When I heard about the analog keys allegedly being able to achieve ‘deeper bass’ tones than the non key version I my gut reaction was that’s total BS now with the announcement of the MKII and it’s ability to have even ‘deeper’ bass tones I’m extremely skeptical.
Does anyone have any good quality examples of the same patches being played on both the MKI and the AK? Or any videos out there comparing the two with an oscilloscope? (I haven’t found any yet) I have always held Elektron to an extremely high standard for product quality, features, functionality and I’ve even loved their marketing campaigns up until now the teaser videos for the OT the A4 and all the Hector videos were amazing even the bold statements on the boxes “sampling just became a true art form” “this machine is only the beginning” and my personal favorite I forget the exact wording but it was along the lines of ‘we believe making music sound be fun, that’s why we make hardware’ etc etc all very ballsy but they have always had the product to back it up they’ve always delivered and they’ve always known their audience (I’m sure those dystopian future product teasers were not cheap to create but God damn they got me excited about what was coming next) and since then their machines have changed the entire way I work.
Coming back to the point, Is this unconfirmed deeper bass talk just all fluff?
The last thing I want to see is Elektron become Roland (I know that’s a huge exaggeration but I’m really feeling like their being kinda dodgy right now)
Can’t find it now (on phone atm) but I believe it was Simon who posted a/b comparisons of identical patches on A4 and AK. It was a subtle but noticeable difference. Ak was a bit rounder and deeper while the A4 had a more aggressive 2nd and 3rd harmonic growl. I’m sure with tweaking to suite the characters of them, you could get things closer, but neither is a sloach in the bass department.
Fairly certain that whatever minuscule variation in circuitry that the AK had will be present in the A4MkII. Does it make a difference? Not to my ears.
I’m sure there will be some variation when using spectral analysis but I always found the claim that they sound “very different” to be a bit laughable really. I couldn’t hear anything different when comparing 1 voice in isolation let alone all 4 or when in a mix so it begs the question of who cares?!
Also it was Two years ago they probably reduce the step in between with all firmware updates in this 2 years next to this test…
But I had both and I felt something extra on the AK no kidding
I don’t think “reworked analog circuitry delivering very deep and defined bass” will be as subtile as the difference between a4/ak hardware. Would be a very strange thing to put on top of the new feature list.
Just listened to the soundcloud example (On proper monitors in a proper environment) and I hear a subtle difference but very very far from anything worth caring about nevermind a selling point. Like others have already stated it’s definitely not going to stand out or matter in a mix, the A4 does just fine in the bass department and if really needed there’s always EQ.
Still interesting to see Elektron throwing this around as a selling point definitely a big change from their top notch marketing up until this point
I read the marketing note as bringing the A4 MK2 in line more with AK.
In fact many MK2 features bridge the gap that exists between AK and A4 MK1
4 individual voice outputs, all stereo - like AK
improved low end response - like AK
poly config menu via function button - like AK
dedicated kit/track/sound/pattern/song buttons, not shared with KB - like AK
less cramped physical interface - like AK
And the additional features (OB bandwidth, CV inputs, Quick Perf what is that!?!) surely bring it over the top.
The difference can’t be too huge.
Assuming all three machines use the same parameters, Elektron should aim to keep the sound-profile in the same ballpark.
If the bass is too intense or in a different place (frequency-wise), sound-packs won’t sound right at all. I’m thinking selfishly here because I did that “1991” soundpack for them and took great pains to “normalize” the bass, especially.
I think if they completely changed the OD, they value improvements over consistency with legacy sounds. I’m eager to hear how FM with the LFOs sound, and if they improved the resolution. I’m also hoping they tuned the resonance on the filters differently. I’d like the notch to carve out a bit more, and for the resonance on the low pass to not break up as easily.
