I could see the Syntakt superceding the Digitakt if they added sampling.
If it was technically possible, there’d be no reason for them to continue selling the Digitakt since the price points are so close. But who would complain?
The presence of a +Drive does not imply the possibility of sampling. It’s slow, long-term storage.
If it doesn’t have the RAM to hold a decent amount of samples, then it’s not happening.
On this one point only, I don’t think that’s necessarily true, particularly if they were able to add sample playback only, perhaps even simpler than M:S, with pitch control and loop on/off.
On your other points, I have no idea about the size of the RAM and if I did I wouldn’t know how that impacted technical feasibility.
True, and if it doesn’t have the ADC converter for the audio inputs then sample playback would be it.
I’d be surprised if there wasn’t 2 or 4 MB unused RAM lying around right now. But they need to reserve space for future updates I’m sure.
Only they know the truth…
Yes, but for recording and stem/loop playback… static tracks on the octa come to mind.
I generally agree. Sample playback is probably not in the device.
However, if it offers a rompler vs sampling it just adopts model samples rather than actually cannibalizing digitakt, imo. The ability to sample on the fly is the Digitakt magic
To my knowledge, only sample capable machines have a +Drive.
The exception is the M:C because I believe its exactly the same hardware as the M:S and use the same storaging concepts.
I for one, never want to see any sample stuff in the Syntakt, I hate messing about with samples, and rarely use any.
it’s not cannibalizing sales when people just want new and flashy. DT is selling fine right now and when that slows down they might add some kind of samples/sampling to ST. Also they can add something new to DT which gives it a benefit over the other box. Why would they not capitalise if the box has the capability? It’s not like they can add sampling to the DT. Sure they could improve it but ‘now with sampling’ sounds a lot flashier than ‘now in stereo!’ Some companies lately have seemed to figure out that properly timed ‘cannibalizing’ can actually make them more money and I expect the practice will become more common. The new mpc line for example. And now elektron. I’d imagine if they’re built from the ground up on this idea it allows them to share parts, code etc saving significantly more money.
Maybe it’s just cheaper now to buy 1GB flash chips in bulk than to get smaller ones.
And, as pointed out above, the syntakt manual does specify the size of it’s +drive
Would agree, but then, why specifically state it in the manual. It’s not in the Digitone manual, unless I missed it. More plausible like stated before, that it was a copy paste mistake from the Digitakt manual.
This is taken from the Syntakt manual, page 28.
The total size of the +Drive is 1 GB. The +Drive sound library can hold up to 2048 sounds (256 sounds in each bank A-H) that are available to all projects.
They call it +Drive but I don’t think this is the same +Drive as in the Digitakt, for instance. The reason I’m saying this is because the Digitakt has support for projects and sounds and still has a 1 GB storage for samples. They know better than I do but, AFAIK, Syntakt has only projects (128) and sounds (2048) management via Transfer whereas Digitakt has projects (128), sounds (2048) and samples (no limit).
What is not cheaper is to re-develop something and create a new PCB while you already have a design that is working. You can even decide to populate some parts of that PCB and change the code to reduce costs and keep a working design. But this is not the Syntakt case anyway.
Probably what they have is permanent memory storage (some kind of flash-like memory) and they map there projects and sounds. If needed, in the remaining space they create a FS to store a variable amount of files and directories for samples, as in the Digitakt.
I think it’s more stating than it can CURRENTLY hold that much with the current firmware rather than it’s only capable of holding said amount
Just stumbled on this thread…
I hope we can get sample blending like on RYTM. The analog machines are great but adding samples to them in the RYTM really opens up the jelly!
It seems like the ‘1GB’ thing was removed from the Syntakt’s manual.
Dang… might’ve been an error from the get go
I think it’s for chord wavetables, and future wavetables.
I think differentiating the sampling capabilities on the Syntakt from Digitakt and Rytm would make sense, like what if Syntakt’s sampling was more synth-focused, e.g. allowing you to do rudimentary polyphonic chromatic sample synthesis per track, and doing single cycle waveform synthesis? The sampling controls would still support basic sampling features, but the finer grain controls would be for the more-synth oriented stuff. Just a thought.