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Incredible real-time sample manipulation, seamless time-stretching and a versatile step sequencer all feature.

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From the outset of this review, it's only fair to state that we fundamentally disagree with Elektron's reason for developing the Octatrack. The Swedish company - better known until now for its drum machines and synths - has declared that sampling is a dying art.

The Octatrack DPS-1, an eight-track dynamic performance sampler and sequencer, is intended to re-establish sampling as an art form.

The problem is, we're not convinced at all that sampling is dead, just that it's changed.

The reason most of us no longer use hardware samplers is that they were laborious and limited in comparison to software.

"It'll take a while for you to uncover all its possibilities, but there's no doubt that it'll reward those with the discipline to spend time learning the intricacies of each feature."

Akai's MPC workstations still have legions of fans, but the majority of us have moved to software samplers, hardware-software hybrids such as Native Instruments' Maschine or loop-based DAWs such as Ableton Live.

Even so, there's no doubt that the Octatrack takes a different approach to anything currently on the market. Perhaps the more important question isn't whether Elektron can reinvent sampling, but whether it can convince the average producer that dedicated sampling hardware is still relevant in the age of plug-ins, gigabytes of RAM and infinite track counts.

Features

The major selling point of the Octatrack is the fact that it's much more than just a sampler.

As the row of 16 buttons along the bottom of the front panel suggests, the Octatrack follows in the footsteps of the Machinedrum and Monomachine with the inclusion of a step sequencer (there are plenty more similarities, but knowledge of the other Elektron products isn't required to get to grips with the Octatrack).

What's perhaps even more important is the fact that the Octatrack's sample processing engine is radically more advanced than most hardware currently on the market. As hardware samplers were gradually usurped by their software rivals over the last decade, we came to expect a series of more advanced features.

Independent pitch and time stretching are now a mainstay of any software setup, but very few hardware units offer anything like the same level of freedom when it comes to manipulating loops and samples.

The Octatrack offers eight stereo tracks of samples plus eight tracks of MIDI step sequencing. Samples are stored on a Compact Flash card, with a maximum capacity of 64GB (the device's USB port is only used for transferring samples to the CF card from a computer). Each track is based around a 'machine' - Elektron's term for the virtual devices that generate audio or MIDI data.