Ultimately it’s something that Elektron should really deal with at some point. They presumably have access to the tooling for the button caps, or can buy them from the specific manufacturer they use if that’s the case. There’s no end of plastics factories out there that could produce some proper button caps for these machines, which could be offered as replacements by Elektron to its customers. It’s a bit silly to have such a weakpoint on otherwise very nice and expensive objects.
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Putting the led ‘in’ the button is a dumb move as well in my opinion.
Older Elektrons are much nicer to use. Can hover your fingers on the buttons and not obstruct the LED status.
The older screens are nicer too. And longer lasting.
That melty shit has to go.
Worst items I’ve had for this, are the roland USB MIDI devices.
Also got an Ibanez acoustic guitar, which has a sticky volume knob for the piezos. Yuck!
Might be a good idea to have a poll on this.
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thanks for setting that up
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I’ve had this effect happen with headphones, bluetooth travel speakers, USB hubs, etc. I have pretty sweaty hands (ty Mediterranean genetics) so my Digitone will go this way someday.
It drives me up a wall. I want to start bugging companies to stop using TPE.
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my octatrack mkII unfortunately also suffers from this! the old mk1 version in this regard was practically indestructible. It wouldn’t be a bad idea if Elektron could reverse-engineer the buttons offering that same material.
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MD? brand new
A4 mk1? brand new
AR mk1? brand new
OT mk1? brand new
Digitone? …
I couldn’t find a video explaining how to replace them. Do you just pop them out and push in place the new ones?
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Can do.
Or remove the top panel, pull the caps off, push the new ones one. Much cleaner/safer way in my opinion.
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Thanks!
Even I should be able to handle this level of complexity (but I’ll find a way to fuck it up still 
)
I hate this stuff so much. I’ve had to replace everything on my DT due to sticky horribleness and while it’s just £50 I’m worried about having to also worry about my OT, DN, A4mk2 and ST degrading through use/time.
The worst culprits by far are Arturia whose stuff I’ve had turn to icky goo from being lightly used, gently cleaned and then stored on a shelf in it’s own box twice now.
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This completely caught me by surprise on a relatively untouched microbrute - one moment it was fine, next time i took the dip it was gross - only a microsoft mouse and wacom pen i had were anything like this - horrible
Anyway @Stlaub you have an opportunity to help your community out, hopefully you didn’t bin those old ones (must have been tempting) - i didn’t find any synth related topics on the solution i tried on the arturia, but one of those general youtube hits led me to try bicarbonate of soda on the Arturia knob caps and it was a spectacular success - i only did most of the one cap as it takes time scrubbing with a toothbrush or wet-wipe, but it was working perfectly, at the expense of only a small reduction in the matte appearance - nothing to care about, thankfully those faceted knobs do not need sticky surfaces to make them grip well
So if you were game, take one of the isolated buttons like [page] maybe and see if you can get the sticky film off using bicarbonate-of-soda mixed into a little water - if it’s the same kinda stuff it should only be a very thin lining sprayed into a mold which you can chemically remove with some gentle wiping/brushing
Elektron might not be too chuffed if this works well, but for those who can’t drop £50 it’ll be a life saver - no need to drop any cash on this if you have no interest in repurposing those, i only tried this myself as there was a 10 year old tub of it lying around in the kitchen
For anyone game enough to try due to a pressing(pun noted) necessity, you might be able to recover friction by using some plastic friendly transparent spray/lacquer type product ?! As far as my arturia is concerned i will be happy with the shiny caps, but until the mod/pitch wheels get taken out i don’t know if those will work as readily or may need a clean then a clear coating to mask it
I’ve kept them all but I can 10000000% report that using Iso on my gunked DT buttons was a terrible idea as it managed to wipe away the sticky, and the text and and the actual black colouring entirely leaving an utterly depressing melty mess.
I might give some bicarb a go out of interest if I can find my big tub of it.
I also just discovered a gunked out Beatstep Pro that’s been in it’s box for a couple of years so will give that a go. The microbrute I wiped down with iso and took it back to the shiny base plastic but those were grey whereas the Elektron buttons are whiteplastic with colouring on them. I did dismantle the pitch and mod wheels but never got them clean enough to not still be half disgusting.
Maybe I’ll totally strip the old DT set and can sell them like a vintage roadworn set that seems to be an excuse to sell bonked up guitars these days.
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urgh … good warning 
tho
good to hear if the bicarb route is even appropriate on those see-through caps, i had no idea if the buttons were cast more like a stick of blackpool rock or were more ‘printed’ - clearly alcohol is a step too far, good to know, might help (edit: prevent) a few folk spoil theirs
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Plastic? No reverse engineering required 
I think they’re PBT, could be ABS though - you’d need to double-shot them to get the LED to shine through so they’d be on the more expensive side, not sure how easy that would be to DIY - I suspect the coating impacts the sound too by dampening the click slightly, I have a feeling standard plastic keys on these switches in a hollow metal box would be extra clacky.
I meant downgrade to the previous MKI buttons, that would be actually an upgrade IMO.
by the way: I wouldn’t recommend using any alcohol based detergent, and leave acetone out of equation! or they will melt like butter. 
Fail #527:
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I’ve got some manky BSP knobs marinating in some bicarb in the sun just now and tossed in a slightly gloopy but not awful page button left over from the big replace. Will report back on how it goes although it looks pretty good, the bicard is definitely clumping around the gross areas of the knobs so maybe it’ll just wipe off I hope.
Yea that’s what I was addressing, you’d need to double shot them though otherwise you wouldn’t know what any of the buttons do, as that’s where the labels are.
Consider that it’s only an upgrade if you suffer from this problem, folks that do seem to think it’s universal but it’s not, it’s clearly dependant on environmental factors. Mine are all as fresh as the day I bought them. I’ve only seen the melting rubber issue on gear I’ve bought from other people, never happens to my stuff.
I suspect you’re all getting wine on your keys.
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When i use acetone, i wear gloves and put it on a towel and use the towel to work the surface. Looks like you submerged the buttons in acetone. Is that the case here?
I also had a digitone for more than a year and didn’t have any issues. however, my OT was also impeccable and suddenly the stickiness covered most buttons.
I believe Elektron will address this conveniently, if there is only couple of units reported, the solution could be providing a new set of buttons, in case this goes out of proportion, then they would need to fabricate an alternative kit for the sticky folks. 