I’ve had mine for around 4 months i think. I bought an A4 for super cheap, just to see if I liked it. Then my friend fell in love with that one, so I bought an AK and sold him the A4, since I didn’t have a keyboard.
I kinda bought the AK because I wanted the hold and multi map button, and to be able to play the multi maps from the kb. I guess I wanted a contoller kb, to just play and it’s great for that.
Tbh, I never bought into the whole analogue vs digital craze. I’ve always thought that analogue is antiquated, or limited. The idea of only having these 4-6 waveforms on a modern synth was never my cup of tea. Filters, maybe, but then have one digital and one analogue.
But, after reading about the A4 a bit, I bought one. I had a feeling that people would buy the A4, much like the person I bought my OT off of, play with it for a while and wonder why they can’t get that sound out of it they had imagined…But, like most Elektron gear, it’s about tenacity and spending time getting deep into the machine…and I have not gotten there yet. I think in a year or two I’ll either be in love with it, or I’ll finally just sell all my synths and get a Nord Modular G2 Keys.
Pro’s for me so far.
- Drums Drums Drums!! Multi map, triggered by my OT with 128 differnt drum presets. Then record into the A4 sequencer and tweek knobs in record mode. Soooo fun.
- Drums. Twice cuz they sound sooo good.
- The amount of synthesis options is outstanding. It’s not knob per function, but once you get used to where things are, it’s all right there.
- The 5th sub osc. For beautiful pads.
- A bunch of stuff I haven’t tried yet- feadback osc, inputing into a track…and a bunch of stuff.
- Envelopes everywhere, including in the envelope section. Kinda crazy.
- Trig mute, accent, note slide buttons.
Cons so far
- It’s analog…But, hey, it says it on the tin JK kinda
- I’m still having a hard time fitting it in the mix, but I’ll get there. I think I’m just learning the sound of this thing.
- Having so many options to get to the sound you want can be overwhelming. But, in the end they make it happen.
In the end, so far I love this thing as a drum synth and for designing long beautiful pads. I wouldn’t say it doesn’t sound analogue enough. It’s a really deep synth, that could take years (days for some synth ninjas) to really get to know well.
If you have a sound that you would like to synthesize, you should be able to do it on this synth.