We dare you to try and reach Elektron Digitakt II’s limitations£899/$999, elektron.se
You know a company’s influence is crystallising when its name enters common usage. ‘Google’ and ‘Photoshop’, for example, are as much verbs as they are product names, while in music, ‘Hammond’ tends to be applied to organs of all sorts of brands.
Elektron, it seems, is rising to a similar stratum. More and more, in various manners of speaking, performers and producers talk about playing Elektron to ostensibly describe a particular role or workflow. Often the word is used as an adjective for a style of performative sequencing, generally with multiple units synced over MIDI. The Elektron workflow is also an increasingly ubiquitous term, referring to the Swedish company’s rather unique approach to the user interface. One wonders how long it’ll be before other developers look to appeal to those specific skills Elektron users (excuse us: Elektronauts) will have honed through this workflow.

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The original Digitakt is one of the most popular drum computers and samplers on the market. It has eight audio tracks and eight MIDI tracks on a sensibly laid-out interface with an incredibly well-considered sequencer, boasting over 400 factory sounds for massive sound-sculpting potential. Sampling into its memory via a line input is quick and intuitive, and it’s in the blend between those sounds and the ones already onboard where the magic happened.
In many ways, the Digitakt turned the page for Elektron. Announced at 2017’s NAMM show, it marked a move away from Elektron’s larger instruments, like the 2001 Machinedrum, and into more compact designs. The Digitone eight-voice synthesizer followed in 2018, along with its sibling, the keyboard-equipped Digitone Keys and, in 2022, Syntakt drum computer and synthesizer.
Digitakt has become incredibly dear to Elektron and its user base. Which also means that too much of a departure could be a mistake; it wouldn’t be the first time public opinion has judged an original model to be preferable. But, too similar, and there’s simply no point.
The screen on the Digitakt II
When it comes to Digitakt II, on the surface, it looks more in danger of the latter– except for a noticable price hike. Perhaps expected, though, considering the original Digitakt was released the seven years ago into an economically unrecognisable music technology world.
In any case, little on the panel separates the Digitakt II from its predecessor. But this is to be respected, whether you’re new to the Elektron ecosystem or not. Elektron’s signature workflow for this format of machines— sequencer buttons in two rows along the bottom, eight encoders on the top right, a screen on the left— has been proven to work marvellously and really needs no overhaul.
The Digitakt’s primary strength is the speed and ease of use, paired with a well-designed signal flow and robust effects that are actually useful. It’s a breeze to capture sounds at the line input and feed them through its architecture, hitting its transport buttons with gusto to performatively record and play them. All of that prowess has been carried forward into Digitakt II.
On the subject of buttons: if there’s any bugbear with Elektron’s design, it’s the insistence on using the most rattley buttons imaginable, even if they are supremely satisfying to hit. This machine could capably double as an acoustic shaker if required. Alas, we digress.
Sampling on the Digitakt II
Clues remain of major upgrades under the hood. A keyboard setup button has appeared on the left, and another row of LEDs sits above the Page button; an FX button has joined the five parameter buttons (TRIG, SRC, FLTR, AMP and LFO).
“The Digitakt experience, but multiplied”, is how Elektron opens Digitakt II’s manual, and it’s not wrong. Digitakt’s eight mono tracks expand here to 16 stereo tracks, any of which can be assigned to output MIDI to seamlessly integrate other gear into sequencing. Digitakt’s sequencer had a 64-step limit; Digitakt II doubles that. While Digitakt had 1GB of internal storage accompanied by 64MB of RAM, Digitakt II has a capacious 20GB plus 400MB of RAM. Digitakt allowed 128 samples per project and now Digitakt II allows 1024 – we challenge anyone to reach that limit.
From sample storage to sequence length and variance between patterns, we find ourselves nowhere near the limitations of Digitakt II. It allows over five times the Roland SP-404MKII’s samples-per-project allowance, for instance, and 4GB more internal storage. It doubles the track allowance of the Polyend Play. While it doesn’t trounce these competitors in every department (the effects section of the SP-404MKII is best-in-class, for example), it all suggests that this is a workhorse of an instrument that will serve its users for a long time to come.
The OS 1.50 update to the original Digitakt introduced workflow enhancements that now constitute the core of Digitakt II, namely the SRC page and Machines for delivering samples in various ways. These consist of the Oneshot, which linearly plays samples forward, backward or looped; Werp allows samples and loops to automatically stretch to the tempo of a project or pattern by warping audio and chopping it into quantised sections. Stretch, well, stretches audio into the tempo of your project or section with a granular-style engine, while Repitch does the same but with a more traditional pitching method. Grid lets you slice a sample into segments to be triggered individually. Each feature brings its own distinctive flavour into the mix and makes for huge variety, even within sequences consisting of reasonably homogenous sounds.
Back of the Digitakt II
Sonically, the Digitakt II leaves very little to complain about. The onboard sounds are rich and varied– deep kicks, industrial clatters, sizzling hats, garage-reminiscent woodblocks, it’s all here– and its sampling fidelity is flawless. The Machines’ audio editing imparts minimal artefacts into the samples, and the choice selection of effects sounds adds all the sparkle one could ask them to.
In essence, Digitakt II breaks into entirely new territories of functionality. One thing it takes pains to retain is the purity of its purpose as a drum computer and sampler. While it can manipulate samples any which way, to the point of making new sounds entirely, it’s not a synthesizer and nor is it pretending to be. There’s Elektron’s Syntakt and Digitone for that. We could cite all the ways it pushes the boundaries of that role, for instance the brilliant, exquisitely-detailed multi-mode variable filter, or the Euclidean sequencer, which allows for mathematically complex sequences of pseudo-irregular patterns. We could list the brilliantly tweakable and cutely animated effects, from delay to bit-crushing, or the well-expanded modulation capabilities, but if we did, you’d be here all day.
What we can say is that it’s a pleasure to operate, it sounds fantastic and it has all the connectivity, memory and functionality one could hope for from a machine like this. And that’s without the Overbridge software package which, at the time of writing, isn’t available for Digitakt II. It’s highly playable, with all manner of handy functions that we’ve come to expect from Elektron by now, but here the developer has outdone itself.
We can likely expect a Digitone II and Syntakt II. If those upgrades are as expansive as this, the Digitakt II looks set to lead the charge, possibly influencing the entire groovebox market, all over again.

Key features

Digital drum computer & stereo sampler
16 audio tracks for stereo or mono samples, or MIDI
128-step sequencer
Euclidean sequence generator
20GB internal storage and 400MB RAM
Effects: delay, reverb, chorus, bit reduction, sample reduction, and overdrive per track
Dimensions: 215 x 176 x 63 mm
Weight: 1.48 kg

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