Syntakt : A capable and fun but also unnecessarily hampered groovebox

I own, and have owned, several different Elektron boxes such as Analog Four, Analog Rytm, Octatrack, and Model:Cycles. In essence, I really like them, but my feeling is that Elektron often artificially hampers them in order to not cannibalize on their own devices. If not, they're not doing a convincing job of explaining why certain features are confined to certain boxes.

For example, on the Syntakt, I really like the ctrl-all feature, a function which isn't, out of some unspecified reason, available on their more expensive boxes. On the other hand, on the Syntakt neither the kit function, nor the possibility to change patterns immediately exist. Also, I can't help but think that it would be fairly easy to implement a sample machine on the Syntakt, but my suspicion is that since this would render the Digitakt more or less useless, Elektron chooses not to do it.

There might be really good reasons for why the feature set is what it is on the Syntakt; my point is that for me as a consumer, because of the non-transparency, it _feels_ like Elektron makes the box less capable than what it could have been, not because of any technical or user experience reasons, but because of economical. So, while I really like the Syntakt in many aspects, I still have a hard time using it without feeling irritated.

With all that said, Syntakt is a quite capable and fun groovebox. Having twelve tracks (which even can be midi out tracks) along with both digital and analog sound engines, as well as the dedicated FX bus gives you a lot of options.