Pace of firmware updates?

Elektron is a company with how many employees? Updates / bugfixes / new features for existing boxes won’t pay the bills (not saying they’re not necessary or would be nice at least). Also this machine is a new entry level product which is not as complex as e.g. a Digitone - which is good for them (no bughell with the FW or overbridge). So this is a good thing!

1 Like

I already mentioned the contradiction of not having parameter slide, while triggerless trigs are implemented. It is useless without slide. Obviously random arpeggiator is omitted. Why does Cycle have retrigger, while Digitone doesn’t.

Dude…trigless are awesome for cutting a sound off, for setting pattern changes, can be used for conditions…[off the top of my head]

But ya, why slide went away…no idea. Slide was/is great on the older boxes.

Adding: if there is a CC for what you wanna slide you could always link it to a modewheel on a controller?

3 Likes

I feel like stream lined and dumbed down are kind of just different mind sets, to me it seems like model cycles was designed as a sweet spot device which just doesn’t really work on deeper devices, adding machines to digitone or digitakt would be cool though I just dont think they are designed around it and the way code is implemented on elektrons is to my knowledge a bit different than something running linux underneath it, part of the thing that makes then special. Stuff like almost instantly booting up and being exactly where you left off.

1 Like

What was the USB mixer? Windows as a whole has trouble dealing with multiple audio interfaces (try multi tracking a TR8 with another audio interface plugged in, not happening). Perhaps that was the problem you ran into. I cant even imagine the job and stress a coder has to go through. In order to fix a problem, they must be able to recreate it, and then many times the “hot fix” creates a whole host of new problems. We’re talking about tens of thousands of lines of code, and if one space or character is off, the whole program can take a shit. People seem to think its a simple matter, when in reality, it’s impossible to predict all the millions of things that could go wrong.

For the person who alluded that Yamaha and Korg release products that are devoid of errors obviously didnt own any of the Refaces, the Kronos, Minilogue, Micro Korg, or the Montage (flagship instrument!) for that matter. Every single one of those products had reports of freezing, crashing, failed midi, stuck notes, and patch memory failure upon release, many people on their respective forums still complain of bugs to this day, so the idea that these two behemoths release sound products day 1, is hog wash. It’s also not sound to compare Elektron to a multi-billion dollar powerhouse of a company (Yamaha), and/or a prolific Japanese company that’s been around for decades and employs a small army of staff.

Look, does Elektron and their products have a few shortcomings? Yes of course they do, but so does every single other manufacture and developer. There are a few things that annoy me and design choices I dont like, but the whole was good enough for me to purchase. I knew what I was buying when I made the purchase, as i did the research, which is just being a responsible consumer. When I buy gear, I buy it for what it does and can do at that moment, anything after that I just consider added bonus.

7 Likes

Well retrig doesn’t make as much sense in the context of a melody based poly, despite how capable it is in creating drum sounds. The digitakt does have retrig, because it makes sense as a drum machine/sampler, and I believe that originally the tone and the takt where imagined as one instrument, or two parts of an overall whole…you can’t have everything all at once, it just isn’t possible or practical. The cycle is a budget drum machine, in basic terms, it’s not a direct 50% digitone…it seems that it can be approximated as digitone-esque but it’s also it’s own thing. I don’t think it takes anything away from the digitone whatsoever

Edit: also the A4 also lacked retrig, and the arp setting couldn’t p-locked…that really did my head in actually, but it is what it is.

1 Like

I don’t doubt that there are still existing bugs with the Digitone that some users are experiencing, but I have faith that Elektron will fix the bugs eventually. Maybe we can all be a little more empathetic to those with issues.

However, like others have said, the Model:Cycles has probably been in development since the Digitone was thought up. For the company to stay profitable, it will want to develop many products simultaneously at different price points. Yes, they’re attention may be split between fixing older products and launching new ones, but I believe it to only be a matter of time before the bugs get squashed.

That is true, but Digitone can be a groovebox. Look up YouTube and see how most of them were using it. Why not retrigger? It doesn’t take up much space memory wise. I miss a day when Monomachine can be a lot of things and DN could be the one as well.

I mean, it can be still used as a groove box, just like the A4…personally I used to use the arp as a kind of retrig. I’m not sure that it’s a technical issue, I’m sure they could implement it if they wanted, it’s just not how the instrument was designed…it’s like picking up a guitar and saying it wish this had Valhalla reverb and a big muff fuzz built into the pickups’

2 Likes

I don’t need / want retrigs in the DN. But what I would like (which would be practically usable for retrigs, I guess?): P-lockable ARP. That would do the trick, right?

2 Likes

The next project I’m working on will be all drums / percussion done from the Digitone. I’ll have tons of sounds with arps at different speeds loaded in the sound pool as the poor man’s retrig. I can’t wait.

3 Likes

This thread is makin me miss my DN big time…as soon as I have the coin it’ll be my next purchase. I got quite fond of using the arp when I used my A4 for drums.

Also that project sounds cool af, will defo have to check it out.

1 Like

I really don’t understand why they don’t just make it plockable… I am not a coder myself but I always feel like it were just a few lines of code which could be more or less copy&pasted…

2 Likes

Digitone on drums, Yamaha AN200 pads / chords / melody, Virus C pads / chords / melody, Bass Station 2 / bass. Should be a fun project! Okay okay, back on topic.

@PekeDorty I agree. I would love plockable arp and midi arp as well. One can dream.

1 Like

I think the people that say the OT is hard to learn wouldn’t get on with a Deluge, although using the Deluge in a very basic simple way is easier than the OT, doing anything a little more in depth is much easier on Octatrack.

is the deluge deep? I get the rough gist of the unit and it didn’t strike me as too crazy. i’ve never had chance to use one though, just some videos

The Mixer is A&H DB2, released the same time as the DB4, but now the DB2 is discontinued just my luck,

Could you please share a DN example for using wavetsbles? I don’t find any reference to WT synthesis in the manual nor on the device itself.

Cheers

Yeah I hate when that happens. Tale of the tape innit.

He might be referring to the wave shapes slowly evolving with the use of an lfo perhaps? Not sure if this is the same as wavetable synthesis though.