How to know the result of sales of Elektron products??! I find the models excellent and with a very good price-possibilities ratio, machines quite different from the rest of the market. But the M.C is really something unique, it’s such a shame not to go a little further. More features do not interest me, its workflow is perfect for me, but more machines so sound possibilities, yes.
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This is such a weird take; weird enough when people say it about the OT (which Ess himself debunked). If a developer/designer leaves a company, the company doesn’t suddenly lose the ability to work on the products that the person who left worked on. The company retains the rights to any source code, and tend to hire people who know what they’re doing with the platforms. It’d be a weird business practice to simply stop work on a project if someone leaves.
I expect that Elektron either consider the Models to be feature complete like the OT, or they just don’t have the resources to allocate to further development of the code, and other products are taking priority.
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I love both my Models. I would just appreciate that Elektron updates these machines from time to time. Even though their customers spend a little less money on the Models than on the Digis, they should nevertheless be entitled to development and improvement of their machines.
The Models: Massive in sound, compact in size and shamefully forgotten by Elektron…
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You love them, yet you’re still pissed off with Elektron that they don’t now do more than those originally advertised and beloved functions?
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In an ideal world, with good, professional coders, what you say is true. And it most likely is true for elektron. But it’s not outside the bounds of possibility that the code was written in such a way as to make understanding it (and thus changing it) difficult for other programmers.
While the Digi boxes have received a lot of feature updates, it feels like many of the other Elektron machines have been left behind.
This is true of both the higher-end devices (older platform/OS - so possibly at their limits/EOL) and newer devices (the models - on a newer platform/OS).
“Pissed off” is taking it too far, but there are many ‘nice to have’ features missing from these boxes.
I no longer have a Model: Cycles, but if it were to get an update with a new machine or two from the Syntakt (particularly SY Bits, but Clap/Swarm/Toy might be nice too) and some other requested features like trig previews, step recording, an attack parameter (freeing the LFO), a keyboard fold/scale mode, and MIDI mapping, I’d be very inclined to pick up another.
It’s a real shame that they shipped it with an awful Micro USB port rather than USB-C, as it would be a much more portable device if it could be powered via USB (e.g. connect it to your phone to power and record from the device).
Sure, you can run it off a USB power bank with an adapter, since it uses 5V rather than the 12V of other Elektron boxes, but not a standard cable.
A minor hardware revision to USB-C would make it much more appealing today.
That, along with a feature update, would push me to pick up another.
Even though I replaced it with a Syntakt, which has all the same machines/features (and a lot more), there’s something about Cycles that I miss - and I regret selling it.
With no knowledge of the internals of these devices, I do have to wonder how much of the decision to make the Syntakt was porting over the M:C concept to a more familiar platform due to this, and then expanding upon it with the additional power available.
But I’d like to think there’s another update coming for this box eventually.
What are you basing this on? They still seem to be widely available here.
There’s only one retailer where I’ve noticed that their stock has been sitting at “1 in stock” for a while now, but that doesn’t mean they are no longer in production. They may have just decided to stop carrying it.
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That’s an very good question. The new pricing and lack of any updates on the m:c made me sell it quite quick.
I was expecting it to be like a machinedrum lite but elektron went too far in cutting out features on the models.
One of the first answer they gave when m:c first release about the potential adding of machines was that it was a painful and slow process with the DSP engineers that required lots of testing etc… Well the syntakt officially sports all model:cycles machines down to their parameters (renamed so that it’s not obvious) and even the “punch” parameter.
So what’s preventing elektron to backport the other digital machines that have 6 parameters and use up to 4 oscillators to the m:c?
At 400 euros, and with 6 machines Vs about 25+ for the syntakt, the model:cycles seems purposefully limited and overly expensive while failing to deliver on its promised (portability?).
Even outside of the world of new machines, why can the models not have one extra lfo per track when all digiboxes sport 16 LFOs? They have the same CPU anyways, do the models process way more stuff than the digiboxes even though they way simpler? Come on…You even have a blank space on the lfo page that could fit a lfo setting saying “1” and “2”…
Same idea for keyboard scales? You take pride in showing like 30 different chords you created for the chord machines but you cannot add like 10 scales ?
And why are you advertising how many patterns you can chain and save if there is still 3 years later absolutely no way to save a chain of patterns in a project?
Elektron stated that the models were supposed to increase jam potential and playability but they never went and fix some of the most obvious issues with both the samples and the cycles.
To me, at the official price point, both products are a failure as they stand right now. Which is surprising because they still sell so well (especially the cycles) because people do not really take time to search on the limitations that they might face with these products.
The model:cycles was my first entry into elektron world and unfortunately I am unable to recommend these products, they would have to lower their price by a good 30% for them to be worth.
Or deliver massive firmware updates.
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Honestly, I still really like the cycles and I think it’s totally worth it still, but I agree 100%, like, ok I’d assume at lower power the cpu is probably a similar architecture but less powerful or clocked lower but it totally could have more stuff, and I’d assume while machines are stored in memory they need no extra cpu power and I bet most of the machines would run on cycles or would just have to be slightly scaled down. I think it’s excuses to keep the workflow and save money. Ok yeah the workflow is absolutely ideal for me but I think it’s excuses.
Cmon Elektron if you’re not gonna update it, just give us the source code
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Come to think of it, the Novation Launchkey mk3 also literally has 2 extra mystery function slots that never got populated. First one got a strum mode for arp, but that’s it, the other 2 are empty and no source code is available. It’s wild, I bet these cheaper machines could do so much if the source code would just be available. Cmon it’s been years, you’re not updating them anyway, it’s not a selling point for you anymore, if anything the value will go up if you open source it. Ugh, so lame
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…all this works in batches…not in constant production cycles…and since that low price segment approach did not go so well since it’s not really that obvious low price, it’s all what u see and all what u get, as long this last batches might last…that they’re still in stock in many places might give u a hint how well this whole project went businesswise and end of all days…
i can assure u, not one model device was fresh produced since pandemic year zero…
oh, and what a shame to hear, some sold their model cycles…that’s a truu music instrument of it’s very own kind…big mistake…especially for such low resale values compared to what it can do for u…
model samples are nice give aways…but the cycles remains mindblowing…
Its probably not coming, but if it were, I kindly ask it to queue after a Rytm update with the second LFO
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Erm … my M:S has a sticker which says MFGDT 2021-W05 … which kind of suggests otherwise, doesn’t it ?
EDIT: given that pandemic year zero must mean either 2019 (Covid-19) or 2020 ?
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Yeah, also didn’t M:C literally drop in 2020? My M:C is 21 W49
And, yeah, ofc it’s personal opinion but yeah the fact that M:C is great is out of question
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To tell the truth, i think that is the whole point!! My first machine was a 309 Quasimidi, a total regret to have sold it… 
And in the incredible number of machines that I have been able to try in more than 20 years, Elektron with the M.C (oddly this is not the case with the M.S) has, for me, succeeded in a stroke of genius, this machine at a ideal workflow for an FM box, simple and deep, a totally ambiguous machine, a rare trip… and this sound! She is able to give a melancholic and black color to everything. So, I never expected more than promised the machines I could own, but for the first time I see a mess … offer me anything with this workflow and this sound, but well more sound possibilities, whatever the price, I buy.
And don’t talk to me about Syntakt… there is no relation…
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Right? I’ve heard a lot of people prefer the M:C because of quick the workflow is and how quickly you can access all the parameters. It’s so playable with no controller.
That is definitely not true, because there were issues in the first run of devices with the func buttons easily falling off, which they changed. So there has been at least one hardware revision and second manufacturing batch since release.
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We just had a nice dream!! But let’s get back to reality, the human mind today breeds obsolescence in everything… when it should be the other way around… so don’t ask Elektron to show an awareness that we don’t we are not even capable. Come on ! I’ll play whit my logdrum and maybe play a little with my M.C next!
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Just give us a filter, arpeggiator and mutable instruments marbles (code) machine and problem solved.
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