Elektron Digitakt 4-stars Reviews

Another Elektron delight

Using the Digitakt with the Syntakt and Octatrack is a blast

A gift that keeps on giving

Bought a Digitakt almost two years ago and my way of looking at electronic music production and workflow will never be the same again. I've grown a lot with it. The immediacy of the sequencer just sparks ideas and helps me comb trough ideas for patterns.

Not to mention all the huge system changes that Elektron have made during this time. This powerbox has pretty much doubled in it's capabilities since it's first release.

A Mini Beast

Digitakt does not have the latest multi-touch LCD screen, or fancy colored pads, not even an SD card drive. It has a mechanical look to it with clicky buttons and lots of knobs. But don’t let that austere exterior fool you. This box has been around for a while, but it still stays at the top of the heap because there is so much depth to it, and it doesn’t go “out of fashion” so easily like others. Although it is fully digital, there’s a visceral and organic connection into this box that makes your music making feel more alive. It doesn’t make it easy for you with loads of features, and it is well known Elektron boxes actually frustrates you when you first pick it up. But, like learning to play any instrument, once you spend more time with it you begin to gain skills that can bring out sonic powers unlike any other boxes you’ve owned.

Near perfect drum machine/sequencer

Workflow is fast and easy, especially after watching True Cukoo's tutorial. The onboard sounds are great and you can sample or transfer your own in. The only thing I don't like is the file management: creating your own folders, moving things around, etc. is not as easy as it should be. Lots of time selecting/unselecting at the individual sample level and there should be a way in the Elektron Transfer software to do something as simple as delete a folder and samples in it. This is the only reason I mark down 1 star. I hope Elektron will address this in an update. A few more FX would have also been nice - the simple delay and reverb are not much in comparison to the TR-8S which also does parameter locks and now even FM drums. Hopefully more to come via updates.

It takes some time to learn your way around this machine but once you got it, it opens up a whole new world of possibilities.

The Elektron sequencer is very flexible and gives the possibility for some more complex and interesting patterns.

Sampling is ok, there is a lot of storage space for recording and transferring files, although editing is not that easy, if you want to make precise cuts.

I have to say that one of the best things about it, is its unbeatable sound. I guess this is due to its convertors. Clean and rich sound with smashing low end.

Another great feature is the LFO which can go at very high rates making FM-like sounds possible.

Definitely an essential machine for every beat maker.

Sturdy little beast

As with all Elektron instruments, this box packs a solid punch.

Very versatile sampler/groovebox allowing you to build your own sampled kits like a dream.

Sturdy build, dynamic feature set, coupled with the tightest step sequencer on the planet!

The only drawback for me is the lack of song mode.. if only it had that - it would be huuuge!

But definitely bang for buck, a very fun machine and highly recommended.

Elektron, say no more

Great device.

Got one of the first batches.

Works well, with no problems.

One of the encoders got stiffer over time.

Awesome machine, with disappointing bugs/lack of features

I love the Digitakt. It is an incredibly musical sampler device which encourages creativity and lets it flourish. Despite being deeply featured, it also is surprisingly easy to pick up and get going with. The parameter locks allow you to go well beyond what the 8 tracks of audio seem capable of initially.

Sadly, the software is incredibly disappointing. There is still no support for Overbridge at time of writing, despite the compatibility being listed on Elektron's site, the box, and the manual. This means that you can't stream individual audio tracks to your DAW, and are limited to the Stereo output on the back for recording.

On top of that, there are numerous bugs and issues with the features that have been known about, and not fixed for months. For example, there is no way to tell how full the included hard drive is, and no warning when you hit its limit. For a device of this price, there shouldn't be issues of this kind.

Great product, but buggy at release

The build quality for this product is great, the chassis is solid, black paint is durable, the knobs feel nice and the keyboard-like buttons feel amazing.

The OS is not as amazing, at least not until a few more updates. The first update fixed a few issues with the encoder behavior, but freezes and crashes still happen in the v1.02 firmware. I am sure they will be addressed in future update.

The sound quality is good and I find Elektron took a very intuitive approach for designing the workflow - everything is simple to do and figure out on your own, you don't really need the manual for basic operation (but it's good to read it anyway since it's pretty feature packed).