What gear would you like to see elektron do next?

Octatrack with 8 ins.

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With vocal samples? What could possibly go wrong?

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Thinking about an already loud jam session of a room full of musicians and everyone begins to shout at their machines ā€¦ :rofl:

ā€¦ or the performer on stage with his audience shouting ā€¦

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And 8 outs.

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Sooo many ideas! All Iā€™d ever what would be OT with OB.
Maybe weā€™ll get it in 2022.

Dude you made a haiku:

A Dawless Daw with
lockless locks, or a Doorless
Door with keyless locks.

Well played!

For my part I would like a device that is form factor of the OT but is literally just a DT and a DN with 8 midi tracks and the OT mixer.

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Me too, Iā€™d kill for overbridge on my OT.

Really, a true successor to the OT could be amazing - in the current climate where people are so frequently moving away from DAWs, a true OT successor could offer a really competitive experience.

  • Overbridge
  • Larger number of chainable effects, and higher quality effects such as those on the DT
  • True polyphony
  • Delay compensation to facilitate actual sidechaining
  • SSD storage with more RAM and a faster CPU
  • USB MIDI host capabilities for use with keyboards/controllers

Iā€™d pay double the going rate of a MKII for all of that.

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Would I be off the mark in guessing that OT Mk2 may be the last and going forward Elektron sell us OT users a bigger, better DT and also a new performance mixer? The one that Cenk from Elektron has been going on is needed now for few years?

I doubt weā€™ll see a new Octatrack, as much as Iā€™d love one. In fact, I donā€™t even think weā€™ll see a bigger, more capable Digitakt. I think Elektron is positioning itself as a kind of specialist/boutique brand, with lots of dedicated, single-purpose boxes. Think Digitakt, Digitone, Analog Heat, Model:Samples etc. Itā€™s more about the ecosystem, and a do-it-all unit seems contradictory, unfortunately. I wouldnā€™t be surprised at all to see a new performance mixer.

Absolutely. I would add high end effects as well and a second display (not a single bigger one) to show/edit other relevant information. The possibility to name scenes and 8 parts (and why not even patterns) would be appreciated as well.
And Why notā€¦maybe an arranger mode that is able to send specific pattern changes to other elektron machines (without the need to follow the pattern order)

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Really? I can see them still having professional level boxes but with longer lifespans. I myself moved from the dt to OT, and the dt is really far too basic and I find the lack of parts and arranger clearly marking the dt in the mass market and hobbiest market no promusician. Yeah its fx are satisfying and sweeter but I put that down to the OT being older. I also just canā€™t see these smaller boxes gaining any long long term cult status and I suspect elektron know theyā€™re a gateway to their top tier boxes for manyā€¦myself included :grin:

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As someone who also moved from DT to OT, I totally get it. Itā€™s just that weā€™ve moved from a new box to a 10 year old box, and if you look at Elektronā€™s history vs current catalogue, it looks very much like they tend not to iterate on their products very much, and prefer to release new products instead. They also seem to be focused on having somewhat of an ecosystem of different products that perform distinct roles (e.g. drum machine, analogue synth, fm synth, sampler, fx unit etc). Itā€™s a shame that the OT is so close to what it could potentially be, and the DT hints that itā€™s all possible, but Iā€™m not convinced they will ever make the decision to cannibalise their other products with a do-it-all box.

I think they could do it, if they made it appeal to the higher end. As I said, Iā€™d happily pay double the going rate for the OT if it was sufficiently fully-featured. Iā€™m just not holding my breath.

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I hope they will not release a do-it-all product. I really donā€™t like these machine that can do everything, but everything not very good and at the cost of an high complexity with lot of bugs possible.
Iā€™m more for a specific tool, simple and bug free. With a good control and large connectivity. What I miss for the DT really is separate output and maybe a 4x2 pads for fingerdrumming.
The Model:Samples let me think they will release other Model:XXX.

DigiWave(table)

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Hey , what is your view of how iconic the smaller boxes could get? I personally see them more as hobbiest level instruments ā€¦I mean would allesandro Cortini need a digitakt? I believe he used the OT more as a performance mixer and for advanced sampling and arranged playbackā€¦ in the recent thom yorke article I do not remember any excitement from him about any of newer boxes.

I think (and hope) elektron will just have three tiers ā€¦ entry (model series) , mid tier with DT etc and pro level with current gray trinity ā€¦ like even apple see the value of having the mac pro which will not shift that many units compared to macbook , which is already a sliver of their income compared to the iphones

I am a newer elektron user but in any marketing business you need pros to use your stuff and I donā€™t believe many will use the digitakt over the OT if given the choice. So unless Elektron release a performance mixer with advanced sampling features I can only foresee OT mk3 with OB still covering that with DT the lower cost option.

I think the recent focus on cheaper boxes is due to their new investor company wanting to extend their portfolio to folks who prefer less complex and fun machines. But at least from looking at the OT forums here when making my decision to upgrade from DT to OT, I immediately felt that OT users are a distinct group with different needs so unless we get a fully fledged nextgen sampler mixer as a replacement to the OT mk2 then all the current OT users would eventually drift away from Elektron no?

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Id settle just for a md with touch sensitive pads, scenes, perf mode, midi out via pads and the retrig function. Hell i could just take a md with retrig and be fine LOL

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Is this necessarily a bad thing? Providing some products that are less high-end creates a broader market and a more stable income base that could (hopefully!) allow continued R&D for those high-end models. It also creates a broader userbase and may initiate some brand loyalty - both of which would be of benefit to the company and to users (more people sharing tips and tricks and creating inspiring work etc).

Seems like the digitakt is the first model to make significant inroads to the hip hop community, for instance, so I donā€™t think the impact and potential of the ā€˜lesserā€™ models is to be sniffed at.

(And on the other side of things, we should admit that many of the owners of the ā€˜power userā€™ products are using them to churn out the same boxcutter techno or drones that can be made in GarageBand or on a couple of Volcas!)

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I agree with everything you said, and I think your observation about the three-tier product line is right on the money. I just donā€™t foresee a new OT in the future. The Rytm, A4 etc could definitely be accompanied by some kind of performance sampler, but that doesnā€™t mean theyā€™ll do it, and if they did, I canā€™t see it being a continuation of the OT, not least because I read that the engineer who developed the OT software left the company with some IP or something.

Thereā€™s also a lot of blurring of the lines between ā€˜tier 2ā€™ and ā€˜tier 3ā€™, in that the Digitone is extremely fully-featured for a mid-tier device, and is very unique in its own right. Also, the Analog Heat shares the ā€˜tier 2ā€™ aesthetic but is clearly more aimed at ā€˜tier 3ā€™ consumers. The DT is a relatively simple box, but I still think it would sit well alongside a Rytm and an A4, for example. I donā€™t currently perceive a huge gap that Elektron needs to fill in their lineup, despite the collective yearning for a better OT.

Evidence?

Just mutterings on gearslutz and Reddit, not seen any evidence