Hi friends! I am new to Elektron. I own an Octatrack mk1 since 2 years now. I am considering to instead work with a Digitakt. Do you have any suggestion? I feel like I don’t really use the sample mangling capabilities of the Octatrack, so maybe the Digitakt would be more intuitive and musically practical for me… I mainly use midi sequencing, fx, lot of loops, samples. I saw DT has some cool feature(like selecting musical scales). I don’t really use OT atm for mangling or as a performance mixer, don’t really even use parts… I use it more to produce beats, maybe DT would be more appropriate for this kind of use?
well those are two world yet both share the Elektron spirit. Just saying the OT has musical scales as well but not that obvious. Some use the MIDI mode ARP and its KEY property (in options) and expose those notes to gear in tune. Apart from that samples without Key information is on both devices not the easiest way to use them. You will trust your ears at the end anyway most.
If you like having the CF card for sample loading, memory and backup etc. digitakt does not have that option. If you like access to overbridge and easy straightforward composition right in the box digitakt does have that. Midi sequencing, as you mention, is there. FX are limited but useful. Scale mode is there.
Be best to figure out which OT specific features you do use and weigh that against the cost or inconvenience of changing. That said, DT is easy to learn so once you switch, it will probably make sense but may feel limited, maybe not given what you’ve said. Either way welcome to the forum, hope it works out for you.
Also, some people end up wishing DT had more of the OT features only after they make the switch, so if possible, you may want to keep the OT in a box for a month while you make a final decision. Requires having the funds to keep both until you’ve decided but it may be worth it.
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good advice…you may miss a lot of the OT’s features, once you don’t have them anymore.
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Thank you everyone for your kind answers! I also discovered that Digitakt cannot process incoming audio with its internal fxs… basically it cannot act like an fx box right? That would be a big difference for me. Maybe I should explore more the mangling capabilities of the OT and see if it’s for me. Try live looping etc… seems it’s the strong feature in the OT and I am not really taking advantage of it at the moment. I am more using it as a music production workstation(which is good at but sometimes miss some more “practical” functions, like scale mode, or a more neat way to play cycled waves like DT) than a live remixing tool. I have seen some tutorials from Ezbot on YouTube and it seems like he is mainly using it to process, loop, remix incoming audio from other gear live and not to produce the musical material itself. Maybe it’s also a matter of changing the function I am giving to the machine. Are you using it as a live remixing/performance tool? Or as a music production sampler and sequencer? Do you have some advice about the workflow for using it as performance tool?
Unless things have changed drastically (which I do not think), Digitakt CAN process incoming audio with its internal FX 
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a downgrade that you will immediately regret.
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It runs through the master compressor and you can send it to the delay/reverb, but it has none of the FX potential of the Octatrack if you have that set up the way EZBOT uses it.
The OT is arguably too complex/underutilized if you are only using it as a sampler.
The DT is a very focused and hands-on (mono) sampler - and easier to use for that purpose.
But it has none of the FX/performance capabilities of the OT.
My personal top three reasons for upgrading from DT to OT would be:
- recording trigs
- can be mounted as a drive, no proprietary tools needed
- can read loop tags from WAV files (afaik)
My top three reasons reasons why I still stick with DT:
- better reverb
- class-compliant audio/midi (so great to seamless integrate all those fantastic iPad synths)
- a dedicated master volume knob
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@Mat96, do you do a lot of sampling on the OT with the sequencer running?
Just asking because that’s at the core of my OT usage and with the DT you can’t really do that. I mean, maybe you could time it perfectly and use the sampling threshold, but doesn’t seem all that “ergonomic”.
Also, if you do multiple samplings at the same time, you can’t do that on the DT. It’s almost like the OT has 8 DT samplers inside it (recording buffers) and the sequencer doesn’t ever need to be restarted to employ them.
There are a ton of other differences, but this is the kind of stuff I would miss if I got rid of the OT.
Can I ask how you integrate iPad synths specifically? Is it more of a thru box for you, or are you sampling them?
@lowph that’s a good question!
Actually not that much… I mainly use it to launch samples and loops( like if I would launch audio clips with Ableton). Then I use it to process external gear and to sequence it. I also slice loops and stuff but these are always audio samples from libraries I don’t really sample my gear .
What’s the idea behind sampling while the sequencer is running? Would it be for example to live loop the incoming signal of your gear and then to mangle it?
I feel like I miss the main idea behind the Octatrack sometimes 
The USB integration is really nice.
You get stereo audio in and out, and midi.
So you can use the DT to sample directly from the iPad, or control/sequence synths/effects (or apps like Koala).
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I’ve never thought about bringing the elektron (midi) sequencers into my iPad synth world. This sounds like a blast.
Sometimes I use the iPad as sample source, but mostly as a kind of “virtual rack” (using the fantastic AUM app as mixer/host for synths and fx)
On the hardware side you only need a simple USB C cable between iPad and DT for audio/MIDI in both directions.
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I don’t want to derail this thread too hard toward iPad config stuff but for me, I’ll have to think about how this can work. As it stands, I’m using the iPad with a Babyface Pro FS which then ports over ADAT to the rest of my setup. This also means I’m already using the usb port for this. But I’m wondering if I can send midi from the Digitakt into the Babyface for use in AUM via 5-pin and still use Ableton Link in AUM, Overbridge for DT, and have it all stay together while sequencing MIDI tracks.
In your defense, I don’t think the OT has a main idea. It’s so versatile and adaptable…I think there are nearly as many OT workflows as there are OT users.
The DT can technically play longer loops, but it really isn’t built for it, and its memory is very limited. It’s pretty good with “medium” length loops, like four bars or so, and there are some really interesting things you can do with those. There is the Slice machine now, which is very limited compared to the OT’s capabilities, but good fun nonetheless. And also you can do some cool things quasi-simulating granular synthesis using LFO’s to modify sample start location with the DT.
In general, the DT is very good at quickly messing with samples, especially shorter ones. It’s also very very immediate for sequencing MIDI.
In short: keep the OT, add a DT. Watch a bunch of EZBOT videos.
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my god, it works. there’s a little extra latency which is to be expected but nothing I can’t shift later in the arrangement. Very cool. Digitakt FTW.
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Thank you @davestasiuk! Allright I think I’ll keep exploring the Octatrack and add a DT when I find a good deal! 
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Though it seems that OP found his answer, I’m someone with very very limited desk space that is having to decide which two machines to keep out of the Digitone, Digitakt and Octatrack. I know the Digitakt like the back of my hand, and I favor it over the OT sampling-wise for very specific reasons:
- Sampling into and out of Digitakt is super easy thanks to USB Audio input/output, which allows me to sample from laptops or ipad super easily, which in the Octatrack would take extra steps.
- In my opinion in meshes better with the Digitone than the Octatrack, since they are closer in their design so the skillset are pretty transferrable. Plus, you can multitrack both which is not possible on OT.
Of course, I am aware that the OT has much more performance wise, and is also able to handle longer samples, but those are more nice-to-haves than absolute necessities for me. I think the Digitakt has enough in its arsenal where you can make a 4 -bar sample sound unique in each repetition without too much trouble.
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