Why not usb audio for ak?

Why this decision? There is no AK MKII!
Even if there was, why this decision? If you think that I will sell my gear for buying the same thing but newer, it is exactly the opposite. I will not buy Elektron anymore.
A defective voice in my Rytm right out of the box. A non legible screen in my Analog Keys after three months. And now you don’t give me such a useful update because you want me to sell them and buy the newer same thing? REALLY?

The a-keys is old. My guess is the USB hardware doesn’t support it. The MK2 hardware does as it is newer.

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IDK, hardware differences between MK1 and Mk2 would be my first guess. How about thanks elektron for giving me the option to upgrade the firmware from something released 7 years ago?

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How about that you paid 1500 USD for a 37 keys keyboard with a screen that consistently fails? How about you paid 1500 USD more for a Rytm that has a faulty voice and changes functionality six months after you bought it? How about you had bought a 1500 USD Octatrack before?
Funny fans that forget you pay for things.

I hope you get some assistance via Elektron support to get your defects resolved soon.

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You answered your own question, the AK is based on the hardware of the A4 MKI.

Exactly. Elektron had to revisit the hardware platform to keep the series in production.

Sorry to hear you’re having problems though :frowning:

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Thank you. I am not sure at all this is a hardware issue. It is q commercial issue. I have a Roland keyboard which I bought and was released before AK and its USB port does support USB Audio. There are no internal hardware differences between AK/A4 MKI and MKII Other than external layout and additional knobs. In fact, they sound the same and if they had differences they would had released USB audio in the MKII when it was launched. THE REASON IS MONEY. And we all paid for these faulty machines what we paid for enjoying these updates. The machines themselves are not worth that money if it wasn’t for these updates and support.

Not true. Nothing to do with USB. The changes are not there and are mostly cosmetic in the case of A4 MKI and MKII. Rytm is another story.

I thought the low end of the MKII A4 was improved… Also CV and audio out improvements… That’s not cosmetic.

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As far as I’m aware the USB chipset for the A4 alongside the AR changed between MKI and MKII.

There are chipset improvements for the AR and sampling that aren’t comparable for the A4, obviously. So you’re not going to get the same feature set changes.

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The USB tech definitely changed. It led to additional channel streams via Overbridge.

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As far as I can tell, mk1 gear still receives updates.
Even if they didn’t, you still have the same set of features as when you bought it.

It’s been said officially by Elektron employees a few time: on mk2 they upgraded the use of USB bandwidth.

This old song of not updating for profit just doesn’t hold for a second. Please sort your own problems with Elektron directly, and don’t spread falsehoods.

Oh, and actually it costs more to maintain two generations of gear, which they do.

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USB stuff has nothing to do with when a device was released, but with what chipset it was designed. While Yamaha might have been doing a better decision with a more modern chip, it seems Elektron seems to have picked one, that is not able to provide usb audio.
Accusing them for making the problem up to sell more units? What do you think do they want you to buy? There is no update for the AK available. I am quite sure, looking at the firmware politics with Elektron: If they were able to add that feature to the MK1 series, they would have done so.

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The USB bandwidth increased in the mkII’s, but the mk1’s are still capable of streaming multiple audio tracks over OB, so although it may seem that it should be simple to implement class compliant mode too (only 2x2 channels), it clearly isnt, so we have to assume some other technical limitations are stopping it from happening. Oh well. The AK is 7 years old, has been out of production for years, and yet is still getting new features. Is that not a small reason to be cheerful?

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so it seems that it should be simple to implement class compliant

Because I read this kind of statements a lot, I am quite fascinated how many software-developers with lots of experience in developing firmware for hardware devices are around here :wink:

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FWIW I wasn’t stating that it’s simple to do. I was trying to make the point that it may seem simple to us on the outside, given the existing possibilities of OB. Post above edited to make more sense :wink:

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Like how easy it is to score a number one single, because there are so many already, can’t be that hard.

Didn’t mean you in person. It’s just getting more and more, that people argue about how easy something is to do, without having any clue about the material at all, based on some self-constructed facts, while it is mostly obvious (Let’s don’t talk Akai here :slight_smile: ), that the companies would, if they could.

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I can assure you that @garf and myself (and others) are privy to some insider snippets that it wouldn’t be fair or appropriate to share, but we get occasional straight feedback to such queries and I can assure everyone that this is not a light decision being made by Elektron, there are genuine reasons - and to be blunt, some of it results from a lack of anticipation of OB itself, this is documented somewhere in the open forum, but the original circuits for the Mk1s had an issue with noise when the faster than we see USB 2 chipset was utilised - it had to be throttled back to USB 1.1 speed minimise the issue

So the issue stems from the boards, not the chipset, there’s been many hoops jumped through to get partial OB streaming on those and for undisclosed reasons it hasn’t been possible on the Mk1s - I’m going to go out on a limb here, but the Mk2s had Class Compliant audio a while back but even on those it had to be pulled - it was not as straightforward as folk may like to think - the up-selling $ argument is just ridiculous, you can be sure of that

I too had the same concerns that if it was possible to accommodate X bandwidth on OB it surely would be doable to accommodate X-Y bandwidth, but the equation is evidently not that simple - nothing works in isolation, I guess it’s like they’re conducting an orchestra - there are other players in this and I have complete confidence when I hear the Elektron peeps say that they couldn’t deliver what they wanted without great consequence to achieve and support it given those constraints

Either way, it is what it is, there’s a tonne of things I think are inexcusably implemented or absent, but you have to just hope and wait and focus on the possibilities, not the stuff you (a frustrated community) perceive as missing

The other thing to keep in mind is that development happens in cycles, often there’s no time to schedule in small nice things as it appears the teams work on the next thing in fairly focussed chunks of time - we may see a few bug tweaks on the analogs, but then it’ll be a long wait whilst the other gear is worked on - time can be a factor too, it may just have been unworkable to devote the time necessary without sacrificing other functionality, and to be fair we’re talking about legacy gear that is still getting great firmware boosts. There’s more reasons to be happy than sad, but that is the way of the internet

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Maybe not audio, but I was able to send midi clock OUT of the A4 USB, into my iPad via iTrack dock. I haven’t tested more to see if the iPad sees notes as well, but it’s getting midi clock from the A4 via usb…

I don’t screw around with iPad much, because I’d rather have the A4 plugged into my macbookpro so I can use the VST editor…

Yeah, enough with these self-truths on what Elektron does and why. Like some other folks here, I know a thing or two I’d never tell cause that’s how trust works, but the stronger bond is when you trust and don’t know. We’re not entitled to full insight and if we require it before we can trust good intentions, the issue is with ourselves and we’re free to walk away.

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