Their plan was to release it next September, but after seeing my mock-ups, they trashed it and began from scratch. 
One might call it user error, the other says it is a usability error.
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Except, the person we responded to is the one that said it is a fact that the OT sounds bad.
If they said “I tried for a week, and I couldn’t get it to sound good”, they probably would’ve gotten a lot of sympathy.
If they said “I’m a new OT user, and I’m struggling to make it sound good, any pointers?”, there would’ve been a number of people to offer advice.
If they said “I prefer the DT, you just throw something in there and it sounds good, not like the OT where I struggled my arse off”, well you can’t really argue with that statement.
The OT is a complex, flexible machine. It requires more work and time. You could argue it is not a good design, if it takes that much effort. But clearly flexibility was the top priority to the designers, not ease of use or immediate gratification. So it’s quite alright to feel “that’s not the sampler for me”.
But to say that it is a fact that it sounds bad, is simply unhelpful and false. Plenty of professional people use the Octatrack.
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Does the Octatrack sound bad? No. Is it easy as hell to make it sound muddy/muffled? Without a doubt. Is it still worth persevering to end up on some magical journey? Hell yes.
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Love those design. I trolled a bit on Reddit half a year ago and got rightfully downvoted into oblivion, but actually it shares some ideas with your design - this was my list of feature for the ideal Elektron box / OT successor:
- Let’s give it a name: MT - the MetaTakt (or MegaTakt, MasterTakt, MotherTakt, or HexadekaTrack, or Flaggskepp etc)
- Same depth and height as Digi boxes, 2-2.4x wider, weight similar to OT.
- TRS stereo main out, headphone, monitor/headphone2 out and 16 assignable (mini)TRS jacks (configure your choice of in/out/FX loop for up to 16 mono or 8 stereo connections)
- 2 MIDI out, 1 in 1 thru, 2 USB-C (1 with host support, 1 data to PC), CV
- USB-C PD power in (45W 15V 3A), can be powered by any MacBook Pro power brick
- 256GB drive (plenty space to store multi track recording)
- 2 screens, each with 8 OT style track buttons beside
- 16 trig buttons, 2x8 encoders (doubles for mixer duties), compact A4 style keyboard (16 buttons as well). And a crossfader with 2 (or 4?) scene buttons!
- 16 machine tracks, 2 layers per track that allow use of 2 machines on each from a total available pool of 8 sample machines, 8 stereo thru machines (mixer on steroids), 8 analog synth machines, 8 digital synth machines and 8 FX/compressor machines
- 32 LFOs (shared between all tracks)
- 16 external tracks, supports sequencing of 16 MIDI channels / devices (w/arpeggiator, come on Elektron why is it not on the Digitone Keys)
- Additional features: sync clock to beat detection a la TX-6, mixer mode & multitrack recorder, dual cue selection (for shared use/back to back), expanded arpeggiator/algorithmic/generative mode, scenes (for crossfader) and parts.
Price: Some where between €2500 to €3500 (or rent it for €89 per month with a 1 year minimum).
And why not add some accessories, and suggested prices:
- All-day battery pack with pass thru power supply: €139,
- 16 pressure sensitive pad module (a la Rytm): €299
- 4x8 pot/encoder module (a la Faderfox EC4): €299
- 2x8 fader w/16-32 buttons mixer module: €349
- 37 Key keyboard with 16 programmable encoders (a la Digitone keys): €499
- DJ module 4 Ch mixer (using MT I/O) with EQ, 2 FX send (to MT), cue/monitor control, assignable magvel crossfader, maybe integration with Serato or djay Pro: €699 (plus an optional plug-in dual phono preamp module, 4 TRS out to MT, for €299).
Accessories are modular, can be mixed and matched and magnetically connect to MT’s sides (and front?) for direct power, audio and data, with optional security thumbscrews to fix and connector cables to place them further apart if desired.
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surely there are recordings of people getting 1:1 of the input sound with the OT at this point? would go a lot further than sarcasm and you could post it every time the issue comes up
i had a mk1 for 15 months and spent a lot of time trying to get there. ultimately wasn’t happening but i would love to hear it from more skilled users
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Yeah man, I mean, if you’re going to come on here with your conclusions about the Octatrack after using it for a week then you should expect to be taken the piss out of.
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Fair point, I think people are just tired of this topic. Countless people making blanket statements like “OT has bad sound quality” and no-one can change their mind. It has been discussed endlessly. There are plenty of threads to read through, there’s been sound files posted, graphs of frequency responses, etc.
Searching for “octatrack gainstaging” is probably a good place to start if you want to understand what can go wrong.
Also, the input level LEDs are calibrated a bit conservatively, so when you sample into OT if LEDs are green your level is probably too low. You want at least yellow, but even if it turns red, it is not necessarily a problem. It’s easy to get caught out thinking “it sounds worse”, even though it is actually just softer.
Also, sometimes people compare OT to DT and say OT has worse sound quality, but it has been shown in threads here that OT actually samples and plays back closer to the original sound, while the DT boosts high frequencies (and maybe low, can’t remember), so it sounds ‘better’, but that doesn’t mean it is more accurate, and you can apply your own eq if you want it to sound more like the DT.
Good luck!
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the Current Octatrack will be one of several new machines implemented in the digitakt mk2
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Yes, several of them right here on this forum.
Which is why “it sounds bad and if you don’t hear it that’s your a problem with ears or your headphones or your listening environment” is still silly. No mate, it’s your use of the machine. If it fundamentally sounded bad, nobody would be able to get clean sound out of it. The fact that some people can get clean sound out, and can show that it samples and plays back very transparently (and prove that in a DAW with null tests) means the guy saying it can’t be done must be wrong. And so then it’s his setup that causes the problem.
Unless you’re this guy:
Now if it’s hard to make it sound good, because the default settings do add distortion, then that’s valid to criticise. But it doesn’t make it true that it “just sounds bad” and can’t be used properly.
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I wouldn’t agree with all of these, but some of them overlap with my own suggestions.
for that price I would rather invest for an OT+OT mk2 combo. 
The octatrack is already a complex machine, and the new release could bring more simplicity by redefining many of the current functions: making it easier and more accessible = faster to achieve a desired task. implementing faders is a good example of this, as well as dedicated buttons for parts, and even dropping some features.
These mockups are intentionally exaggerated to explore ideas and concepts, but to be honest, I don’t imagine the new release having a bigger frame than the analog4/rytm mk2’s
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After many years people still talk about this. I had a OT for about 5 years and I didn’t like how the OT sounds. Of course that’s easy to say but keep in mind that at the end I sold all my Elektron machines because of how they sound. The only Elektron that is precious is still the Sidstation 
My favourite sampler is a soft sampler 
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I wish Elektron just once would create an Isla S2400 style “everything box.” Proper ram, all the ins and outs, nice pads, at least 16 audio tracks, full OB support, stereo samples, disk streaming, no purposeful limitations. Price it at $3500 to avoid canibalizing any current products.
Not very Elektron, I know, would just love to see what it would be like to make their version of a true all-in-one competitor for MPC X.
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What if Elektron made a standalone controller thingy for Bitwig (like Akai did for Ableton)? That’s what those mock-ups look like.
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Dang I would buy that in a heartbeat.
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Those look really cool.
I’ll see where we are at in 18 months / 2 years. That’s the time I need I think to put aside 2500€ which would be the price of the push 3 or a new flagship sampler from Elektron I guess.
Yeah I was deliberately provocative. I know it’s never gonna happen, not just because of customer sticker shock, but also because a flagship like that will require an investment an order of magnitude greater than any of Elektron’s releases the last 5 years have received. Better to sucker people into your ecosystem one €500-1000 device at a time for the short term, while you figure out your subscription / cloud / AI strategy that I expect the company owners demand in exchange for the kind of investment that a ground breaking device requires.
You could argue that the era of hardware-centric music for serious, day-to-day use is coming to an end. As much as I hope to see some sort of last hurrah by Elektron, especially if it’s an OT Mk3, the gap with connected, online music tools will continue to grow. In a few years, AI assisted production will become so easy and efficient that continuing to base your workflow on offline hardware will be to creating music like owning a horse is to transportation. I personally don’t mind - for me it’s a hobby and a nice break from sitting behind a computer that I do during the day - but if professionals stop using your platform, you can’t expect the kind of innovation we’re hoping for in this thread.
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…individual outs or sub-groups would be even more important imo
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wanna get high?
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