It took me a long time to succumb to the joys of Elektron. I wanted an Octatrack but, just for me–and I know that not everyone feels this way and that I’m in a small minority, I spent time with one every few years and the buttons just didn’t grab me. So it was always sort of on my list, but never on the top of the gearlust gear list. I preordered a Digitakt in mid-February because it seemed so perfect for me, and it seemed like it would have buttons that were more my style. As it turns out, the Digitakt has buttons a whole lot like my favorite ever keyboard for typing. It even appears they’re actually identical, the same manufacturer for my Das Keyboard and the Elektron Digitakt, which explains a lot, but I didn’t know that right away…I just knew that the Digitakt’s buttons were incredible for me.
So I spent as much time as I could with the Digitakt, and got more and more excited as the few early bugs were squashed, and I started to think, “Wow, these are the best buttons ever. I’d buy an Octatrack in a second, even though I’m pretty broke, if the OT had these beautiful buttons.”
Then, woah, Mk IIs with the new buttons for everything except the Heat. So I hear everyone saying that it’s just a cosmetic upgrade and a slightly higher price, but the only reason I hadn’t made an Octatrack the center of my rig, and life, was suddenly solved. I really, really wanted to keep the Digitakt, but I had the opportunity to return it and pre-order the Octatrack II, so I did. And now I’m tearing down and rebuilding my whole apartment so that the OT MkII can be the centerpiece of my home studio and workflow. I wish I could accept the old buttons because I’d save money, but I can’t, not after going gaga over them for the Digitakt.
So now, all of my gearlust points toward a Rytm MkII. I might get a McMillen K-Mix today, and a patchbay and a line mixer are high on my list, to better integrate older hardware synths, and since Access was mentioned in this thread, a lot could change quickly (inside my head) if a new desktop Virus module came out–but right now, even if I get other things first to fully integrate my studio around the Octatrack–the Rytm is making a credit card want to jump out of my wallet.
One reason I’m waiting on ordering a Rytm is that I’m pulling the money together and I want to pay off the OT MkII first, but the other is that I can’t even begin to imagine what Elektron will do next. The company is uniquely positioned to do some cool new stuff. I keep imagining I’ll buy the K-Mix and then Elektron will finally roll out a really gorgeous performance mixer, but I think I need to make that decision based on what’s available now and not the future. With the MkIIs, Elektron jumped from being a company that makes really cool hardware synthesis/sampler/sequencer boxes, to the company making stuff I really, really want to buy.
[And thanks for this thread! I almost skipped it because of what it looked like it would be about, but I’m worried for my wallet too, because even my getting ready to finally have an OT has already improved my productivity!]
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