Hi guys,
I have a 0-coast and I’m saving some money for a Preenfm2. What Elektron machine complements well with those two for a small experimental not rhythmic driven set? I like ambient, drone, noise, those kind of things 
Thanks!!
There can only be one answer: Octatrack.
It can be used as mixer for the others. As FX unit for them. You can realtime sample them and mangle their audio or play along other samples or even hours-long stems. You can use the MIDI tracks to control them. And much more.
Of course, the other Elektron devices aren’t bad either. A4 is nice for its analog sound (drones, noise, whatever) and its CV sequencer capabilities. The Digitone and Digitakt are nice sound sources and capable MIDI sequencers.
But none of them can be such a central hub as the OT. The others are really more like companions (one among the others), but the OT is quite more.
The real cost of the OT is, of course: you need to invest some time to get used to its various workflows. Its definitely NOT a machine where you can skip the manual.
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I would say a good extension would be a versatile polyphonic synth for pads and ambient sound scapes.
TBH this is IMO not the strength of Elektron boxes. They have beat-DNA.
But I agree with @tnussb and recommend the OT, if a Elektron box it shall be. There is a lot of loops out there in the internet to be loaded and mangled in a project … and it’s even possible to create ambient sound scapes with creative approaches on the OT itself.
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I would recommend the A4. It’s nice to drive a 0-Coast, you can send gate, 1V/oct, and two more modulations. The 0-Coast can then be routed in one of the inputs of the A4 and benefit from delay, reverb and chorus. And then you have 4 instrumental tracks. It’s a no brainer.
I’ve got the MKII but I would advise to take a MKI used they are dirt cheap.
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I would take your PreenFM money plus a little more and buy a Digitone. Then I pick up a second midi analog monosynth (As-1/Minitaur/Sirin) and run them into the inputs of the Digi for fx, Midi out for sequencing… that’s a nice portable setup.
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Thanks guys, OT and A4 are either very good options I think. I’m biased on the A4 cause I want to stay as simple as possible, while the OT is a seriously DEEP machine. A4 is also cheaper 
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shouts Digitone to me - utterly brilliant and immediate machine.
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A4 is a great analog synth- a mk1 is well worth what some of them are going for
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The A4 cannot sequence midi, where electron is good at sequencing. If you rely on sequencing other gear it might be missing for your small fm. With a midi sequencer you could sequence both, the 0-coast and your tiny fm synth. I would get an octatrack, because it’s the better digitakt in the long run. If you want to mangle samples. It is possible that you will read a lot of different opionions, because we don’t know what you enjoy.
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If you get an OT and invest some good time into learning it, it probably won’t get any more experimental than that… You can use it without any samples and set it up to make realtime recordings of your two synths and then you can not only loop them but play them back reversed, rearranged, pitch shifted, and effected in so many ways… It can basically multiply other instruments because you can loop what they are doing and then change what they are doing live and mix it in with the previous loops. You can do crazy stuff once you set up it like hit a button to grab a sample of a couple bars of your synth, and have it play back in realtime pieces of the recording all rearranged in a new order with all of the pieces playing at different speeds and with different filter settings, envelopes, some delayed, some not, some with lfo on pan, some reverse, a million other things. Mix that in with your older loop and the live material, spread the samples across 8 tracks… Mix between the live and 4 versions of each synth, like you have 5 of each of them going, and 4 of each of them can be normal to drastically altered.
With the scenes all the parameters can quickly change with a slide of the fader, you can subtly to drastically mutate the audio in a split second and back… You can be midi sequencing them and sending up to 24 lfos’s… All this on one “part” and pattern and you get tons more of those for drastically different paradigms on pattern switch. Those two synths can turn into a fleet, and what I said was just a small sliver of the possibilities which are close enough to endless, without ever loading a sample… It’ll take months to get there though, you got to be up for some studying, practicing, testing, studying, practicing, learning more, learning more, testing, practicing, etc… 
Ooooops, missed that part… 
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Digitakt!
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Digitone. Can sequence both devices via MIDI, plus adds fantastic synthesis.
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Man my pockets don’t like your comment But that makes terrific sense!
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Going to give another vote to the Digitone. You can run the synths thru the inputs and effects. The 0coast sounds so good thru the DN chorus 
You got me going with “experimental”… 
You have 8 recorder tracks that can do sequenced recording and realtime warped playback. On any step of the recorder tracks you can have the recorders sample the inputs or tracks, and some other options. Any of the 8 play tracks can play any of those recordings on any step. You make patterns with placeholders of the not yet made recordings and as you sample they populate in realtime.
You can set up crazy warped resample chains where you inputs are being sampled say as a loop, the next track is sampling that maybe 4 times a pattern and playing it back at different speeds, the next track is sampling the resample track and playing it with pitch shifts and fx, the 4th recorder is combining the previous resample tracks and adding them to the inputs as its recording every quarter note, that play track is playing combos of all the samples in a rythmatic and effected sequence, a fifth track is recording that last track and playing it some other way… Etc…, etc… Now there’s scenes set that will instantly warp the parameters of every single track with say activated retriggering, launching lfos, going reverse, adding reverb, out of this world audio devastation, you can jump between 16 scenes instantly and crossfade between any of them… That’s just a sliver to give some kind of idea.
If you want to perform experimental audio sessions for the next decade or two, OT for the win…
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External processing isn’t as useful as the A4 though- not as deep also it processes as stereo not 2xMono
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Of course again I’ll mention a lot of folks start pulling their hair out and sell the OT before they get far…
Personally I love it! It’s weird in a good way, and so am I… 
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No experience with A4 personally so I can’t recommend it, but I’m sure you’re right. I would like to know the difference between stereo and 2 monos panned left and right tho, I always assumed with DN you can have (what I would consider) either stereo input or 2 mono inputs.
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You can only adjust the signals together not separately
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My original idea for the set was 0-coast+sq-1, Preenfm2+keystep, Microgranny 2.5 and a microphone 
Just that simple. But the curiosity for an Elektron machine is high, so…
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