Elektron Model:Samples

+ Great sound quality.
+ Easy to use, with lots of knobs.
+ Nice fine grained rythmic control makes it possible to make grooves that doesn't sound too 'mechanic'.
+ Nice and easy rythmic variation with probabilites.
+ Awesome that it can be used as wavetable synth.
- Some buttons have started to get slightly stuck or double trigger when I hit them.
- I wish that it had some sort of 'beat slice mode', so I could upload a beat pattern sample, and let the Model:Samples automatically slice the beat sample into the channels.
- It is quite annoying that I have to use software to upload samples. I wish they had simply made the device attachable as a USB storage device or added an SD card slot.
- I wish it had a microphone for sampling sounds in the environment.

Better hands-on experience than digitakt, but the trade-off is of course less features. Sound quality is good, the knobs are good, and the device feels very responsive. Once you get the samples into the device and loaded in your pattern, it is all great.

The bad: The software for transferring samples is annoying and buggy (an SD card slot would have been better), and i would prefer if the device could just show up as removable storage. Pitch control is really just a playback speed control, but thankfully an update has made it possible for more fine adjustments at least. Timestretch would have been nice. The preloaded samples cannot be removed and will forever waste your time when ever you browse for the new sample you just uploaded. When you search for model:samples tips online, you find lots of quirks and hacks that people use to compensate for simple features that are not officially supported.