The unique Digitakt sampler and sequencer, regardless of being seven years previous, stays an extremely succesful system beloved by many within the music world. So how does the newest mannequin, which seems almost an identical, maintain as much as the fan favourite?
Below the hood, the Digitakt II is a major improve in nearly each means. Sadly, it additionally comes with a major value enhance to $999, from $799. With used Digitakts going for as little as $400, the selection between the 2 isn’t as clear minimize as you’d anticipate.
I spent a number of weeks placing the newest Digitakt by means of its paces and evaluating it to the older mannequin, and in the end realized the brand new model might be not definitely worth the improve for my (and plenty of others’) functions. That mentioned, should you’re an influence person who at all times needs to attempt the newest and best, it is a implausible piece of substances.
Infinite Potentialities
Bodily, the variations between the primary Elektron Digitakt and the brand new Digitakt II are extraordinarily delicate. The monochrome display screen is white as an alternative of yellow. The instrument particular labels underneath the keys are gone, there are a few new buttons, and a few labels have modified. In any other case the 2 are almost indistinguishable.
I can’t presumably cowl each function of the unique Digitakt. In actual fact, I’m going to need to gloss over even a number of the modifications to the latest mannequin. It’s an extremely wealthy machine that will take tens of 1000’s of phrases to comprehensively clarify. As an alternative I’ll be specializing in an important options and modifications.
If there have been two main strikes in opposition to the unique Digitakt it was that it solely dealt with mono samples, and storage was fairly paltry, even by 2017 requirements. Personally, I did not discover the 64 MB of RAM (equaling 14 minutes of mono samples) per venture terribly restrictive, however the 1 GB of drive storage did result in much more time wasted actively managing samples. By growing the RAM to 400 MB (72 minutes of mono or 36 minutes of stereo samples) and the drive to twenty GB on the brand new mannequin, the storage concern is essentially solved.
Whereas having help for stereo samples is good, I truly discover the elevated storage to be the principle new function I really like. A part of that’s right down to how I primarily use the Digitakt II, which is as a drum machine. Stereo is simply much less of a necessity if you’re primarily working with percussion.
The Digitakt II is greater than able to dealing with melodic elements, and it even comes preloaded with single cycle waveforms so you may play it like a synth. However as a result of the 16 sequencer tracks are monophonic, enjoying chords requires both utilizing a number of tracks and sequencing the notes individually, or simply sampling chords. And despite the fact that there are 5 completely different “Machines” (Elektron’s time period for a way a pattern is dealt with, e.g. one-shot, stretch, repitch, and many others.) your outcomes will fluctuate enormously relying on the supply materials.