Elektron Digitone

Great Module

This synth is really impressive. The sound is unique and fits well in a song. You have also an audio interface with it. After you learn how to use it, you will be obsessed with all these FM sounds. Also it’s not hard to start from scratch and design your own sounds. The onboard effects is good too. I’m using it for bass, plucked and leads.

Amazing device overall

So not long ago I decided it's time to invest in a hobby and bought an used Model:Cycles... Long story short, ended up getting a Digitone as well to do some FM goodness.

And I'm blown by it's sound, ease of use and overall feeling.

It looks slick and It is such a joy to press it's satisfying clicky buttons while hearing amazing sound it produces :D.

Of course 4 tracks \ 8 voices look like limitations if you want it as a standalone box, but with such an amazing sequencer it can be done. From my personal experience I found myself doing full tracks on it alone more often than I expected.

Also I'm coming from an iOS music production ecosystem and the fact I can connect Digitone to my iPad and use Digitone's midi tracks to control my software synths feels really empowering.

My only gripe is that faceplate can be a little missaligned at factory so some buttons can be "sticky" (a.k.a. touching faceplate when returning after being pressed), but that issue was solved easily by myself and a screwdriver.

I'm extremely satisfied with my purchase.

My best synth

The best synth which I've tried

Fantastic

All the other reviews cover features and such. I will just add that I came to this as a novice and was having fun creating within minutes. An amazing, inspiring device.

FM made easy

Elektron quality always over the top.

This FM jewel got a new approach to FM much easier to handle and to understand. Really fun and with a custom cable the device can be powered with a usb portable battery that make it really fun.

a fantastic machine

I love everything about this little machine: it's sturdy, feels good, looks super pretty, the sound engine is massive, and the effects work great on external signals too (I used its chorus, distortion and delay for guitar and analog synths).

the UI is quite hands-on and very intuitive: in 3 yrs of using it I don't think I have checked the manual... it's just some menu diving on less frequently used options like re-mapping midi channels. Most things just work the way you expect them to, e.g. hold ,,copy'' and push whatever you want to copy (trigger/note, track, synth setting)... The only (slight) pain is switching between views while playing (to alter amount of reverb or attack on the envelope) because they require holding ,,shift'', so either wild fingers streching or taking hand of the keyboard for a short while... Still it's super playable ,,as an instrument'' (i.e. a proper synth, not ,,just a groovebox'').

Then the sequencer, it's fantastic! At first I didn't like the fact there's no step interface (entering notes one-by-one), BUT turned out with copy and transpose it's like impulsetracker.

The FM engine is ace, so clean! It's not entirely true it's 4op because you can stack voices with Unison settings (so effectively it's more like 16op with towers of at most 4 ops?). It's not that easy to make glitchy noises (like on, say, DX27) but it is doable: altering the waveshape, some feedback, offsets et voila, sounds as ugly as you please.

And it seems to be always normalized? I mean there's no ,,too quiet'' problem of less harmonically-riched sounds like when programming the DX.

The only thing which I found disappointing was the arpeggiator can't be set to send notes over MIDI. Even if you play it, there's just the chord being sent...

Oh I forgot: the display is really well contrasted. Even on a very sunny day and looking from an angle, it's still easy to read.

All in all, digitone is a modern classic.

Fun and intuitive

The Elektron Digitone is a brilliant FM synth, designed for a fun and creative workflow. It's solid and well built, and is a joy to program and jam with. Super tight midi, Elektrons famous sequencer and endless sound-design possibilities makes this a studio workhorse

My to go DAWLESS Brain

I use digitakt as brain of my dawless setup.

Super capable box, control midi in/out of all my synths and effects pedals via kenton box.

Superb built quality.

Superb pre-amps and sound

Very powerful FM synth

I like the way it's built, solid. Powerful sound engine, well programmed, very good included sound effects, a large sound library, I am overall happy. I use it in minimal techno music production either for bass, either for textures or percussions. It looks small and simple but boy, it's not a toy. And not to forget, the sequencer is brilliant, as well as the MIDI sequencers which offer more than I wanted.

A sonic experience

Whether you use this as a music instrument or a grown-up toy, this machine has so much to deliver. It is true that Elektron's learning curve can be a bit steep, but this is a device meant to be explored for years and years.