Why Elektron Digitakt II is more important than you think

Elektron Digitakt II is out. Are we finally seeing the rebirth of the polyphonic hardware sampler? All the important features are in place for this to happen.

[unknownarchitecture]

Ironically enough I love that the OG Digitakt is monophonic lol. The sound of the machine is really pleasing to my ears for hip-hop and house music, and I recently just got an SP404 mk2 to compliment it for extra tracks and stereo sampling via MIDI. The Digi II’s new features and build look really nice, but for someone who already owns a MK1 I don’t think it’s worth selling quite yet for it.

[boeiend]

before 2000 you had all the polyphonic hardware samplers you could wish for with crazy filters, crippled in a menu diving hell that is, but you had it. Now it's 2024... wtf happened?

[ColoredTonalities-ytbw]

What is the #1 inspirational tool that you own if digitakt is #2?

[hollsound]

Maybe the polyphony will be a firmware update feature in the future?

[PaulSpades]

I prefer only dealing with mono tracks for samples. The TE KO2 is polyphonic out of the box. The electribe sampler 2 is polyphonic with 16 tracks and people complained about voice stealing 10 years ago, but they still make it.
Anyway, I'm seriously curious how they packed 400mb of ram into that box. I assume they were using some sort of arm cortex-m cpu with an external 64 meg ram chip previously. If they've managed to port their sound engine to a beefier SoC with A cores and embedded lpddr, then it has huge room to grow. So I'm keeping an eye on it.

Your phone still has more audio and processing capabilities than any of these boxes, you just need the knobs to plug into it.

[WalkingHeadPro]

no internal battery, no arp/midi arp, no polyphony, and no looper.

[felipefs]

This release looks quite interesting, although if we are talking about polyphony, why struggle buying midi cables and be stuck with limited polyphony when ppl can get an Mpc One for much less and easily create keygroups/multisample programs.

[willmartina]

Just so I have this right (before I show up at my local music shop and pester the sales staff), will the MKII now allow that long splash cymbal you spoke about to decay as the subsequent steps are played? Or is it still Cut-off-sville?

[Fluidstructure]

Polyphonic sampling is a bit overrated. Ive had it on my Akai & Ensoniq machines, and honestly rarely use it….okay sometimes….. but the SP1200 will also only play one sample at a time per track. Its no problem, you learn how to make it work for you. And with 16 friggin tracks you got PLENTY of room to play around

[NSW-yexw]

Should I upgrade to a D2? No, I bought a barely.used mint condition MPC1000 instead.

[edjwise]

I was hoping for duophonic and quadraphonic modes for the the DT2... but no

[dylanmassey]

Have they ever mentioned their reasoning behind no polyphony?

[politesociety]

The lineage of polyphonic samplers ended up as workstation keyboards. Most of them can load huge multisample libraries. Korg Kronos, Yamaha Motif, Roland Fantom for giant polyphonic multi-samples with huge numbers of voices.

[Farold_Haltermeyer]

It’s one of those pieces of gear where the feature-set and aesthetic lured me in (v1 and V2) but I just never gelled with it or found it matching my flow...rather I had to match its flow, and that caused stumbles into rabbit holes of fun experimentation but little progress. The Octa just seems more my rhythm...and I’m more excited about Torso’s new creation for some reason

[FuZZbaLLbee]

Regarding polyphony they could implement it the same way as on the Digitone where voices are allocated to the thing that’s playing

[Max_B]

What’s your 1st most inspirational piece of gear if digitally is your second?

[suburbanimal]

Thanks a lot, I haven't heard of the RK002 at all (which is surprising to me) now i absolutely need one ^_^

[p.enzovoort]

Isn’t the Akai Force a modern day polyphonic sampler, with multisamples?

[Heathcliff_hensel]

Have you ever tried the Maschine+? I just got one and i love it.

[heiner_kruse]

I used to do everything on E Mu samplers and I still don’t get why there is no modern dedicated thing such as this