The unique Digitakt sampler and sequencer, regardless of being seven years previous, stays an extremely succesful machine beloved by many within the music world. So how does the newest mannequin, which appears to be like almost an identical, maintain as much as the fan favourite?
Beneath the hood, the Digitakt II is a major improve in virtually each method. Sadly, it additionally comes with a major worth 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 couple of weeks placing the newest Digitakt via its paces and evaluating it to the older mannequin, and finally realized the brand new model might be not definitely worth the improve for my (and lots of others’) functions. That mentioned, should you’re an influence consumer who at all times desires to attempt the newest and biggest, it is a incredible piece of substances.
{Photograph}: Terrence O’Brien
Limitless 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 a substitute of yellow. The instrument particular labels below 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 must gloss over even a number of the adjustments to the most recent mannequin. It’s an extremely wealthy machine that will take tens of hundreds of phrases to comprehensively clarify. As an alternative I’ll be specializing in a very powerful options and adjustments.
If there have been two main strikes towards 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 mission terribly restrictive, however the 1 GB of drive storage did result in much more time wasted actively managing samples. By rising the RAM to 400 MB (72 minutes of mono or 36 minutes of stereo samples) and the drive to 20 GB on the brand new mannequin, the storage subject is essentially solved.
Whereas having help for stereo samples is sweet, I truly discover the elevated storage to be the primary new function I 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 whenever you’re primarily working with percussion.
The Digitakt II is greater than able to dealing with melodic components, and it even comes preloaded with single cycle waveforms so you’ll be able to play it like a synth. However as a result of the 16 sequencer tracks are monophonic, taking part in 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 the way a pattern is dealt with, e.g. one-shot, stretch, repitch, and so on.) your outcomes will differ enormously relying on the supply materials.
