Not mine. I was just answering a simple question, Shig.
For how tired some of these threads are, at this point, I personally don’t see how it’s an issue to be talking about the sticky buttons. The fact is, both the OG DN and DN2 do suffer from this issue, just like ALL the other newer-generation Elektron boxes. So, as far as I’m concerned, that makes this conversation fair game, regardless of the intended topic.
And hey, if Elektron doesn’t want their forum inundated with comments about this wholly-unnecessary problem, then they should either stop using this material, give buyers a choice of buttons at the outset, or offer a suitable replacement-set at a fair price.
Frankly, it should be a source of embarrassment that some guy with a 3D printer can do one better than Elektron themselves.
At any rate, fundamentally, it seems we’re in agreement.
The buttons on my AR MKI are still great more than a decade later. Why didn’t they stick with them?
(now I’m asking, I see a million commercial reasons)
Hey now that guy also has no college degree, no formal training in this industry, a blue collar day job, a heaping tablespoon of ADHD, and a new found passion for 3d modeling. Gotta get all the little details in there to really make it sting.
And correct, all of the keycap models are now available to print for free, and @jw has our back with knob files as well.
If so, I sincerely hope you realize that my comment was not meant to speak to your qualifications, but rather to point a critical finger Elektron’s apparent inability or refusal to solve their own problem.
I genuinely don’t understand why they themselves would put up with this material, knowing now that it will degrade into a tacky mess, in relatively short order, and ultimately draw the ire of their user base.
At any rate, when the buttons on my DN2 go south (and we all know that’s inevitable), I’ll surely be your next customer (after letting Elektron know about it loudly).
I just realized the double entendre: Sticking with the OG Digitone and Sticking with the OG Digitone. I don’t think that was intended by the OP’s thread starter, however.
Fortunately, I have not experienced sticky buttons, despite the thousands of hours I’ve spent with the unit. Wondering if this has anything to do with the generally dry climate where I live, as well as my generally dry skin. Also, I use a decksaver when the unit is not in operation. And I don’t dance around and get hot and sweaty while using the Digitone.
Unlike TE though if Elektron offered a solution or really acknowledged the issue officially at all, they’d be admitting to a problem. and If they admit to a problem, many people would rightfully email them and ask them asking what gives and why they’re selling 4 figure devices and then asking their users to either print or buy official replacement parts.
I feel like the right thing to do would be to design a replacement made of solid plastic and then offer it for free to those that email them about it. Sort of a quiet recall. But that probably costs too much money. Or someone at HQ owns stock in soft touch rubber
My friends. There could not be more places to discus button texture and potential fixes. Please don’t derail this thread, which is specifically about the virtues of the OGDN over the DNII.
I was reading another thread, about depth and complexity in a synth. Someone pointed out that depth typically manifests itself vertically (in the momentary texture of the music) as multiple layers of sound…rather than horizontally, or over time. To put it less politely, complexity in a setup tends to manifest itself in the outputting of shit sandwiches.
In another thread, users were posting examples of music they thought were good. One track, in particular, struck me. It was almost entirely a succession of individual sounds, with almost no layering of anything (focus on the *horizontal aspect of the music). It was the best music I’d heard on this forum in a while.
I bring these two examples up to remind myself how much is enough to make the kind of music I want to make. Currently, I feel like the OG Digitone is enough for me. I will edit this post to include the above references, if I can find them.
EDIT: found the posts:
The piece I liked with the horizontal approach is:
Apologies for that, I hopped right on the train and thought the title was meant to be clever.
To reel it back in, I too am in the camp of having enjoyed the DN more than the DNII. The DN gave off a “big as a puddle, deep as an ocean” vibe, while the DNII is just the damn ocean. It was quite a bit more daunting to approach. I realize of course DNII works amazingly for many, but something just felt a little less immediate about it for myself.
Unfortunately don’t own either currently, but I think I’d pick the DN again if I were in the market. Some of these used prices actually make it an insane bargain imo.
After five years of knowing about Perfect Circuit (the electronic music store), I made a ~90 minute drive from Orange County up to Burbank and visited the store. I went into this trip without any significant feelings of GAS. Entering the store lowered my GAS level even further. I tried the Digitone II for about 5 minutes, just to understand how to program polyphony onto a step. In a weird way, it was more annoying than the method I use on my OG Digitone. After that, I farted around with the Deluge for about one minute, long enough to ascertain that it had a nice, well-built feel…and that I had no idea what I was doing.
A friend of mine traveled up to Burbank with me. Got me into the carpool lane for a portion of the trip. I told him we would go get lunch and return to Perfect Circuit after that. The route to lunch put us briefly on the 5 South Freeway. At that point, I said, “Screw lunch, let’s get out of here!” We drove back to OC. I had spent a grand total of 20 minutes in Perfect Circuit.
What a waste, right? I suppose an even larger waste would’ve been buying gear I didn’t need. Bottom line, the OG Digitone is AWESOME and checks all the boxes for me. I have devoted thousands of hours to learning it. If I had divided all the time spent, making electronic music, among many different bits of gear, I think the quality of my output and my understanding of what I’m doing…would suffer.
I just wanted to say I very much appreciate the level of detail and description in your post. Not many bother to do that these days. Too many hot takes and short snarky posts on the internet. More explanation really helps us to understand where you’re coming from. Good stuff.
I love my OG DN and probably will never get rid of it. But I have to say I’m tempted by the DNII. I’d probably have a blast using those two together with my OG DT. But, I dunno. I’m still on the fence and feel like adding the DNII would be overkill. How many tracks of FM do I really need?
I chose the og Digitone over the Digitone 2 and bought it after the DN2 was released (maybe about 3 months, can’t remember exactly). I wanted the og because I liked the way it seemed to have less menu diving and is purely focused as an fm synth. Another big factor in my choice was that I prefer how it looks to the Digitone 2. The deciding factor was when I watched all of the videos I loved of the og and couldn’t find any videos of the Digitone 2 that I liked as much as these or where the sound seemed to be better. As crazy as this may sound, I even paid full price for a new og Digitone. There was a used one available in my area but I wasn’t satisfied with the condition and was excited to find that a seller in my area still had a new one available at this time.
