Smooth Operators

I'm really glad Elektron has started selling smooth button caps. Every Elektron box I own shipped with rubber-surface caps. The new kits are smooth, UV-coated and glossy, and each one is a complete set for its machine. So I got five: one each for the Analog Rytm MKII, Digitakt II, Syntakt, Tonverk and Digitone II.

A lot of the backing for the one-person show comes out of these boxes. The Rytm is the drummer: I finger-drum the beat on its pads and let it snap every hit onto the grid for me, because lining them all up by hand? Ain't nobody got time for that.

On every one of these boxes there's a row of sixteen buttons, and I spend the whole show tapping, holding and sliding my fingers along it, usually with a guitar still hanging off me. The old rubbery caps grab your fingertip a little on every press. The smooth ones let it glide straight across, so it feels nicer and I can play faster. They should be a lot easier to wipe down after a sweaty show, too.

And yes, five matching sets of shiny buttons means my setup finally looks like the control panel of a spaceship. I'll be swapping them in one box at a time. More once they've seen a few sessions.