Manual quick start

Syntakt is a twelve-track groovebox that runs analog and digital voices side by side. Tracks 1–8 are digital, tracks 9–12 are the analog drum and cymbal voices, and any track can instead be set to a MIDI machine that plays external gear. Whatever the voices produce can pass through the Analog FX block on its way to the main mix, which is where the box gets its bite. Reverb and delay sends sit alongside it. Each track has five parameter pages — TRIG, SYN, FLTR, AMP, LFO — so the whole sound-design surface fits under one row of keys.

“Analog synthesis meets digital synthesis. A musical cyborg companion.”— Elektron, official manual §2

Syntakt takes a 12 V DC adapter into the 12 VDC In socket on the back. Put it on a stable surface with room for cables, and switch every device off before connecting anything. OUTPUT L/R goes to your mixer or amplifier. INPUT L/R takes external audio in, so you can mix and process it through the machine. For MIDI, run the sender's MIDI OUT into Syntakt's MIDI IN. MIDI THRU repeats whatever arrives at MIDI IN, which is how you chain a third unit onto the same clock. A USB cable to a computer covers control from a DAW. The power switch is on the rear panel.

Press [BANK], then [TRIG 9] for bank A — the screen confirms with BANK A : SELECT PTN. [TRIG 1] then picks the first pattern, and [PLAY] starts it. Pattern changes are queued. With A01 running, press [PTN] and [TRIG 2]: A02 waits until A01 has finished its last step, then takes over. Repeat with [TRIG 3] and you are sequencing a set live. [STOP] ends playback. Note the split in the key layout. The [TRIG] keys are sixteen sequencer steps, but only 1–12 double as track selectors, and the banks sit on the upper keys.

[TEMPO] opens the tempo menu. The LEVEL/DATA knob sets the BPM, and pressing it in while turning moves four BPM at a time. [UP]/[DOWN] step the tempo by 0.1 BPM for fine work. You can also tap it in: hold [FUNCTION] and tap [TEMPO] in time. From the fourth tap onward Syntakt averages what you played, and it keeps averaging as long as you keep tapping.

Select a track with [TRK] + [TRIG 1–12], then press [FUNC] + [TRK] to enter KEYBOARD mode. The [TRIG] keys light up in the shape of a piano octave, and only the lit ones play. [UP]/[DOWN] moves the whole keyboard an octave. A long press on [FUNC] + [TRK] opens the setup page instead, where you choose the scale. Playing inside a scale is the fastest way to make a drum machine sound melodic. If the active track runs a MIDI machine, the same keys send MIDI notes out to whatever you have connected.

With a pattern playing, press [FUNC] + [BANK] to enter MUTE mode; the same combination leaves it. Each [TRIG] key mutes and unmutes its track, and the [FX] key does the same for the analog FX track. Lit keys are audible, unlit keys are muted. It makes no difference which track was active when you entered, since every track is available at the same time. Mutes are the simplest way to perform a single pattern: drop the drums for eight bars, bring them back, and the pattern has an arrangement.

Each track has five parameter pages, each with its own [PARAMETER] key: TRIG, SYN, FLTR, AMP, LFO. The DATA ENTRY knobs edit whatever the page shows. Try it with a pattern playing: [TRK] + [TRIG 1–12] to pick a track, [FLTR] to open the filter page, then turn knob E. That is FREQ, the cutoff, and on tracks 9–12 you are hearing an analog filter respond. The same knobs feed the sequencer. Press [RECORD] for GRID RECORDING, hold a step's [TRIG] key while you turn a knob, and that value belongs to that step only — a parameter lock. One track can use different settings on every step this way.