Also love it! I’ve been using the Syntakt with an MC-101 and it’s such a great pairing. The modulation, filth and drum and bass that can be created with the Syntakt pairs beautifully with the clean instantly available polyphony of the mc-101 ‘s massive classic sound library and invites re-sampling and saving samples from the Syntakt to the 101 for capturing even more from the Syntakt. Playing a pattern on the Syntakt plays the corresponding scene on the 101 which is perfect for me. I sometimes leave a MIDI channel for controlling and modulating samples in the 101 via Syntakt as well. I hope they continue adding features to the Syntakt, it’s got legs to keep selling and is an incredible instrument in its own right.
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i really love mine as well. ive been a strictly modular guy for almost 10 years now, and have been through a few synths over that time (waldorf xt, pulse, blofeld, hydrasynth, alesis ion, korg radias, etc). none of those captured my attention like the syntakt has. its so fun and immediate, but still has enough depth that i can sit there and design sounds like i enjoy doing on the modular.
i owned a model cycles at some point and we just never clicked, and thought the elektron way wasn’t for me. i’m so glad i gave it another shot because this thing is a blast to use. i despise sample management and avoid using them at all costs, but i’ve even started looking at the DT because of how fun this box is.
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Does anyone use Syntakt for Dub Techno? Is it capable of doing it? Whatever I do on mine turns out to be industrial/aggressive techno. I want to try something that is more of a minimal/dub. Send me links of your dub techno sets with Syntakt if you have any.
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Have you heard @Nils?
Nils music (Pokelok)
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No I haven’t. Gonna check, thanks!
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It definitely is…
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…with syntakt, my decade long “next elektron device no brainer purchase” period in my life came to an end…but never the less, it’s a tremendous machine and all tracks i recorded with it almost breathe the same as the stuff i recorded with the a4…
wich remains to me their pinnacle of synthboxes to this day…
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@Andreas_R also does some nice dub techno stuff on the Syntakt.
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The washed out and noisy chain reaction style dubtechno is quite hard to produce on the Syntakt. More clean stuff is pretty easy to do.
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Syntakt is very capable, but also comes with some inconveniences.
The SY-Chords makes minor chords, but the biggest downside imho is that the wavetables dont have saw or square waves that sound bright and thick enought. The whole machine sounds very dull to my ears, drive doesn’t add the missing overtones.
But where it gets interesting is when you stack several machines and route them together through the FX block. (2-notch filter = 
)
Most machines have two oscilators, so you can make a minor chord triad with two tracks.
Track 1: Osc 1 = 0, Osc 2 = +3 semitones
Track 2: Osc 1 =+7 semitones, Osc 2 = off or -12 as a sub osc to beef up the low end.
Obvious downside: You have to change parameters and patterns across multiple tracks. As of now this cant be solved with controll-all as you can’t deselect tracks. (Hopefully this features will be added with the coming update 
)
This is no problem if you use your Syntakt just as a synth, but if you want to add drums it becomes cumbersome.
Overall due to the flexibility and how gritty the Syntakt can sounds it’s very well suited for dub techno.
@Nils thanks for mentioning 
The 12 patterns make heavy use of the above track setup 
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Getting very close to that specific sound is probably difficult without external processing, no matter what synth you’re using (although Jeanne gets close on the DN2).
I do however find the Syntakt perfect for gritty, noisy and rattly dub and techno sounds. I’d actually say that’s one of its strongest suits.
All these are straight from the Syntakt:
And some drum n bass
This one’s through Analog Heat
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the recent leak got me a bit more into the syntakt structure and iam now at this point where the little workflow tweaks outshine the overall experience with rytm&A4 in combination.
I would love to change a sample slot for a digital cycles machine, twinshot sampler or even the Adsr envelope and updated graphics…trig modifiers on pads and these kinda crazy dumb perf tools from the get go, MD crazyness.
somehow I don‘t understand the big difference in price anymore 
if you only compare the Analog voices and their ranges, the syntakt really tweaks them into a real voice because rytms octave range doesn’t allow to do that right?
The range of the analog voices on the Syntakt is quite limited…
but not as limited like the rytm, isn’t it that you can play a voice over a few more octaves up/down?
on a rytm you can’t disable the „lowest octave plays all the instruments“ thing and AHD vs ADSR is a huge one
Yeah ok. But you are a master of the Syntakt. It’s actually not that easy to do without spending a lot of time with the machine before.
Still sounds a bit too clean for my taste of dubtechno. I struggle with that myself on all kinds of devices. I have to say you came quite close on some of these examples though.
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Absolutely. It takes a lot of time finding your own sound with something, and getting everything to sit right. But I guess that’s true for most instruments. Anyway, just trying to show what kind of sound I personally think the ST lends itself to.
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I find it not easy to produce more dirty and noisy dubtechno without samples.
Anyway, here’s my take on it. Took me about 3 tracks of different noise in the background and another layer of noise under the kick. And of course a lot of lfo’s doing subtle changes to the filter, tune etc.
It was a fun challenge. Definitely will get more into this noisy style of sounds with the Syntakt. Reminded me again that the Syntakt can do a fucking lot. You just have to work and search a bit for it.
Thanks for the inspiration!
That’s why i love this community.
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These are sick. Would love to know how you got that kind of swelling/zippering sound on the first one
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A DAW with a ton of plugins will always be better than any hardware box but if the question is “What gadget can I buy to make dub techno?” then I think Syntakt is probably top of the list right now.
The Digitone II could be better, if it gets the right firmware update, but right now it’s not as good as Syntakt for this (IMHO) and Syntakt is about to get a big update of its own.
Interesting times.
Let’s see if Syntakt gets that in a couple of weeks. If not, attach an old Digitakt. 
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@Dr.K Excuse me, but that sounds effing awesome 
I think you nailed that sound. Nice work!
I just want to stress again that I’m not saying this comes without effort. I spend a lot of time creating my patterns too. My point was just that I very often end up with this kind of dirty, gritty sound on the ST. Maybe that’s just me and my preferences though.
I’m happy you found inspiration to do that track! What I usually would do from there on is copy it, ctrl-all it, move some triggers, adjust some settings, and suddenly a new track is about to take shape. The stuff I post on this forum is very often made this way. Iteration five, or iteration 25 
@Florid Thank you! I don’t remember what I did specifically for this pattern (it’s a couple of years old), but it sounds like I did at least two things:
- Use the FX track amp envelope in inverted mode to «pump» the volume. I often do this for a fake compression effect, placing the triggers on the same steps as the kick.
- P-lock the delay feedback so that at the start of the pattern (probably step 1) the feedback is fairly low. Then somewhere in the middle of the bar it’s p-locked to well past 100 so that it swells towards the end of the bar. It then runs into self-oscillation, but is tamed when it gets to step 1 again and you get this push-pull effect.
I’m also p-locking the delay time, which in conjunction with self-oscillation gives that bouncy and zippering sound. Check out the recent FX track science lab for more self-oscillation shenanigans
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