There's been one hell of a buzz around the Elektron Octatrack. I can understand that, since the Octatrack seems to make sampling and above all live performances easy as hell.

The Octatrack can bend, stretch, tweak and process your samples pretty much into anything you like, and they always stay in sync with the sequencer tempo. According to Elektron, the Octatrack really shines when it hangs around with its friends, the Elektron Monomachine (all things melodic) and the Elektron Machinedrum (fat beats). But as we could see at Musikmesse, the Octatrack is great for beats as well.

And with Compact Flash card compatibility, there's no risk of running out of space. Estimated release Q4 2010.

Elektron gave us a great demo of the Octatrack at Musikmesse 2010:

The Octatrack has:8 stereo tracks - 4 audio inputs - 4 audio outputs - Headphone output - USB 2.0 - Compact Flash card reader - Optical Fader - Improved Elektron sequencer - Real time pitch shift and time stretch - Real time sampling - 2 Effect blocks per track

A big thank you to the guys at Elektron for giving us this demo and chat!

Elektron.se