What's next for Elektron?

The smaller form factor boxes are not meant to be flagship devices. The AR/A4/OT mark 2 boxes are.

There will almost certainly be more machines (percussion focused) and at least one new effect (compressor?) released for syntakt this year. Whether those sounds will punch like machinedrum or allow the sharing of LFOs and addition of new FX is anyone’s guess. Whether that will include parameter slides feels unlikely after the portamento feature was added. But perhaps in the menu, they could allow you to select which parameters are affected by portamento.

Those are the features that would bring the Syntakt up to par + beyond the MD for me, personally. With the smaller form factor you can do a lot more with one hand, and travel with it a little easier, which might explain why they have apparently only released new machines in that size or smaller as of late. I do prefer MD size for space, but i see why they go this route and it wouldn’t bother me so long as the other features/sounds were present.

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Correct, they are not flagship devices. But it seems that Elektron is moving further away from the flagship devices everyday. No major updates to any of the flagship boxes and no new flagship box in a very long time…

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Syntone - same as DN but with 30 digital engines from Mutable Instruments, Noise Engineering etc…

  • custom env/lfo modulator please with option to build long custom waveform
  • trigg slide please
  • more filter modes (like bp / notch / fm filter / waveshping filter / flanging filter etc… )
  • more delay / reverb modes on sends, like tape delay, shimmer reverb etc

will work for me

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:drooling_face:

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Can’t believe we haven’t had any updates released from Elektron this year yet, have they lost their focus? :grin:

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My guess is on an Elektron effects box. Similar look to the Heat but containing a mash up of the Eventide h90 and Microcosm with the added ability to download and run user designed patches like the Positive Grid practice amps can.

No more grooveboxes pls

I’m tired Robbie…

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Honestly tho a new age digital muliple synth seq similar to mnm but respecd to keep up with modern sound design and usability in mind (a fully featured new age P I would be nuts)
also basically a respecd MD but with features like granular synthesis (actual granular not just moving the start stop point and go weeeee with retrigs).
Granted that being said I dont want direct new age replicas i want the same passion and ingenuity elektron had with their original creations and put it into something new in the new age of music tech.
The new synths feel like products for profit (theyre a company this is expected) whereas the orig 3 boxes felt like u were interacting with someones hopes, dreams and obsessions.
soz if this sounds obnoxious just my personal view on elektron from trying several of their synths over the past while.
also just an elektron controller would be sick no synth engine or anything just the sequencer

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If the current flagships are still selling well there’s not much point in updating them. Even then, it would be really hard to improve them in a meaningful way without turning them into something completely different. If Elektron builds something like an MPC Live and calls it Octatrack 2 would it really be an Octatrack? It has more ease of use, power and storage, but also feels very different.
I can imagine some improvements to the Analog 4 (Analog 8? :slight_smile: ) but that would probably make the machine twice as expensive while not twice as good. Just like the ‘one Elektron to rule them all’ dream machine would be incredibly costly…

yeah…

and I mean… a good friend messaged me three days ago all like “you have a digitakt right? I have questions”. The questions included the usual “is elektron just cold techno?” and “is it really hard to learn elektron boxes.”… and now he owns one!..

I reckon the time they’ll make a MK2 is more likely when they stop selling like hot cakes? Or when new tech arrives that means it’s a bigger jump…

Like… the stuff that isn’t in a Digitakt isn’t there because they didn’t want it to be more than because it was impossible.
I mean, more storage, or even using SD cards wouldn’t have made it massively more expensive would it?

You’d be surprised at the extra costs involved with testing lots of different cards (including defective and/or slow ones) and handling support requests because no matter how many you test there’s always one ‘in the wild’ that won’t work. Also, any connection that can become loose will one day and cause headaches.
By eliminating external storage the machine will be cheaper and more reliable.

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Is there some kind of an intuitive Digitakt file management software that would allow to easily detect and delete unused samples, export/import project images and so on ?

That would probably replace the need for extra storage.

oh yeah, for sure the after-market support cost of letting people plug any old janky crap in is not so insignificant and probably ends up getting the box a reputation for being less reliable, even though it’s the cards fault…I imagine that was a key part of the decision to not do it…

just saying the actual cost of putting an SD card slot in instead of a +drive probably wasn’t.

yes, third party, but this is what you want;

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or the mature version for 1.30 o/s

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Yea it’s as kj says probably more the additional costs it creates - I’ve had to get a replacement OT card from Elektron and people often crop up in the forums with issues relating to the card/reader. It’s also something they need to programme, test and maintain in their proprietary codebase - there are a lot more considerations with removable media in that regard.

It simplifies the design considerably to have onboard storage and most OT users are scared to remove their cards anyway :joy:

Would be nice to have an app to mirror Digitakt display on the iPad, so to have a more confortable visual experience. An app could also have the touch screen feature for values, type sample names with on screen keyboard, include Elk Herd natively into app etc.
I mean, Overbridge came out years ago: Elektron - it’s time to go ahead

I always hate it when I accidentally press the eject button. Like now I have to take it out and put it back.

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