so Old Spice + Digitone II > Syntakt alone?
we need to do a double blind study!
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exactly, zen engine is not comparable to how good syntakt can sound , both analog & digital , apart for the polyphonic sounds it sounds like real shit
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I tought the 707 was a nightmare to program and do any kind of sound design or even basic sound editing 
I also think Rolands ACB is in another league than Zen, both in sound and workflow, but everyone is different!
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You seriously want to start this kind of discussion? Please not 
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Absolutely agree! But ânot compareâ does not mean âgood and badâ. My Moogs, Oberheims, Arp, Arturias donât compare but are all great and have their strenghts 
As for the ZEN engine, you might like typical Roland sounds or not, but we can create with ZEN sounds which might be for some âtoo cleanâ - absolutely - but there are some parameters - maybe too deep in the menu structure - to get organic sounds as well
Yes ⌠ACB is much closer to the analogue instruments, which I can tell from having also System-8.
But ZEN is quite close as I can tell - at least for the typical sounds, which donât use special options only a simulation or the real circuits can provide.
BTW I share the opinion that we have to like typical Roland sounds at the first place. If not - itâs a matter of taste - and Roland sounds have been used so often in music that I can understand that artists tend to use different timbres instead.
Yes and no - maybe not a nightmare, but the reduced set of buttons and the overwhelming amount of parameters of the ZEN engine need some time to get used to it.
Basic sound design is quite easy using the âsimpleâ UI and letting the âdetailedâ for later use
I am used of having four parts per voice and appreciate having different sound engines per part (D50: synth/sampler). The ZEN engine is similar structured but more complex.
Good news - if we only want to get a quick sketch of our idea, there is a plethora of well curated and organized Roland sounds at our fingertips. I use this quite often, just to capture the idea.
For sound design we have so many different options that I recommend to spend enough time to understand the concept of the ZEN engine. Yes - the MC-707 UI needs some menu-diving, but after knowing where to find what, itâs okay to live with it. There is a ZEN-Plug-In as well and this seems to have a quite good UI - but unfortunately at a cost 
From my POV, a lot of it can sound bad (especially the init sounds), but when tweaked and all its features used, itâs bonkers. Syntakt is one of my most favourite synths/drum machines ever made.
Thereâs a world inside the Syntakt.
â playlist with covers 
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Oh God this is Solid GOLDS !!!
This deserves its own elektronauts challenge!
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Yes I get it, I think it depends on how much you like sound design and what kind of music youâre into, I like techno, house, electronica etc where sounds are often heavily mangled/processed. For playing the synth presets with the classic Roland sounds itâs great.
As a drum machine, for me itâs not even comparable to Elektron or MPC. Itâs just so slow and tedious, even basic things like amp, filter, pitch, basic fx processing demands tedious menu diving, and my inspiration was lost⌠Sequencing felt slow as well.
Same stuff takes a couple of seconds on Elektron⌠That was my experience anyway. Either way OP doesnât seem to be interested in samples so I guess Zen is out of the picture
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thatâs where no one should go.
If the UI of any device doesnât support your inspirational flow, keep such a machine away from you. Making music is or should be more than âprogrammingâ a device
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Hehe yes indeed. Not saying itâs a bad instrument or groovebox at all, just saying it really depends who you are and what you like. Comparing to other drum machines/Syntakt Iâd say look elsewhere, but thatâs just me.
It wouldâve been a dream to have Roland ACB synths inside an Elektron thoughâŚ
Kind of an odd premise to ask what is âbetterâ than or âbeatsâ the Syntakt, as thatâs highly subjective. Probably a lot of gear out there which is better spec-wise, but who cares?
Imo the Syntakt is first of all a synthesizer with a tightly integrated sequencer. Like the Machinedrum, it mostly sounds like shit if you use it as a preset box. The kicks are way too boomy and samey, the chord machine is dull and anemic, the Swarm sounds generic. Just like the MD: The PI machines sound like shit, the TRX machines sound bland and not like a TR at all, many of its sounded like cardboard if not tweaked.
The magic appears when you tweak it like a synth, massage the sounds into patterns with p-locks, LFOs, filters. It isnât nearly as enjoyable or powerful as a straight drum machine. Its strongest feature isnât its sounds or list of features. Itâs the interface, and how it enables you shape a set of fairly unimpressive basic sounds into musical magic. Truely a synth in the Elektron tradition, like the MD, MnM, A4.
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i like typical Roland sounds, but i dont like âZen core typical Roland soundsâ
these are completely different storiesâŚ
and yes, although I understand that ACB emulations, like any other, are completely incomparable with the original HW⌠but ACB are still strong vstâsâŚnot Zen core sh*t
The only thing better than ST is ST2.
the ability to program a different analog patch with a bunch of other parameters for each step of the sequencer already makes it incomparable
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All of this is true imo. It definitely takes some work to get the Syntakt to a special place but once you go down the route of âletâs make all my sounds with this one machineâ a couple of times youâre getting to the real magic 
Letâs not forget about Overbridge either. If weâre talking about âagainst the worldâ and you put OB (=DAW fx + resampling) in the equation, itâs pretty much an unbeatable combo.
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I always feel strange when I read these comments. I kinda like how ST and AR machines sound with not that much tweaking. They just get the job done so I can write a track fast. Thatâs more important to me than tinkering to get the âperfectâ snare for hours. And ST is probably the Elektron that helps you get there fastest. I probably wouldnât necessarily buy it if my main goal was to make the most awesome drum sounds, but mainly because itâs not that deep, not because it sounds bad. Thereâs something about ST that makes most of my jams sound a lot better than with most other gear. Maybe thatâs because it lacks something that other machines bring to the table out of the gate. I see it as a plus so I donât have to heavily EQ all the shit going on, but can still make it do interesting things with the filters, FX block etc.
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I hope I wasnât offending you or anyone else with my comment, reading back what I wrote, it feels a little harsh. Itâs only my subjective opinion.
I always felt the same way about their synths (not their samplers): By default, they sound like unpolished starting points. I really love that aspect of them, it feels similar to working with analog monosynths with no presets or memory. Shape your own sounds on the spot with simple tools. Itâs the opposite of scrolling through 1000 presets to find a sound that fits. I prefer spending hours tweaking the snare to get it right
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Iâm going to defend your original comment on the basis that your music is so sound design heavy (meant as high praise). Very few have squeezed the juice out that you have from the Syntakt! To put it another way, if one of your tracks was played and I didnât know any better I would never think âthatâs a Syntakt.â
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On that very specific feature, Iâd draw a comparison to the Analog Four, however, A4 doesnât have the additional analog drive block. I still think Syntakt doesnât have any direct comparables, because it manages to put those different analog patches on each step beside 8 digital tracks, or 8 midi tracks, etc.
Just like A4 excels in its own way through the sheer depth of each track and voice for sound design. Itâs dense with sound design options unlike almost anything else that exists outside of modular. By those, Iâd say they feel related, but only indirectly and by blessing of analog voices and the Elektron sequencers they share.
By the way, if Syntakt had 12 starting patches as barebones as the init patch thatâs on Analog Four, I think it would suffer greatly in the minds of most. Some may dislike its stock sounds, but I think they give a decent starting position to understand its capabilities and figure out where you want to go from there.
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I originally bought my Syntakt to be my upgraded Model:Cycles. Total utility box to fill in gaps of whatever I felt was missing from my tune. It still is brilliant for that purpose. Need a stronger or different kick? Maybe an alternate lead melody or two? Syntakt fills in those gaps quickly and sounds great doing it.
After awhile I started hearing all the great tunes by folks using just the ST and I spent the better part of 6 months writing exclusively on that box, with some pretty fun results on tons of music.
I will never understand the criticism the ST gets. ST is fucking genius design. Between it and my DN2 Iâm feeling pretty spoiled
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I would just say Syntakt is a terrific Toolbox with great updates to come.
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