Elektron Syntakt

A 12-voice drum synthesizer.

Tips

Elektron's LFO timings are at once opaque and yet strangely intuitive. LFO rates are specified in terms of two parameters: a speed and a multiplier. These quantities are related by the following formula1): $$\frac{128}{T_{steps}/16}=speed\cdot mult$$

For example, to create an LFO with a period of 8 steps, set $T_{steps}=8$ to yield $speed\cdot mult=256$. We arbitrarily choose $mult=16$, so $speed=16$. This works just as well for odd periods; taking $T_{steps}=5$, we have $speed\cdot mult=409.6$. With $mult=8$, $speed=51.2$. Negative speed values seem to simply invert the waveform.

Table 1: LFO period in 16-step bars derived from the speed and multiplier parameters
Mult 1 2 4 8 16 32 64 128 256 512 1k 2k
SPD 1 128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1 1/2 1/4 1/8 1/16
2 64 32 16 8 4 2 1 1/2 1/4 1/8 1/16 1/32
4 32 16 8 4 2 1 1/2 1/4 1/8 1/16 1/32 1/64
8 16 8 4 2 1 1/2 1/4 1/8 1/16 1/32 1/64 1/128
16 8 4 2 1 1/2 1/4 1/8 1/16 1/32 1/64 1/128 1/256
32 4 2 1 1/2 1/4 1/8 1/16 1/32 1/64 1/128 1/256 1/512
64 2 1 1/2 1/4 1/8 1/16 1/32 1/64 1/128 1/256 1/512 1/1024

Firmware updates

Load the SysEx file into Elektron Transfer, and connect the Syntakt to the computer via USB. On the Syntakt, navigate to Settings → System → OS Update. Press Send in Elektron Transfer. Once the update is complete, the Syntakt will ask to be rebooted.

Mine currently has version 1.21 installed.

Resources

1)
Adapted from this Reddit post, which includes an in-depth explanation. The short version is that an LFO's period is split into 128 discrete intervals, and the speed parameter determines the number of intervals per bar. We are not yet sure whether sequence scaling affects these calculations.