Elektron Syntakt

Great Little Drum Computer (& Synthesizer)

When I bought this, I already owned a Digitone and a Model:Cycles.

My reason for buying the Syntakt was that, while I loved the sound of the Model:Cycles, I found myself missing some of the features and user experience of its Digi siblings. Originally, I had been saving up for a Digitakt, but the idea of replacing my Model:Cycles with the Syntakt grew on me and I decided to make the purchase.

And I was not disappointed! The Syntakt takes the best of the Cycles and adds a ton of its own features. It has twice the track count and triple the machine count, while still maintaining the same minimalistic sound design approach. The extra LFO and actual ADSR, along with the song mode, are wonderful additions.

The Syntakt sounds great; I especially love the analog cymbal track. It looks great too, especially when paired with its Digi family. Using it in my workflow has been amazing. Currently, my go-to workflow is using song mode on both the Digitone and the Syntakt at the same time. The Digitone has all the melodic stuff, including MIDI tracks to layer more sounds from the Syntakt if needed. And does all the transport duties. The Syntakt is more detailed and drums-only song mode, and all of the Digitone's sound goes through an FX track for a bit of overdrive and sidechaining.

Overall, I am thoroughly impressed with the Syntakt. It has added a lot of character and sound design possibilities to my setup, and I love it.

love it

I think overall this a great little machine and i've been infatuated with it since I got it. Honestly intimated by it's potential sometimes.. ill put 2 lfos on 1 random synth track and after a little tweaking its like the craziest glitched out synth mod ive ever heard. You'll go in the studio and cook up a fire drum pattern ?melody and you'll be like what ?? how did that take 3 minutes versus hours digitally.. for me this thing is a godsend overall

Sure it has some flaws and restrictions like most especially newer tech does.. but they're hard to pinpoint and certainly have room for improvement. In my opinion even more modulation capabilities could be included in the sense of, recording knob modulation in the live recording section. The live recording function could use some work too and more paramater/time options. Thing has a lot of potential but I don't see myself using it as a standalone box, even though its totally possible to do so its just not quite my style, it seems best hardwir

I have the audio outputting through volt2 & into ableton so i can pick and chose what melodies / drum patterns etc I want at certain times if need be, if song mode worked better this wouldn't be a huge issue. But again. Overall its a great piece of machinery that does what its supposed to and then.. a hellll of a lot more

it seems the goal of the syntakt wasnt to be a standalone machine at all, though of course this depends on intention. It seem best fitted pairing with other elektron products like the octatrack which personally I don't see an issue with. hope to get an octatrack one day but rn im in the process of building a eurorack :) cheers!

Best Groove box.

Syntakt is now the best groove box for me. There is so much it can do: from being analog/digital drum machine or synthesizer to gear for sound design and sample packs creation.

It is so simple and enjoyable to start from scratch and create something.

This is becoming my love to hate device!

I am coming from a SQ64 + Volcas background. So this is slowly becoming my love to hate device - but also my main groovebox.

Pros:

- Incredibly productive! It's just much more easier to sketch out an idea on this device and built something resembling a full song, using the new song mode! This is becoming my main tool.

- 16 tracks with decent quality sounds - you can built anything

- 2 LFOs per track + a sequencer that records knob moves - we can get wild results!

- somehow the overall sound is very good and polished, even though track per track Korg Volcas are far superior. E.g. compare Volca Drum or Bass to the Syntakt Sounds. Volca sound far superior. However the end result sounds much more pro and full with Syntakt. It might be the 16 tracks, or the LFOs/motion recording.

So while I am using this constantly (and probably for this reason as well) there are things that I absolutely hate:

- pattern based save/load functions- this means that all your song improvisations etc essentially needs to reside on a single pattern (16 different tracks) or else its getting extremely difficult to keep things organized. Korg SQ64 is far superior to that! Please add track based save/load. I think the pattern based workflow is totally unusable and simply rubbish. You end up composing in a single pattern with a 16 track limit.

- No capability to save kits - this is related to the above. Makes live composition across patterns difficult

- Sound wise - I have reevaluated whether I would sell my Volca Drum or not - Volca sounds simply on a different league - much better! But as said the overall mix somehow sounds better in Syntakt.

Conclusion: I would definitely buy it again. Hardware is great but the software needs a lot of small improvements to reach its full potential - especially in terms of performing with this live or improvisation. Is it for you? If you are looking for an all in one device (with some weak drum sounds, synth sounds are better) definitely. Is this for a beginner? May be. While deep and it packs so much features together that probably if you can invest time I would start from this one

Instant Favourite

This machine is versatile, capable and incredibly well-designed. Its UX is highly refined and the time and effort invested into design really sets it apart from many other instruments. This is the sort of thing you may not realise until you spend a lot of time with an instrument.

The sound quality is excellent however, bear in mind it is focused on more percussive sounds and would not replace a polyphonic pad monster, but this reflects the design focus and is not a negative for me.

Regardless of how many extra features I can imagine to improve it further, I have been blown away and the machine is regularly at the heart of my production and performances. The firmware upgrade that was released after I bought it was a welcome surprise with many new features.