The unique Digitakt sampler and sequencer, regardless of being seven years outdated, stays an extremely succesful machine beloved by many within the music world. So how does the most recent mannequin, which appears to be like almost equivalent, maintain as much as the fan favourite?
Underneath the hood, the Digitakt II is a major improve in nearly each method. Sadly, it additionally comes with a major value improve 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 count on.
I spent a number of weeks placing the most recent Digitakt by way of its paces and evaluating it to the older mannequin, and in the end realized the brand new model might be not well worth the improve for my (and plenty of others’) functions. That stated, should you’re an influence person who all the time desires to strive the most recent and biggest, it is a unbelievable piece of substances.
{Photograph}: Terrence O’Brien
Countless Prospects
Bodily, the variations between the primary Elektron Digitakt and the brand new Digitakt II are extraordinarily refined. The monochrome display screen is white as a substitute of yellow. The instrument particular labels beneath 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 characteristic of the unique Digitakt. In reality, I’m going to must gloss over even a number of the adjustments to the latest mannequin. It’s an extremely wealthy machine that might take tens of hundreds of phrases to comprehensively clarify. As an alternative I’ll be specializing in crucial options and adjustments.
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 challenge 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 twenty GB on the brand new mannequin, the storage challenge is basically solved.
Whereas having help for stereo samples is sweet, I really discover the elevated storage to be the principle new characteristic 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 components, and it even comes preloaded with single cycle waveforms so you possibly can 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 although 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 so forth.) your outcomes will differ tremendously relying on the supply materials.
