Why would I build and sell you universal solution A, if you’re happy to purchase partial solutions b, c, d, e, f, g for three times the money, which again doubles every time you update the units?
You see where I’m going - the means are there, but it just wouldn’t make sense from a business perspective.
That being said, I, like many in this thread, find limitations to be a core ingredient in the quest for creativity.
return of groove box and retro prices ?
Yamaha RM1X
$550 found on gumtree and rising in price
rm1x’s are now almost in MD territory which is slightly weird. used to be about 150-200 for an rm1x secondhand.
md-mm-a4-ot is a super duper groove box x4.
Well I didn’t expect to trigger this level of debate, but there you go! I just want a good single box to get me started for a while, not necessarily forever! Good to get some food for thought.
Tempest is fairly deep. though there’s no fx, no individual track lengths and no p-locks.
2 mini elektrons could be seen as a decent unit. brings you into larger groovebox price point, and similar footprint. n you get extra lfos via the midi tracks.
it’s possible that was one of their ideas when designing the digis. give you the option to mix and match.
I like hardware for many reasons but tbh groove boxes were marketed at being capable of finished polished productions most of them had promotional adverts orientated around remixing on the fly, finalizing or being able to master directly on the unit.
I sold all of them is probably say as others mpc1000 with jjos and a laptop with software.
I think I just found a solution, but it requires super glue or duct tape and a few elektron devices…
Grab a second hand digitakt. Low price, highly addictive. Best bang for the buck you can get from elektron. Plus it will happily sequence whatever cheap synth you’ll add later. This or a second hand MPC. (but the DT is much more fun really)
Oh no, I’m repeating myself! Retrig?!
It was meant to be a discussion about the groovebox market but I guess it all feeds back to my decision-making process. I am leaning towards a Digitakt. I sent the first one back but it was a stupid thing to do based on a gut reaction to spending the money, thus taking some time to think carefully this time.
The EMX-1 was the first thing i had and it taught me so many amazing lessons. I used to just play patterns and tweak the filter for hours. At the end of the day it sounded shite though straight out the outputs. I still ise the drum sounds today and the synths were great but there was no real functionality to treat the sounds in the box or get a good mix.
For me the ultimate groovebox is the octatrack (the sequencer is very similar to the electribe one actually). The reason i say this is because its modular… so you could think of it like an emx-1 but where you have control over EVERTYTHING. You choose your mono synth to run it with, you choose your drums sounds, you can even add your own effects using the cue outs as a send. It samples and sequences synths so its maybe like an emx-1 and an esx-1 (if youre still following this comparison)
AND it has the tools with the mixer and effects to sound decent enough out of the outputs so you can just enjoy creating.
I wanted all the benefits and feel i got from the emx but with the control too and i present to you… ThE OcTaTraCk
The Digitakt is a solid instrument at a pretty reasonable price. It will probably have a decent resale value for some time to come so you won’t make that much of a loss on it if you decide to get rid of it later.
I don’t suggest you should spend money you can’t afford to, but it can also help to accept that sometimes it’s OK to buy yourself something nice you expect to enjoy without it having an immediate practical purpose in your daily life.
another Yamaha RM1x owner here 
i’m totally disappointed in modern grooveboxes specs.
the main reason is the number of patterns. non-stop 1.5 or 2-hour session with 250 patterns?! for everything?! well, really?! and what kind of music do they mean?!
in 2018, it’s even not funny.
but i’m almost happy with that 20 years old cumbersome coffin with worn out glitchy keys.
with external SysEx-capable MIDI control surface and a couple of external synths, it’s real killer machine.
the bottom line is: despite very nice form factor, modern grooveboxes suck, period.
TBH, with the latest update which added synths in standalone mode the MPC Live might have become the best all-in-one groove boxes out there.
I find running the EMX-1 through a compressor and an Aphex 104 exciter makes it sounds pretty good.
To be fair, the jury is still undecided as on how epic these new synth additions will prove to be. I have only managed to RTFM, so no firsthand time with em yet, but at least on paper I am slightly disappointed in some regards.
4 voice max polyphony for the poly VA? really? But 16 voice max poly on the EP? What if I compose a 7 voice progression on the EP lugin and want to audition it with the poly VA sound instead? And why is there no triangle wave for the bass synth?
The autosampler however, thats a real game changer right there and makes the MPC live much better suited for “playing your compositions live” IMO. I’ve always found more complex sampling (as in making multis etc) to be a real chore, so anything that helps here will be very welcome.
Any news on the Octa VST Rusty? Hope you’re doing ok too, read you’ve had a tough time.
Another thought is modern grooveboxes are so clinically digital. The valve system on the EMX korgs made the sound much more flavoursome.
I don’t think I’ve ever once turned the valves down in the mix.
I own a spectralis 2 (after 2 mk1 models) and have to say it’s the most complete best sounding box that has been on the market til today. It has it quirks as mentioned but I if you deal with it you get lots of functions for the price. Somewhere in the www there’s an interview with Jörg where he states it might be possible that we will see a mk3.
I announced an Octa VST? Don’t remember that 
Thanks. Getting there, just take each day as it comes 
Sorry , prob wishful thinking based on some old GS thread discussions regarding the feasibility /demand for a plugin version of an OT styled device