Coming from an OT years ago, and coming back to make music I was kinda disappointed to see there’s no slicing method. Its not a deal breaker as I use something like Koala to remedy this. But you reckon we ever see slicing ever?
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maybe - we did get another LFO and FX through puts for the in-channels!
Slicing would be a dream come true, as would be a ‘song mode’ (yes - that old chestnut) - but at least in the form of storing pattern chains. If this is done, the DT would be unstoppable.
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The DT would also bridge too many gaps and OT sales would suffer. Unfortunately this is why there are features that are more desirable on the more expensive machines.
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After we didn’t get it on this latest “mega” update I wouldn’t hold you breath waiting : ) I love Elektron…but I’m at the point where I feel like they do purposefully not include features on one device to encourage purchasing of other similar devices. Especially with things that seem like such basic omissions.
They can market/call the Digitakt whatever they want, but a sampler that doesn’t have slicing is…well…a sampler that doesn’t have slicing.
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I do believe we will get it, the octatrack is a classic piece but I don’t think if they had started to develop it today that they would have made it like it is, all that to say that these are different times, the octatrack is not obsolete by any means but I believe elektron has an understanding now in the viability of something as powerful as the octatrack with a more streamlined workflow than the octatrack. I don’t believe they expect people to just get an octatrack if they want slicing anymore, they understand that if people want sample slicing that making them go through the rest of all of that is a bit too much.
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For me the Digitakt is “better” due to overbridge, sampling back and forth and using together with an ipad is bliss. Song mode I could without, but I wish it could slice. I know Elektron won’t care what I think or want, but man that would be incredible.
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I didn’t know how much I really wanted a song mode until I had a piece of gear with a really great one. Still love the DT though.
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The other thing - beside the lack of an auto-region feature - that made me immediately dismiss the DT as a serious sampler is the fact that you cannot trigger sample recording with a simple trig, like the 2005 MachineDrum does (among many other much older samplers), and therefore get a clean loop with no further tweaking. Just… why?
If not for marketing purposes
I know many people love the DT and I’m very happy for them, but for these two reasons I could never understand the appeal - especially considering you can get a 2nd hand OT for the price of a new DT.
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as a total elektron obsessed fanboy I still find most of their gear frustrating due to feature ommisions. slicing, real-time resampling, timestreching & song mode on DT being some examples. the argument that it would eat into OT sales may well be true which is fair enough, but in reality there’s so much more to the OT - 8 simultaneous recorders, crossfader w/scenes etc.
the lack of lfo’s in their more recent offerings drives me nuts too. why only 1 lfo per track on the AR, model series & (up till recently) DT.
just give us loads of em ffs. I don’t see the logic in being scabby with lfo’s 
I could go on.
any how, I still love em to bits but man it does my nut.
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There has to be a way to make an M4L device that assigns midi notes to custom CC values and recreate slicing yourself.
I think, why wait for Elektron to do it when you can challenge yourself and make something cool?
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I’ve gone back to using renoise & ableton instead for drum loop stuff & composition now tbh.
just use my elektrons for jamming / building single patterns that don’t go anywhere. I have fun while I’m doing it tho 
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I didnt’t think this thread would stir up some many people’s teething problems. I just want slicing lol, but yeah I know they’re trying to do the Apple thing, where there’s a specific device cater for said needs. However, I can’t speak for you guys but I’m not made of money, I work hard and despite that I can go round spending hundreds or thousands on equipment to patch said X equipment weakness.
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most people who use sampling beat machines don’t use them for live sample looping though, that’s why it’s still a great choice for a lot of people… there’s really nothing like the digitakt, even the octatrack is not as workflow fluid as the digitakt.
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Is it really going to hinder sales of the Octatrack to implement couple of nice features on the DT? I want the DT to be able to sync record quantize perfect loops. And slicing would be amazing. When it’s all said and done, I’m still just getting mono sampling with DT and the two inputs.
People who want true stereo could go for the OT. I also feel the OT is so much more than a DT in so many other obvious ways, that adding these few features would complete the DT as a sampler without hurting sales of the flagship.
But what do I know? Lol
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Also its 10 years old. At a certain point they need to move on or preferably make a mk3 with OB
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Slicing on the DT to compete with the MPC One and other competition is a good reason to consider it.
As lots of people said already the OT is a 10 year old classic with other reasons to buy it over a DT.
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Like I said before, not a lot of people can afford the Octatrack either, plus its gone up in price. Slicing would be great, no doubt Elektron will add their quriks to limit this in some way,
Lots of original Octatracks to be found second hand, for the same, or less than a new DT.
- not that I wouldn’t like to see slicing on the DT.
It’s not a loop sampler, it’s 8 monosynths in a box that use samples as the oscillators. It’s meant for one-shot drum samples, and those samples are meant to be manipulated in the sound engine and p-locked and p-locked and p-locked to build drum tracks with each track dedicated to a sound (or a few sounds). If you’re using each track to play back its own drum loop… I mean, ok, but why? It’s the wrong machine. I think you’re fundamentally misunderstanding the core concept of the machine. You build drums on the Digitakt, with many built-in variations due to LFOs, fills, and trig conditions, so that the loop can repeat a few times or many times without being exactly alike. It’s superpowered dude, and it’s definitely not a cut-down version of another thing for market niche purposes.
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Let’s agree to disagree 
I see the point - simplicity, immediacy, on-shot sampler, etc. - but I still think it would have been really possible to add, at least, record trigging and make this machine much more than it already is (what you mention and I agree). I’m not a product developper but I don’t think there was any technical hurdle to that. Some older sampler, with much less processing power, can do it.
What I meant is simply, hey, this is a sampler and there are basic sampling features it does not have - which is the reason why I didn’t get it. Full stop.
I’m sorry if my comment felt like an insult to the people loving it. I’m glad for them they do. I realize it’s like telling someone their girlfriend looks ugly or something. Not very tactful.
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