Elektron Digitone

I bought the Digitone in order to pair it with my Digitakt for live EDM productions.

They work great together - even though I was expecting somewhat of a more similar/congruent workflow between the two. It might just be the case that due to the fact that the Digitone is a synthesizer/sequencer (as opposed to the Digitakt which is a sampler/sequencer) - its particular workflow is a bit more convoluted. It might also have to do with the muscle memory developed due to the prolonged use of the Digitakt - but I've often found myself trying to access sound shaping parametres on the Digitone much in the same manner as I did on the Digitakt - which, although all errors aside, might lead to surprisingly pleasing musical results - it still defied my initial purpose.

However, I'm expecting specific muscle memory in my fingers to conform to its quirks in a couple more days of intensive usage.

I have to say, however, that the two boxes together are absolutely phenomenal within a live context. Even just by themselves, without any other gear involved - I'm having no trouble sustaining a 45-minute EDM set with 8 distinct musical sections and time signatures without a hiccup - with the proper pre-preparation of pattern successions of course.

That was also possible with my Digitakt and the Waldorf Blofeld Desktop - however, tweaking the Blofeld live - especially when running 8 sounds in multitimbral mode - as I did - is a bit of a daunting task.

All in all - the Digitone on its own is awesome - but when paired-up with its Digitakt brother from Elektron - that's when the true magic starts happening.

For something so capable, people will of course come up with wishlists for it. (Personally I'd like to be able to apply the filter on line in or have the ability to record all the tracks live together with a default note like on the Digitakt).

But basically this is just a stunning piece of kit. Once you've got the settings right to work with external gear it is just the right combination of powerful and playable. The factory sounds are already wonderfully dystopian and\or beautiful and you can either download additional ones or make your own from scratch by messing with algorithms, harmonics and so on... the main control interface of just switching between function pages for the 8 encoders works well although assigning LFOs on the fly from an immense list can be tricky.

For range I find it best to play with an external midi keyboard. Yes, the sequencer is great as others have said but its also nice to play as a standalone synth using as many of those 8 voices as possible and shaping the sound as you go. Start a drone with infinite release time going on one track and play along to it.

Something I wish I'd known: although by default Tracks 1-4 correspond to Midi channels 1-4, recording on these channels will not work well with the sequencer or with e.g. a sustain pedal. Instead make sure to use the Auto Midi Channel (default is 10 I think) and select the track on the Digitone instead.

Overbridge works quite well in Ableton I think but I've not had much luck with it in Logic. I can get a stereo mix but not individual tracks.

This synth/groove multitimbral FM box is perfect for my electronic music requirements: fun, control and fluid workflow.

This machine is not for all: if you are able to understand/love which sensations FM synthesis can make you feel, this is THE little box of wonders.

Respect to older FM synths, here you spend more time creating music and less creating sounds, but if you want you can go deeply into the 90% of FM's secrets: the sound development process is simpler (respect to the older synths like DX7) and you don't have some alghoritms, but trust me, it is not a bad lack, you will be able to create all sounds you need in less time and you will have a lot more time for sequencing and creating music.

Having only 4 FM tracks and 4 midi tracks is not so bad considering that you can trig any sound you saved in the sound pool within any step of a project.

If you use an external keyboard you can map multiple sounds to multiple splits along the keyboard.
I found only one bad lack: untill now seems it is not possible to record external pitch/mod controls inside tracks (they work only playing live)....Elektron is reactive in updating firmware of it's machines with new features, so I expect that this must-to-have improvement will be implemented one day.

The Elektron sequencer inside this machine is magnificent. The workflow process is close to perfection.

Live is a great machine, but using buttons combinations will requires some (not so much) time.

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.