I personally have a mpd24 and mpd26 both of which I have used with the digitakt. They are pretty much the same controller but I do prefer the 24 cause of the 2 extra knobs.
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I own both and prefer the digitakt by a mile. Much more focused equals me actually making music.
Mpd pad controller and digitakt thé you’re set. If you get lost in options this is probably the best way to go for now
Just looking for a clearer answer, but are you basically asking what device to get for sequencing expressive sounds?
The Digitakt, while rad for jamming and making beats, doesn’t have to be used as a beat machine. Often what I do with mine is arrange a set of sounds into a sample with Ableton (which doesn’t take long at all), load however many samples into the Digitakt, and make a cascade of expressive sounds, with maybe some skeletal beats sprinkled throughout the patterns. Even if you did a little bit of setting up the samples in your DAW, the parameter tools on the Digitakt are powerful enough to shape sounds further for the planned and unpredictable.
Plus, if you want to make beats some day, the Digitakt is damn good at it.
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i own a mpc ren and a digitakt. the mpc is not a maschine but they are both beasts of the same kind, i guess.
had my mpc ren for years now and it’s fine. but in fact, i bought the digitakt to get rid of software and computers at least for the sketching phase of musical ideas.
i find it much more musical and immediate to just turn on the box and go for a jam. that’s why my DT is my go-to-tool since a while now.
DT is much more limited than maschines and mpcs but that makes it more musical, as the many options inside the full-fledged daw-boxes can push you in the direction of programming, or thinking about/ planning musical projects more than just play them.
limitations force you to be creative.
just my thoughts
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I absolutely agree with this. Which is why I find Digitakt so intriguing. But in terms of expression I really want to record a sound and be able to play it chromatically and polyphonically. I know it’s monophonic and there are some work arounds, such as Retrokits RK-002 and DigiPAD - Launchpad Pro for Digitakt and synths
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I want to be able to sequence recordings of playing instruments as well as being able to create an expressive instrument from samples.
Go with Maschine.
Digitakt is awesome if you have other means to produce music next to it so you can sample sounds from those into DT and perform with it for instance.
If you lack a DAW / workstation, I’d go for maschine mk3 for sure. It’s a wonderful device. I own mk1 and hardly use it anymore but used to produce a lot with it. Mk3 looks way better even 
Later on you could add a digitakt as well. Win/win
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Yeah, for the creation of your own sample-based polyphonic instruments Maschine fits better i guess, as there is no need for workarounds. You can do it on the DT but this kind of workarounds can be a workflow-killer when this is your main-goal.
Yea I was sort of gathering this
and since I don’t have a daw or synths to sequence I guess I’ll go with Maschine Mk3 and later on down the line I’ll get Digitakt
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You’ll love it. Take your time, follow tutorials and read as much as you can. You can build a whole track without looking at your computer screen with Maschine.
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Probably, yes. I’d recommend a MkIII since it has a much better workflow than the previous iterations and because it has an audio interface built-in.
Get started running the Maschine software standalone; there’s no need to load it into a DAW as a plugin.
You can get a decent idea of the overall workflow from https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLkFqg7ZvTWb2CedBwmuNtn00X7aZ0HkUa but keep in mind that this is limited to the most “typical” way of using it.
Make sure to read the full Maschine manual at least once before getting started. It can be found at https://www.native-instruments.com/en/products/maschine/production-systems/maschine/downloads/
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Hi, thanks for sharing ! Happens that I just bought the same Seaboard block (will be in the mail in a coupe of days), and have a Digitone as well, so it’s cool to see your video. Did you do any special mapping on the DT? Is it easy to get to work. I’m looking forward to playing around with this stuff, looks great
Sorry, didn’t mean to make it look as though it’s my video! It’s scttcmpbll video
From the comments I found this;
you need a usb midi host between them (he uses Squarp Hermod as it can convert velocity and aftertouch to CV). He suggest an affordable midi host that will work between seaboard and Digitone is Retrokits RK005 . In the Block dashboard set up “multichannel” for 1-4, set slide CC to 01. On Digitone, choose a sound on track 1, edit velocity, mod wheel etc parameters under Settings. Copy track one to the other 3 tracks. Make sure they’re set to midi channels 1-4 consecutively. You have to change the bend range to 48 on the Digitone. there are 8 voices that can be divided between the 4 tracks. To use the Seaboard correctly each voice has to be on a separate midi channel. Only modwheel is midi CC settings (CC 1), the rest is aftertouch and pitchbend. You can set what they modulate in the Digitone Setup menu, like setting Slide (the vertical control on the keys) to any CC number
Thanks, that’s useful to get me started. I use a iConnect4+ midi interface in my rig, it has all it takes so that’s OK. It’ll take up all the Digitone voices in MPE mode, that’s a fact… but my Digitone is not alone! This going to be fun.
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True. You’re gonna end up putting gain reduction on drums you tapped too hard anyways. You might as well tap it on the digitakt and fix the gain reduction, do expansion, and gate what you don’t need.
But I like banging on rubber pads. I can’t win
I had the Maschine Mk3 actually 2 of them, both with quality control issues and I next went with Ableton Push 2 which I still use… it has some negatives:
- changing presets in the plugins
- requirement for both USB and 12v power if extended, the M3 worked fine with just USB
- in note mode pads aren’t 100% accurate, more like 94-98%
Overall the P2 vs M3 is a much higher quality product, and it’s much better integrated.
I’m still on the fence about the Digitone, just due to the cost (6x a Volca FM) and bcos my Volca never gets used… I’m a bit addicted to Omnisphere and Serum.
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I ended up using Maschine Jam as a MIDI controller for my DT through a USB host box. Touch strips work a charm as you can control the 8 parameters relating to the 8 encoders of the DT.
I do not use the Maschine software apart from as send effect on MODEL1 
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I didn’t realize Maschine Jam was class compliant. Nice!
Goes through USB host (Cerebel).
Has a lot of pages to suit various setups etc…