I’ve been really enjoying my Digitone (mkII) lately – it just clicks with me. It’s deep, inspiring, and super fun to use.
Lately, though, I’ve been getting the itch to add a Syntakt to the setup. Not because I feel like I need it, but more because it just looks like a fun and complementary machine. That said, I’m still on the fence and trying to figure out whether it would truly bring something meaningful to the table.
So I’d love to hear from folks who own both the Digitone and the Syntakt:
What does the Syntakt add to your workflow or sound palette that the Digitone doesn’t cover? Do they play well together? Does the Syntakt still feel essential or inspiring once the novelty wears off?
Syntakt adds truly analog synth engines and an analog FX block. That’s something that your DN can’t do, although you can get pretty close if you’re a good sound designer.
The most important thing that ST can do imo compared to DN is enabling you to make your own sounds pretty fast without deep knowledge and experience. The concept of ST’s machines means that you get a bunch of machines with a limited range of parameters that are easy to understand. They encourage you to make your own sounds from the get go instead of relying on presets or learning the synth engines for weeks. And that’s true for the analog machines as well as the digital ones. A lot of them are designed for specific purposes like certain drum sounds and have parameters suited for these kinds of sounds. So you don’t have to start with a bare sine wave like on DN. You can still get all kinds of sounds out of each machine, but if you just wanna make a kick, ST will get you there way faster than FM drum.
You’ll probably miss some newer features like 128 steps, conditions like last or track swap.
I still prefer ST for its immediacy, but also enjoy jumping between these two worlds. Using both at the same time might be overkill, although it can be nice to use them for dedicated tasks and then have a sequencer for each (like ST being your drum machine and DN your synth or vice versa).
Well, I almost have this combination. I have the Digitone 1 combined with Syntakt. I would say that they complement each other quite well.
First of all, Digitone can feel a bit harsh sometimes and to attenuate that, I like to use the warm analog sounds of the Syntakt. Also, while it’s possible to program drums on the Digitone 1, I find the process a bit tedious and not so direct (I don’t know if that has changed for Digitone 2 though), so I like letting Syntakt do the drum parts. Here’s an example of when I use both of them together:
Secondly, you can feed the Digitone into the Syntakt and use the analog track to do Octatrack like master effects on the sound input. I demonstrate it here, and I quite like it:
All in all, I guess there are other machines that you could combine the Digitone 2 with, but I would recommend something that can do warm drum and bass sounds.
I did this and was surprised to find that I tended to use the Syntakt a lot more than I expected despite the DN2 being a lot more “capable” on paper. Running the digitone output through the FX block overdrive was a great improvement in final sound but also the retrigger macro buttons on syntakt make it more fun to control live drum sounds with and keep them playful and lively and I think it makes designing good bass and drum sound quick and easy, plus it still has the euclidean sequencer, so I focus on using the Syntakt for mono sounds like kick drums and basses and snares and then can use the DN2 for polyphonic pad sounds and arps and that sort of thing instead.
I have both and I think I like syntakt more. It just has a certain sound character that digitone 2 doesn’t. I’ve had it the longest of all my Elektron boxes and it’s still my favorite, I think it’s the one elektron instrument I could never sell.
You’ll probably find it quite a bit more limited though, only 64 steps might be a limitation for you. Likewise there are less options overall, less LFO’s, and of course it’s monophonic. But it’s not any less versatile sound wise in my opinion, you’ll have less granular control over everything compared to digitone 2.
The big plus is it’s much more immediate. And the analog FX track which also has its own trig locks and LFO (and iirc the option to apply LFO to reverb and delay parameters is pretty wild).
The kicks sound great, they have a certain pleasant saturated quality that make them sound prominent in a mix. Downside is it’s hard to get the clicky kind of kicks you might get from something like a Roland TR8s or TR6s. Another downside is the pitch bend range of the analog voices is limited, so if you apply a ramp LFO to pitch in the hopes of getting a zappy kick you’ll find it hits a pitch limit and kind of sounds like a flat beep at the beginning.
Unfortunately the hihats you get out of it are kind of crap. You can get good results with layering and modulation but it takes a lot of tweaking. Though the digitone is only marginally better for hat synthesis, at least in my experience
I have had a Syntakt for a couple of years. Its my first Elektron box. I had a Digitone 1 for polysynths and then moved it along for a Digitone 2 after it had been out for a while. Digitone 2 is way more useful than Digitone 1 due to the chord modes, 128 step sequencer and master compressor. I love the pairing, it is very tidy and fits in that little two-digibox Elektron bag.
I can power them both off a single 65watt USB C battery.
I have the Digitone for polyphonic sounds, melody lines and as midi master. One limitation of the Syntakt is the 64 steps - since Digitone 2 has so many channels, I program 8 bar basslines on the Digitone 2, using the Syntakt’s analog bass. 64 steps is plenty for percussion, but quite limiting for melodic work. 128 is enough for me.
I route the Syntakt’s audio into the Digitone so I can use the Digitone as a master bus compressor. Other than bass, I use the Syntakt as a drum machine and for atmospheric sounds.
One more bit of advice on this setup - just accept that you have way more channels (16+12 = 28) than you will ever need. Don’t feel obliged to use everything!
If using the digitone for poly parts, it’s a great point that it can make more sense to sequence at least melodic parts on the syntakt with the digitone instead of itself.64 steps and Euclidean make it perfectly capable for drums though!
There’s a nice range of clicky kicks available from UT-IMP machine, going quite far into 808-territory.
Really? No sampled hats in the Syntakt ofc, but that’s not what the Syntakt is about. Imho there’s a wide range of cool electronic hats available. The analog HH lab, the nice range of specific analog hats, not to mention the range of sounds you can get synthesizing various digital sounds with resonant high pass filters.
As for the OP’s question, I would worry about too much overlap between them, even though they cover different ground in basic sound and concept. Peronally I think I would get more mileage out of pairing a DN with a sampler. But that’s just personal preference.
These two have been the core of my setup for a while now.
The Syntakt has this crisp, punchy character that really cuts through the Digitone’s more textured, harmonic layers. It brings a percussive edge—even in non-percussive sounds—that adds drive and presence.
While the Syntakt is more limited in terms of raw sound design, that very limitation adds immediacy. It’s fast and intuitive for building grooves. I often stumble upon interesting sounds just by randomly scrolling through LFO destinations—it’s a machine that rewards playful tweaking.
For me, they complement each other perfectly. I’ve done full live sets using just these two.
I do end up using the impulse machine for exactly that but it’s not quite the same kind of piercing transient I’ve heard from the TRs line from what I can remember. Then again maybe I’m just remembering the differences in their sound character wrong.
As for the hats that’s just my opinion though I’ve heard others say the same, I find it difficult dialing in a hihat I like on syntakt. Specifically with the dedicated hat machines I mean.
I think the analog hihats machines are fantastic, but you only have one of them, so you need to program in OH and CH but can’t play them in live. The digital machine designed for hats kinda sucks, you can easily build hats out of digital synth machines that have noise parameters, if it doesn’t have to sound like actual metallic hats. DN might be superior for hats overall
Great idea! I guess you could also program the four modifier trigs in a way that you can play in closed and open hats live at the same time. If you’re fine with having the same sound that just has more or less decay.
