Spy jam with the Elektron Syntakt

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A live, semi-improvised track performed entirely on hardware.

I am a big Elektron fan, so I was immediately on board when they announced the Syntakt. My first impression is that it's a box full of fantastic sounds; I especially like the analog synth voice, the clap, the kick, and the chiptune-esque digital engine, but most of it is super useful, varied, and has plenty of texture or warmth, depending on your needs. The addition of a flexible FX bus that can act as master FX, or sidechaining, or envelope, or some combination thereof, is also a great feature. Altogether, the Syntakt seems like a great device to compose on.

But if it's a great composition device, I found I struggled a lot more on the performance side. There is manual tweaking of individual parameters, but the sweet spots sometimes aren't wide enough to play around; there's control-all, which can lead to neat results, but it's relatively inflexible (since it always captures all sounds); there's the master FX bus, but it can take some time to set up mid-song; there are new modulators on buttons 13-16, but I can't seem to fit them into a performance. Overall, there are some great options, but I'm missing the awesome performance features of (say) the Octatrack or the Tracker. Even a simple beat-repeat, or other sequence-based performance options, would go a long way.

Ultimately, I think the Syntakt will be a device I regularly pair with something more performance-oriented, like the Tracker or Octatrack. And as ever with Elektron devices, I look forward to seeing if any firmware updates improve on its formula. As of right now, though, it's a fantastic little box for writing music.

Elektron Syntakt - All sounds
Arturia KeyStep - MIDI control of one analog synth voice

Performed and recorded live to a stereo output, with EQ, compression, and limiting on the master.

https://jayhosking.bandcamp.com