Elektron is a Swedish developer and manufacturer of musical instruments founded in 1998, as well as having its headquarters, R&D and production in Gothenburg, Sweden. They produce mainly electronic musical instruments, but have also made effects units and software. Since 2012, there have been branch offices in Los Angeles and in Tokyo.
Musicians who use Elektron instruments include Panda Bear, Timbaland, The Knife, Sophie Xeon, Depeche Mode, and Autechre.
Early years
Elektron started working on its first electronic instrument in 1997. At the time, it was a school project, a mandatory course part of the Computer Science program at the Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden. The three founders were Daniel Hansson, Anders Gärder and Mikael Räim. Hansson recalls: "There were a number of projects to choose from: build a digital landline phone, a bicycle trip computer, or a beeper. None of that seemed fun or challenging enough, so I suggested we build a synthesizer instead!" The synthesizer, called the SidStation, was initially made in a test run of ten units. The project was deemed commercially viable, so in 1998 a company was started to nurture it and Elektron ESI was born. Following the SidStation, Elektron released the Machinedrum and the Monomachine.
When the development of the Octatrack (in 2009) began, Jonas Hillman stepped in to provide the management, structural reform, and capital needed to get the company growing. Since then, Jonas has been acting CEO, majority owner and business spokesperson for the company, subsequently renamed Elektron Music Machines. With Hillman at the helm, Elektron offices were opened in Los Angeles and Tokyo. The Gothenburg office remains the company headquarters. The product portfolio has been expanded to include music production software (Overbridge) as well as analog synthesizer hardware.
Products
Octatrack DPS-1 was released in January 2011. The Octatrack is an 8-voice performance sampler with crossfader, built-in sequencer and eight MIDI control tracks. The samples (streamed from a CF card, recorded live from an external source or from one of the eight on-board tracks) can be time stretched, inverted, sliced, re-shuffled, re-sampled and triggered in many different ways.
Analog Four was released in December 2012. The Analog Four is a tabletop 4-voice (monophonic or polyphonic) multi-timbral analog synthesizer with digital controls, a programmable step sequencer and digital send effects. It is also equipped with CV/gate and DIN sync outputs, which makes it possible to control practically any classic analog synthesizer or drum machine from the 1960s and onwards. The Analog Four can be described as a "compact semimodular" in the sense that each of the four voices has a set of pre-defined modules (oscillators and waveform generators, filters, envelopes, amplifiers and LFO:s and an overarching set of send effects (delay, reverb, chorus effect) that may be combined, routed and modulated in conventional as well as some unconventional ways.
Analog Rytm Released in 2014. It has analog drum/cymbal synthesis as well as digital effects and samples. This 8-voice hybrid drum machine quickly found its way to the electronic music community. At the time, there was a trend among musicians of going back to making music using real hardware.
Analog Heat A stereo analog sound processor. Has an assignable LFO, envelope and multi-mode filter. It has 8 main effects (including band-specific amplification, enhancement and distortion) and an equalizer. The Analog Heat is targeted at studio engineers as well as live performers. It can be programmed and played manually or connected to a DAW by installing Elektron's Overbridge software.
Digitakt First showcased at the NAMM trade show in January 2017. An 8-voice digital drum machine and sampler.
Digitone Released later in 2017, an 8-voice digital FM synthesizer with built-in sequencer.
Digitone Keys Eight voice polyphonic synthesizer keyboard with 37-key velocity and pressure sensitive keyboard using the Digitone’s sound engine and sequencer.
Model:Samples In January 2019, Elektron announced a new sample based instrument, the Model:Samples. Similarly to the Digitakt, it features tracks dedicated to sample playback, as well as a basic subtractive engine (filter, amplifier, amp envelope, LFO) and effects. It also features Elektron's signature parameter locking and sequencing capabilities. However, unlike the Digitakt, the Model:Samples has only 6 tracks instead of 8, and cannot be sampled into directly (though new samples can be loaded onto it from a computer).
Model:Cycles A six track FM based groovebox.