The Elektron Digitone II Is a Trendy Basic

The unique Digitone is considered one of my favourite synths ever. To some that may come off as a little bit of a backhanded praise as a result of, properly, the Digitone isn’t only a synth. It’s a strong multitimbral groovebox with some of the versatile sequencers in the marketplace. To me, its 4 tracks and eight voices of polyphony might really feel a bit limiting. Plus it’s not precisely the very best at drums. This led me to sticking the Digitone on a stand the place I simply deal with it like a desktop synth managed by a MIDI keyboard.

The Digitone II, a minimum of on paper, appears to unravel a few of these issues. It now has 16 voices on 16 tracks, plus there are three fully new synth engines that increase its sound palette, together with one fully devoted to percussion. That is all along with the identical types of sequencing, modulation, and filter enhancements we already noticed on the Digitakt II (8/10, WIRED Recommends), however identical to its sample-based sibling, the Digitone II has obtained a major value hike to $999. With the unique now going for as little as $350 on the used market, the selection between the 2 isn’t essentially that lower and dry.

This Is the New Sound

Earlier than anybody panics, the four-operator FM engine from the unique Digitone continues to be right here. Whereas I’ve seen some folks counsel that it doesn’t sound precisely the identical and that the unique has barely extra grit and character, I feel these persons are hallucinating. I’ve loaded a number of presets designed for the unique Digitone on the Digitone II, and I cannot inform the distinction between them. It’s price mentioning that, sadly, you can’t load Digitone II presets on the unique Digitone, even when they’re utilizing the unique FM sound engine. There are apparently some technical variations between them below the hood however, a minimum of to my ears, they don’t appear to have an effect on the sound.

The opposite three synth engines are the place the Digitone II actually separates itself from the unique. Along with the unique FM engine (referred to as FM Tone within the new mannequin), there may be FM Drum, which tweaks the unique sound engine to higher swimsuit percussion. Wavetone is rather less glassy and will get sounds just like what you’d discover on part distortion and wavetable synths. It’s nonetheless decidedly digital, however not as harsh as FM. Then there’s Swarmer, which supplies you super-thick sounds which might be nice for leads and organs by stacking six detuned oscillators on prime of the primary one. A lot of my favourite new presets make wonderful use of the Wavetone machine, which is ready to convincingly replicate basic electro and Krautrock sounds.