namnibor

I love the sound engine and what can be had but I do not like the "Elektron Philosophy" as in the user interface and file structure drove me and still does drive me absolutely mad. No midi out for sequencer. This thing just made me dig back inside my much more powerful analog/hybrid Radikal Technologies Spectralis. Yes, as deep of a monster the Spectralis is and notorious for deep menu because of it's power, but I find the Spectralis WAY easier to use and thing is, it's sequencer can do many more things that the Elektron sequencer just does not as in different sequence directions, ratcheting, probability on notes and 192nd step resolution, sampling and resampling, analog filter bank, a 10 band fixed filter bank that's digital but you would not know it as it can do ensemble effects as well, and a fully poly 32 note digital synth along with the analog synth, really has three sequencers within it...the Elektron Analog Four's convoluted and cryptic combo button pushes makes it seem more like I am playing a damn video game that's handheld from early 80's and maybe that's the appeal, but I am a sound designer and firstly a player of keys and use to traditional subtractive or wavetable synthesis, the "Elektron Way" forces you to turn everything upside down and get used to having to use a whole different way of calculating things by a numbers and math that other synths just do not use this approach, as like it has with me and several other musician friends, it really kills creativity and esp. if you want to repeat what you have done or wish to have any song structure longer than two bars...all the same time signature...well, that's the way it works. I have kept it and use only as a drone machine and powerful at that function and excellent onboard FX...however, as much as people love the "P-Locks" (parameter locks), they are not solely an "Elektron Thing" as The Spectralis as well as going back to Dave Smith when he worked with Korg and Yamaha with Wave Sequencing, with the Wavestation...so it comes down to the really screwy file management system and relation of Kits to Patterns and Sounds that still scrambles my brains. The Analog Four is something that is powerful and I love to hate and hate to love. Lastly, the sub oscillators are either ON or OFF, no volume control, a limitation that sucks as well as you cannot record after touch or velocity from an external keyboard, you have to go into each and every step and make those adjustments, again, creativity buzz kill more times than not. Hard to marry the Analog Four with my other hardware synths because it's more of a contained system unless of course you purchase all the other boxes by Elektron to get all the functionalities...kind of like collecting Pokémon Cards...yeah, that's the vibe that fits.