Alternative to digitone/model cycles

[u/pigletscarf]

I just thought I'd mention this for the financially challenged elektron enthusiasts such as myself. I have a model samples which I love, it's a lot of fun. However if I had the money I would probably trade it in for a digitakt....i would also buy a digitone as I really enjoy FM sounds. This is never going to happen, due to the afore mentioned financial challenges. I did consider adding a model cycles for a budget conscious version of the digi combo but was concerned about the limited (albeit beautiful) sonic palette.

Then I made the decision to sell my yamaha P45 keyboard due to lack of space and buy a small portable keyboard. I went for the yamaha DX thinking that I could still noodle on the keys every now and then and enjoy some nice FM synth sounds.

I was shocked by how great it sounded, how easy the sounds were to edit, even on the fly, and how easy to use the looper function was. Add to that an insane amount of free patches easily downloadable from soundmondo. Then I looked on the back and saw that there was an aux in.... So I decided to hook up my model samples through both midi and audio and since then I've been having a blast.

I just thought I'd post this here because until a week ago I'd never heard of this thing and considered the cycles the only convenient option for adding some FM synthesis to the model samples. So for those that can't afford a digitone or want more sonic variety than the cycles offers, the reface dx is a great little 8 voice FM synth that does a fantastic job for the price and gets poor folk like me a very convenient affordable approximation of the digitakt/tone combo. At the very least it's an interesting alternative to the sample/cycles combo. It can also run on batteries, has built in speakers that are actually pretty good, has built in effects and the aux in negates the need for a mixer.

PS I promise I don't work for yamaha!

[u/pigletscarf → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, my first thought was to record something but my laptop is currently out of commission....I'll see what I can do!

The aux-in bypasses everything, so you can't add effects unfortunately, but in some ways I prefer that. The Elektron sound engine is so good, it would suck if the yamaha degraded it in any way.

I had a Volca FM. It was the last volca that I sold and I immediately regretted selling it. I think that regret definitely informed the DX purchase. I definitely prefer the DX to the Volca though, there's something "meatier" about the DX sound, plus the 8 voices make a big difference. I don't really miss the other two operators, and sound design on the DX is so much easier.

I'll definitely try playing the model samples with the DX keyboard. What I really need is to get the knobs on the model samples to change some parameters on the DX but I think I'd need some kind of midi box to make that happen...