When Elektron announced the Digitakt II (DTII), I was very excited.   It really seemed to take it into new territory, places previously only occupied by the MPC in my setup.  It had a lot of features that made me think maybe it was time to let go of my OctaTrack mkII and go all in with the DTII.  But now that I've had it for a while, has it lived up to the hype?

In a word, no.  It hasn't.  In fact, I haven't used it more than once in all the time I've had it.  It has been a wasted dead end for me. Why?

To start, for someone with so many samplers, I don't actually sample that much using a devices sample inputs.  My workflow has been for years that I capture on my field recorder, PC, or phone/tablet then transfer the data to the device I want to play it back usually using some sort of physical media.  I don't even edit in the computer anymore as devices like the MPC and Force have such good editing inside them that I just don't need to except in rare cases.  The DTII has no card slot in it so you can't work in that way with it.  It requires a workflow that is different from my native flow.

Also, while you CAN transfer files to/from it, it requires a connection to a proprietary piece of software running on my PC.  Since I mostly run DAWless for writing and use the PC only for mixing, I don't bother having the PC hooked up to the DTII all the time, which means doing so has extra steps of either moving the DTII, or running a really long MIDI cable across the studio.  This is not something I am going to do. Laziness always wins.

And lets talk about the Elektron transfer software with the DTII.  IT. IS. SLOW.   Really Slow.  Annoyingly slow.  I can't stand it, so I don't do it.

So here we have an impasse:  a wonderful device that just doesn't fit in my workflow and I am not going to adjust my workflow to the device. 

Am I ready to sell it?  Not quite yet.  I think I am going to pull it out of my DAWless rig and push it over to 'island of misfit toys'.  That's closer to the computer and I don't have any drum machines over there at the moment.  Perhaps it could find a place on the B-Team. 

What do you think? Do you have a DTII and has it integrated well with your setup? Does the transfer time make you as insane as it makes me? What do you think I am missing? Let me know in the comments.