Where do babies come from uncle @thermionic?
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I was wondering if the cases are manufactured by hand, under contract in small batches due to the construction of digi boxes being folded steel with spot welds at the corners? Certainly indicates a hand finished piece. I also noticed that the paint (or powder) process must have been switched at least once due to comparison of different methods being used on an earlier digitakt and a later digitone and digitakt. I assume it’s all the same subcontractor who manufactures the cases - possibly different from who makes the faceplate but I don’t know.
I saw the guy in the alley taping together an Overdub today, so that’s where that gets made.
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They’re incubated in the synth mother womb for eons and then harvested from a cabbage patch.
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I doubt anyone is using a sheet metal brake & hand welding.
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have you looked inside? it’s not a detroit assembly line weld. it looks like a hand weld.
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Now I’ve finally got an excuse to buy my first digi. 
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or I can just show you pics lol
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I’m not confident (or comfortable) to go into details since it’s a subcontractors business. But, to say “by hand” is stretching it, it’s a fairly automated process even if there is also parts of the process where skilled personnel is definitely required. Machine precision where possible, human precision when required.
On a related note it can often be surprising to see how much also modern manufacturing is dependent on a skilled work force. I know parts that have been discontinued/been very problematic due to personnel retirement, especially when quality of finish is important.
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Your comment made me think of this man working for that other big Swedish instrument company:
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Yeah, good example! Completely legendary! 
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Aaby has made more than 75 000 Pitch Sticks
I think I’d have gotten a bit bored sanding down the same concave after, say, 10.
The question is how big the percentage of the build in a country has to be, to be allowed to call it „Made in“… if it is only assembled in a country I believe it is not enough. Maybe the metal box is enough or the circuit board but surely not the chips and parts on that board.
I really like that the Elektron boxes are made in Europe. Same with Dave Smiths Instruments/Sequential made in the US of A. Or Access Virus and UDO made in Germany.
And I am am willing to pay a little more for that too…
My MacBook air is made in China and, as much as I hate to admit it, it’s one of the best quality bits of gear I own.
What matters much more than where something was made (if we’re still only talking about quality and not getting into the obviously very valid concerns about workers’ rights and environmental impact) is quality control.
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Assembly certainly is enough: Rules of origin - Wikipedia
If you build an OctaTrack the ‘made in’ applies to the country where the product called an OctaTrack is built. Case, component boards etc can be built anywhere.
Because of this rule there are things like incomplete shoes shipped across the world for instance missing some stitches so they can be ‘finished’ in a high-wage high-reputation country.
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Yeah, I think “by hand” brings to mind a guy with 4 thick boards and a heavy set of boots bending metal in a cottage workshop or something. I guess I was more referencing the way the interior corner spot welds show some inconsistency between like-bodied chassis and are underneath a bent flange. It seemed like this part would require human precision to both place the weld and to get the placement slightly different from one box to the next as a machine only points at the same place and executes the task as it’s aimed. Thanks for the insight man!
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Yeah, Foxconn probably has some labor concerns so far as it goes (but also has a spotlight on them because of how omnipresent they are) but a very very small set of devices are soup to nuts made entirely in one country.
For me, what matters with devices is the design manufacturer and fabricator. Often the same with laptops, but the levels of quality vary wildly between design manufacturers.
<- used to work sustaining engineering for a computer manufacturer.
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that may be the best and worst link and response I have ever clicked and received. bravo to you.
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Ask, and one shall receive.
Yahoo Answers was truly ahead of its time. Now what do we have for people who aren’t taught human anatomy in school, Quora? Trad alternatives to Wikipedia because public schooling is “satanic”?
My brain is filled with a mix of mildly useful information, kipple and cruft that sticks to neurons like plaque.
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random thing that came to my mind reading this thread
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