hey all, is the display super blurry or is it the display protection film? o.O
Why would it? I think since the first few devices landed, mowt people Iâve read are excited about whatâs already there and super excited about whatâs to come.
it is the display protection most likely.
without it the screen is most gorgeous and crisp <3
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Itâs the protection film. I was briefly stunned at how bad it looked and then remembered reading someone else had the same thought until they removed the protective plastic⌠itâs quite beautiful once removed.
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I guess many people expected it to be more finished than it is right now for version 1.0.0.
But after those 30 second teasers and no official video of walkthrough of the features they [I] should have probably understood already what is coming.
Am I right in saying theres not yet an option to rearrange the devices? If not This will make a huge difference when (hopefully) implemented.
the graphic is there ready for the boxes to be rearranged, similar to Analog heat + fx, but it doesnt seem to be implemented yet.
Should I buy one of these or the DT2? I have no hardware gear currently.
What styles of music do you want to make?
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Depends on what youâre looking to do but if you want to make full tracks in a wide variety of genres and want a foundation for a hardware set up the DT2 makes a lot of sense. The S-4 seems a lot more for exploration and sound design and would work well paired with other instruments.
Just my take.
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A lot of beat-oriented music, but closer in aesthetic to Jazz/Ambient House.
Iâm kinda most interested in the sample mangling capabilities of the devices. I used to have a DT where I programmed all my drums, but I feel comfortable now doing that on Ableton.
Iâm looking for a hardware mangler to complement my DAW workflow. Since now both options support stereo samples I wonder if one of them would be âbetterâ than the other.
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what can it do better than the Octatrack and Roland SP404 MK2?
same here as drums are way easier to program in a DAW to get classic patterns.
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Iâm not considering the octatrack mainly for the price.
I never thought about the SP404, but thereâs something in the user interface that doesnât look appealing at all to me. Itâs mainly prejudge tho cause Iâve never seen one irl.
Right now no, not as far as I can tell. Looks like it was designed with that in mind, so itâs not out of the realm of possibility, but it doesnât work that way now.
The way the whole thing is designed though, it looks like itâs intended to be very modular since you can select different kinds of elements, but weâll see if that actually happens.
Thereâs a lot of samplers that can do pretty wild mangling. I think the key thing with the S-4 that people might prefer over other options is the modulator setup, the ability to assign an LFO/ADSR to all the parameters in the signal chain is really powerful if you want to add a lot of movement to a sound.
However you might not really need or want that much modulation to create the sounds you want, perhaps a more traditional sampler format or even just a multi-effects unit would make more sense. It really depends on what kind of specific functionality youâre looking for.
If youâre not planning on using it for drums because youâre happy to do all that in Ableton, then IMO the DT2 doesnât make as much sense. It doesnât have much FX per-track, just sample and bit reduction and some distortion, and reverb and delay are just send FX.
Something like the OT is IMO preferable to the DT2 for mangling tasks because you have a dozen different FX âpluginsâ that you can put into the two FX slots on each track, and even route a trackâs output into a neighbour track for even more FX. Then youâve got the LFOs and scenes which give you a ton of extra performance flexibility of course.
But Iâd say if youâre just doing that kind of stuff then the S-4 seems like itâs probably a good choice too, the modulation assignment seems much more immediate, and I believe you can feed tracks into each other and themselves which will be pretty fun. It doesnât have the same flexibility in terms of having an array of different FX types to choose from, you pretty much have to use whatâs there. The granular stuff is a big deal too of course.
TBH though if youâre already comfortable working a DAW Iâd probably question whether you really need dedicated hardware or if youâre better off using one of the million amazing plugins that could do the same kind of stuff, and use a MIDI controller to operate it so you have a bit more hands-on immediacy.
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What @hyperstationjr says is correct, but there is currently a workaround if you need one - the 4 tracks can be routed in series so you could, in that way, re-order the fx, using say the reverb on track 1, then routing to the compression on track2, etc, but youâd lose a track or two.
torso said on discord that the possibility to change the engine order is planned.
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Syntakt 
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I second the OT suggestion.
DT makes more sense for beat centric stuff, and youâre already covered with Ableton on that.
S4 itâs a blast for pure sound design, but so far it seems not the best tool for putting together âarrangedâ stuff.
Have poly samples playback tho and a tapeloop style workflow that could be a lot of fun if itâs your thing.
Weâre still waiting for basic stuff like midi sync, and thereâs also the performative aspect thatâs yet to be discovered.
With OT youâve got a great middle ground machine, with lots of mangling/fx possibilities and a really mature workflow, with several totally different approaches available. Itâs by far the most flexible of the three and to me itâs one of the most ânot easily replicable in DAWâ instrument ever created.
Iâve got the OT and the DT II on my desk, and the S4 on order.
My goal is to use the DT (and ST) for arranging/sequencing and basic sound design, the S4 for poly samples and to create textures/samples for the DT and the OT as an effects box/mixer EZbot style, but if Iâd be hard pressed to keep just one, it would easily be the OT
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