Thanks for your thoughtful response! I just want to clarify one thing so there’s no misunderstanding: I’m not arguing against feedback at all. Feedback, suggestions, and even criticism are genuinely helpful and welcome.
What I was referring to is simply the tone, not the content of the feedback.
There’s a gentle difference between saying “I’d really love to see feature X — is that something Elektron might consider?” and saying “Elektron should provide this because I expected it.”
Having expectations is completely normal, of course — but they don’t automatically translate into obligations unless they were clearly promised.
About sales or return rates: that may be the case, but without actual data it’s hard to know for sure. It’s understandable to speculate, but I think it’s important to treat those points carefully.
In the end, I’m definitely not trying to take away anyone’s right to express themselves. I’m only hoping for a constructive, balanced way of communicating — something that helps everyone feel heard and keeps discussions pleasant.
No the issue is with people taking an aggressively entitled attitude and bleating again and again about things they want/demand. No one here is begrudging anyone else of making feature requests, but there’s a certain cohort here who believe that because they’ve paid for a product that gives them the right to dictate what exactly that product should do. Bafflingly, despite elektron never having once even suggested that said product will get whatever feature, these people still buy it (in your case twice) and then proceed to complain that it doesn’t have that feature… They seem to be the same people that throw their toys out of the pram if they are not being provided with feature-rich OS updates every five minutes, again something that elektron has never explicitly promised with any product of theirs but has still become a bone of contention among the terminally entitled on here.
Is this just in the context of this specific thread or should complaints and unfriendly requests not be allowed in the “Tonverk Feature Request” thread as well?
yawn. yes, its well established, they rushed TV out and features didn’t work. they’ve since fixed those bugs. i.e, they fulfilled their obligation to their customer base to deliver the product that was advertised. That’s not the same thing as them not adding whatever feature is being demanded by some whiny lads on the internet and you know it.
It also seems contradictory to me when people praise Elektron for always updating their machines with new unexpected features while also telling people to not expect anything that was never advertised. You are correct—bugs and missing features are never advertised, but it is certainly acceptable to complain about them or expect them to be fixed.
Final point before I go to bed—here we are scrutinizing the way things are said rather than the bigger issue at hand. Elektron needs to take in all the feedback; especially, the negative feedback and address all of it to make the Tonverk successful.
Look at this thread posted 2 days ago on Reddit, where people wouldn’t even dream of policing tone the way it is here. These are people who may have never even used Elektron gear before—same complaints about lack of slicing and comparisons to alternatives like the new MPC. There’s no point complaining about the tone of criticisms. It’s more important for Elektron to take all these criticisms seriously.
My theory is that Elektron has been focusing on the more marketable features of the OS—multisampling & granular instead of the more basic stuff. Personally, I do have expectations of slicing & timestretch because it ultimately makes no sense to deprive the Tonverk of them.
Elektron will never please the crowd that buys based on a pure feature list where more is always better. If you want a DAW in the box, the MPC Live 3 is there for the people who want that and they can just buy that, problem solved. It’s the indisputable king of that and Elektron won’t get close to rivaling it for years if that’s what they’re after. I think it would be a stupid decision if they want to survive. Elektron instruments will always be a bit more limited in comparison but that allows them to be used in a different way.
Most other companies (like Akai) still don’t even integrate something as basic as conditions like 1:2 into their sequencers, most of the time, you can be happy if you get probability. Now I could head over to those companies‘ forums and endlessly complain about how they owe us such a basic feature that’s a mainstay on Elektrons since 2012. Or I can just decide to use an Elektron that gives me all of that stuff instead and spare myself some time to make music.
Like I‘ve stated several times on this and other threads, I‘d also like Elektron to release the all in one box that combines the best of their machines. I also don’t think adjusting start and end points offers you the same possibilities as slices. But it’s just so tiring and pointless to endlessly complain about this here in a tone of entitlement while still buying their stuff over and over again. These discussions in that language just never lead anywhere and only make us all angry and frustrated. Everything has already been said, multiple times, even on this thread. Let’s just stop it.
I own both and appreciate the slicing update, especially since TV doesn’t have them. That being said, coming from Elektron world, I like that XY is close enough to let me use it intuitively. But there’s lots of things I‘m used to from Elektron that are missing or I find odd, and there’s also features TV has that XY doesn’t have. It’s valid to post about that in an appropriate tone and topic so that users who want to decide which one to get know and TE and Elektron might also read it. But I don’t see the point in posting that same comparison over and over in different threads in a tone that sounds a bit like „how stupid/greedy/insert adjective can Elektron be to not include this“. It just makes the forum not fun and we’re having the same dicussions/fights all the time. Hardware will always be limited, even the MPC. We can spend endless time complaining about what‘s missing or just mention it from time to time and see what sets of limitations are olay for us. Or just use a DAW.
There’s also lots of progress on Elektrons. We asked for more than 64 steps for years and now went to 128 and then 256 within 18 months. We also now always get song mode. And retrigs plus arps on TV and DN II. And finally a MIDI arp on TV. And granular. So they’re also listening to demands and critique and try to implement that overtime when possible.
What’s the general consensus on whether we think future updates will introduce sub tracks being able to access the sample pool to p lock samples or even a “sub pool” that brings a condensed functionality with a smaller pool albeit more than 8 (non-simultaneous) samples? Feels pretty intentional for it to not already function with access to the sample pool but sample p locking on sub tracks would be so powerful
Subtracks can hold velocity layers and even round robin through a bunch of samples on a single subtrack. So it’s working more like a multisampler patch under the hood. Therefore, I doubt it’ll ever get access to the sample pool but my guess is as good as anyone’s.
Having inspected both formats .elmulti and .eldrum, it looks to me that their format is exactly the same in the file, so the only difference is the file name.
If it is indeed the same format underlying both it allows them to:
only need to have one parser for interpreting them (single point of failure)
based on the file format name still establish if it is for Subtracks or Multitrack
If used for subtrack they only parse notes 60, 62, 64, 65, 67, 69, 71 and 72, but instead allow for each of these notes to have their own individual amp and filter section.
I think this is the optics through which to try to understand subtracks. As a hypothesis at least.
My hot take is that we won’t see any changes to subtracks over the course of TV‘s lifespan. It’s based on nothing really, but my gut feeling is that they’re mostly there as a utility function for drums. And they’re already remarkably advanced at that with their individual sequencer lanes plus super track functions.
Imo subtracks can be used to give something to the “we want slicing crowd” without porting the full blown slicing engine into TV.
Philosophically, subtracks are a poor man’s Digitakt. As such, if we ever get any functionality that steals from the digiakt’s mains strengths, we will get them via subtracks in a watered down format. All in an effort not to cannibalize their bestselling box.
The main machines, on the other hand, will focus on sound design and exploration. We have granular, but there’s a lot more one can do with sampling.
But again, I’m taking this out of my ass. I’m not sure even Elektron know at this point where to take this beyond the initial few updates I’m sure they already have planned.
Yes, i agree. TV is for complex melody stuff and sounddesign while DT is for complex drums and beat stuff. All that with the typical character of Elektrons: you can use and abuse it also for the other duties, which will not be their strenght but still a lot is possible with creative ideas and workarounds.
Maybe a hot take, but I think subtracks on the TV are much more capable for complex drum patches, at least when it comes to recreating real drum kits, but also for all kinds of electronic drum sounds. Currently, these patches have to be set up with a computer. But velocity layers and round robin can’t be replicated in DTII, at least not simultaneously.
