The unique Digitone is one in every of my favourite synths ever. To some that may come off as a little bit of a backhanded praise as a result of, nicely, the Digitone isn’t only a synth. It’s a robust multitimbral groovebox with probably the most 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 one of the 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, not less than on paper, appears to resolve a few of these issues. It now has 16 voices on 16 tracks, plus there are three fully new synth engines that develop its sound palette, together with one fully devoted to percussion. That is all along with the identical kinds 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 acquired a major worth 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 reduce and dry.
{Photograph}: Terrence O’Brien
This Is the New Sound
Earlier than anybody panics, the four-operator FM engine from the unique Digitone remains to be right here. Whereas I’ve seen some individuals recommend that it doesn’t sound precisely the identical and that the unique has barely extra grit and character, I feel these individuals 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, not less than to my ears, they don’t appear to have an effect on the sound.
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{Photograph}: Terrence O’Brien
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 raised swimsuit percussion. Wavetone is rather less glassy and will get sounds much like what you’d discover on section distortion and wavetable synths. It’s nonetheless decidedly digital, however not as harsh as FM. Then there’s Swarmer, which provides you super-thick sounds which might be nice for leads and organs by stacking six detuned oscillators on high of the primary one. Lots of my favourite new presets make wonderful use of the Wavetone machine, which is ready to convincingly replicate traditional electro and Krautrock sounds.
