I do think that the holy trinity of effects (reverb, delay, modulation) should be usable at the same time.
This is one of the few points that is still holding me back from buying the OP-XY, at least at the moment.
I don’t think that’s ever going to change, as there are only the two FX tracks. If you think that’s too restricting, don’t go ahead and buy an OP-XY.
2 Likes
Sure. I haven’t yet decided whether this is a showstopper for me.
For an all-one device like the OP-XY, I feel that this is at least an unnecessary restriction.
1 Like
Everyone’s approach is different. I used to use a buttload of FX in all my music and it sounded great to me, as I wrote and recorded it all and knew exactly what I did at every moment. For other listeners, it tended to sound way too busy most of the time. I try to adapt a more conservative approach now, use fewer FX, but make these FX shine, as apposed to being buried in a soup of other FX. E.g. when it comes to composition, introducing a very prominent phaser in the middle of a song will have a much larger impact than a phaser that’s warbling along in the background all the time. The flexible architechture of the OP-XY is perfectly suited for that.
I don’t think processor power comes into the design of music hardware, other than that it must be capable enough to support the design.
The limitation in hardware is the UI. How might you add these extra FX, for example? If you have insert FX per track, then where do they go in the UI? The M1-4 buttons are all already occupied.
Of course you’d be able to do it if you redesigned the UI around that feature, but then other things would have to change. You’d lose an M-button feature, perhaps. Or you’d need more buttons. Or maybe running all those FX at once would reduce battery life.
If the argument is “the processor is powerful enough to do X,” then one should probably be doing X on a PC or Mac.
2 Likes
Speaking of FX and the XY, how are people incorporating external FX? The send/return is amazing, but then you have a pedal or whatever hanging off the side all the time.
How do you “print” those FX back into the XY?
So far, I mostly used it to resample one-shot drum sounds, short vocal phrases, or other melodic phrases like a 4 note synth melody through my guitar pedal chain (CB clean -> CB genloss2 -> Line6 HX one -> CB Lossy), so I don’t have it constantly hooked up.
I simply resample them back to a new drum sampler patch.
2 Likes
This two are …. 
1 Like
This is kinda funny in light of your comment above about too many FX, no? 
3 Likes
lol
To my defense, for a guitar pedal board, 5 pedals is pretty minimal, I guess (didn’t list the strymon iriduim as I only use that with guitar).
And when resampling with the OP-XY, it’s mostly the genloss2 that I use for saturation and EQ. Or lossy for weird reverb. Just because they are in a chain doesn’t mean I always have all of them on when resampling, it’s just the order I have them in for my guitar.
5 Likes
The XY has an aux FX loop function. It also has two way usb host audio so you can easily add any FX chain via computer, tablet, or phone. The sequence-able FX tracks being choosable per pattern seems very versatile to me.
I’m glad to see you’re open to the idea of wanting more patterns—that actually reinforces my point that the current limit can feel a bit too restrictive. While the brain and punch-in FX are great tools, they aren’t a solution for all compositions since they’re predefined to work in specific ways and aren’t fully tweakable by the user. Sometimes, it’s not just about modulating an existing pattern but switching to a completely different drum or synth engine to take the track in a new direction. When you start making those kinds of changes, patterns get used up much more quickly.
That’s where the OP-Z’s ability to chain or cue projects really shines—it resolves these limitations by allowing extended sequences across multiple projects. If a similar feature were introduced in the OP-XY, it would be a game-changer and would make the 9-pattern limit far less restrictive.
2 Likes
So it is possible to use for example an iPad which runs AUM + plug-ins as fx processor with just one usb-c cable?
Just got one. Been trying some reggae-like stuff, here is my first vid! 
3 Likes
If what to want is to send a track to the iPad, and listen again this sound into the OP-XY with the FX of AUM… I don’t think so.
I think that would depend on the routing in Aum which I’m not familiar with. I do know audio works well both ways so as long as you can loop it back in software there shouldn’t be much latency.
Im torn between the OP-XY and the Digitakt 2 for sampling and sequencing - im not keen on the synth engines from the OP-XY from what ive heard, so id be getting the XY principally as a sampler/sequencer, which places it sort of in the same category as the Digitakt 2. A few cursery searches seemed to suggest the sequencer on the XY is marginaly better than the Elektron box - and by better I guess i mean has more advanced options (like deeper randomisation/algorythms for getting interesting sequences). one reddit post says the ‘smart transpose’ effect is what makes the sequencer superior - could somone explain what this is/does?
2 Likes
If you dont like the Synth engines you will get a lot more use out of the Digitakt.
6 Likes
Im a bass player so would be using bass samples as the synths - manipulating them etc on the device - so i dont really need synth engines (which i understand the Digitakt doesn’t have anyway?). How good is the XY when manipulating/modifying samples, and also what makes the XY sequncer so good that it it;s better than Elektrons?
1 Like
If your bass samples are mono then a Digitakt one will be better. It has random too.
1 Like