflow, lots of improvements, amazing sound quality and 16 tracks feels great. I use the analog heat + FX as an endchain unit with it and it compliments it well.
However I wouldn’t consider the OT as a digitakt replacement anymore but as a performance mixer and live sampler. To understand the OT better I would watch EZbot’s videos of his performance templates. It is more of a device for live performance in my eyes and great at that.
Short answer (from my perspective):
Music making and great stereo sampler = Digitakt 2
Performance effects and live sampling = Octatrack
For now I use both but after days practicing DT2, I think about selling OT… there are cheaper looper or multiFX (this is how I use OT on this +DT2 set up). I keep it because I know how great it is and I feel like I will be glad to have kept it one day, but as soon as I need money it will be the first to leave my studio
It doesn’t replace the OT (even though I did sell it when I got the DT2).
It is taking me some time to learn the new button combo’s / features such as the filter selector.
I’m really keen on getting Overbridge but so far it’s been great standalone. But melodic samples do need to be around the BPM range since the stretch algorithm is not that great IMO.
Transfer times are very slow; hoping that gets updated to how it is on the OT for example.
Sound is still great; I find it harder to manage 16 tracks (remember where I put what sound) but I’m slowly getting a workflow going.
I love the OT and used it a lot. I once owned the OG DT but I sold it, because I like the OT more.
But with that said, I really enjoyed the DT. When the DTII was announced I bought it immediately.
The biggest difference for me, how I use them, is that the OT is faster to just catch samples from my synths or other sources.
With the DTII, you record, then name it, and then you put it into a track. It is also doing the normalization which I am not the biggest fan of. It is fast enought I guess, and not a show stopper. Maybe a issue if one wants to sample when playing live? Maybe there are work arounds there which I am not aware of.
With the OT, I can capture things as they sound, and I dont have to commit and save it before I even know I want to use it, which I love. If I then decide it is something I want to keep, then I save the sample. This could maybe be a thing people dont like, because overwriting samples can happen.
I started with the DT1, but did not really like it (no stereo, I like long samples etc.). Next, moved to the OT, which works really well for me: I had to read the (cryptic) manual, but once I learned it, it makes sense. Does everything I need and more. I just bought the DT2, mainly because it is more portable, especially with the USB audio and midi connection it means that I can go connect it to a laptop/ipad with a single cable and use all the synths I want + record the output, and transfer samples easily.
The DT2 actually sounds pretty good, even as a wavetable synth. From the OT, I miss: slicing, having separate track buttons, P-lock FX, 4 inputs, the cross fader. What I gain is: “fold” on the keyboard, compact size, USB audio+midi, better as a synth.
I like using the OT as a performance mixer so now I could have my DT 2 routed into the OT for all sorts of cool fx
Sorry, not sure if everyone fully understands my question
The OT was never on the cards to be sold. I adore it.
My question really is:
If I didnt gel with the DT1 (i nearly sold it)
will I really gel with DT2?
The only thing that REALLY appeals is the naming of the midi cc’s tbh
I use the OT a fair bit for one shots as it is, and I’m pretty happy P locking different samples to different trigs currently to maximise OT tracks,
but DT would be a faster one shot workflow for sure.
No.
what was it that you didn’t like about the Dt?
I mean did you have the DT1 when the larger more recent firmware update was available?
I would say that unless the features of DT2 resolve your dislike, it’s not going to be super materially different from the core DT1 workflow, which is extended and will look a little different at some indeterminate point in time.
If you want to re-try, I’d see if you can use one local to you, in person so there’s not the pressure of ordering and returning and disappointment cycle.
Because of stereo playback and resampling ! It was my main gripe with DT1, recording an internal loop in mono is like having only one leg for me…
im struggling with this question now. ill never sell my ot, but i realize thats not the question
i never got along great with the dt1. im not really a sampler user. i prefer making my own sounds with synths, very meticulously crafting my own unique new sounds from scratch. i use a rytm for drums or a syntakt, so i dont see why i or anmyone else would want to use this for drums (no pads, much more stiff workflow, either using other peoples drum sounds or mangling your own - which feels very arbitrary to me considering the fact that you can just create your own drum sounds from scratch with any synth which likely has pads for live unquantized recording, velocity, its own sequencer, a track for each drum sound, and the ability to sample such as rytm/cycles/st/many others)
but i always thought my issue with the dt1 was really the lack of stereo, the lack of real processing/mangling features, and mainly the lack of storage. it was very irritating to constantly be deleting things and worrying about not resampling too much and not loading too many samples and constantly backing up old samples to make room and delete them from the unit. so i figured this would solve all of those problems and beat out the other song creation/sketchpad groovebox type samplers like the sp-404, polyend tracker, deluge, op1 because now it has competing features
and it does in that way. it feels so liberating to have what feels like unlimited sample memory after something like 2.5 weeks of constant sampling after loading 3 old dt 1’s worth of backed up gigs of sampled audio. resampling large stereo loops every day, packing the audio pool with samples like crazy without a care in the world. also, the new features are great. the pitch range, the filters really do make a big difference. the way srr is set up and how it sounds through the new filters, comb filter as resonator and overall sound design magic tool, chorus, preset pool trig mode, new machines which are pretty granular.
so it is more fun and solves a lot of the obvious issues with the dt1. it feels less of a one shot sampler but also doesnt totally make sense as a real all-in-one song creation tool. it doesnt have rec trigs or slices or perfectly quantized loops or buffers like the octa. but it is more of a sound design machine, if you prefer making your own sounds from noise bursts or karplus-strong, or whatever, like on the old electribes or the octatrack just by using the tools available within the box. taking nothing and making completely new mind blowing sounds from it.
something about it still feels like the workflow is made for drum sampling though. its probably largely due to my lack of imagination and real experience with samplers (aside from the octatrack), but it doesnt seem to serve any real purpose in my setup that the dt1 did. with the exception that you can now have more fun and successful results designing and sculpting your crazy sounds on just this box whereas i felt the og didnt have as many interesting processes for that workflow
im on the fence. it has blown me away for the most part, it does feel invaluable and like a keeper. but it hasnt sparked or caused me to make anything new that im proud of, like i do when i get a new synth or drum machine. maybe thats just samplers. i think once they fix auto normalization fucking up my resampled one shot transients that i “synthesized”, it will be more of a useful tool for me. but im kind of sad that i cant say its the songbuilding one box sketchpad i wanted it to be. thats not to say it wont be in the future, when i fix my mindset and embrace the sampler process though
Constructively, I totally get that, and I’ve wrestled with that at points but it requires that I treat the Digitakt as its own instrument instead of a simpler sample playback mechanism.
I also needed to adapt to the Octatrack similarly, the spark is when you dive into the weird, more abstract processing possibilities.
Taking the building blocks as you mention is a good way to think differently, but taking more composed elements and breaking them down to abstraction…