Hi!
Sorry if it’s a noob question. I’ve been making hiphop beats on ableton an a controller for around three years now. I recently ordered the digitakt because I was drawn by the elektron workflow and of course, Jonwayne’s beat show on twitch(Lol Elektron should really SPONSOR him).
The question is, it’s seems that there is no way to slice the samples(such as a vinyl drum loop) to different tracks,except chopping them sample by sample and assign them to different tracks. And it’s sort of a huge deal to quickly get in the play and sequence stage to me. Are there any workarounds that don’t involve preparing samples in a DAW, or should I trade for a OT?
Thanks for the help guys!
DT doesn’t do slicing. Of course you can set sample start position and length per track and even modulate and parameter lock these to achieve a similar effect. They won’t choke each other, though.
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If you keep everything on a single audio track on the DT and parameter lock sample start and length for each “slice” of the loop in the sequencer the different parts will choke.
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You’re right. I was referring to assigning different parts of a sample to different pads. Doing it on one track with locking start/length could get tedious quickly compared to proper slicing the OT way.
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- What are the values, if you want to change start points ? 000.00, 000.01, 000.02…?
- Possible to have whole values ? 000.00, 001.00, 002.00, etc…
- If the value is 120.00, there’s no sound ?
- Special behaviour if you press the button or Function ?
128 values would have been easier for 64 “slices”.
I asked those question twice. No awsers. 
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I think now the way to go is using p-locks on the same track making it work as a choke group. But seems like in this way of working, the drums(in my case) aren’t really playable? Guess I’ll have to test out when I get my DT.
Maybe I should just slice it in ableton and use the data transfer app and wait for the overbridge, or should I refund and buy a OT instead?
BTW thanks for all your help!
Just FYI, in the OT when you slice the audio in a track, the audio slices stay in the same track. If you want to hear the same audio in other tracks, you’ll have to sample to the other track, or set the other track’s record buffer to the same one as the first track,. What I’m getting at is the process of slicing audio in one track and hearing the slices in other tracks is not that automatic or quick a process as you might be hoping.
Based on what you’ve posted so far, I’m not sure you would be happy giving up your DT for an OT just for the slicing stuff. You’d need to come up with more reasons than that. OT is quite a beast to deal with, though it can be amazing/inspirational too.
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- Yes, it goes from 0.00 to 120.00 with increments of 0.01 in each step.
- Possible to select whole values? Don’t understand what you’re asking.
- No that’s right, that’s the end of the sample. So the last part of a sample you can playback is 119.99 to 120.00.
- I have no idea, don’t have a DT yet.
The 0 to 120 positions available for the Rytm has been discussed a lot on the Analog Rytm.
Check this thread and specifically daltons post:
Kind of different on the DT since you have the two digit precision but anyways. (I’m thinking the Digitakt inherited a lot of it’s sample playback features and design from the Rytm.)
Here’s a sample chain calculator for the integer values from 0 to 120
http://bl.ocks.org/NickDimmock/raw/3e8dd44a8e777129d332/
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If you want to ‘play’ slices on one track DT is gonna be a chore/impossible. OT does traditional slicing on one track and a LOT more besides. Steeper learning curve tho and seems like stuff like filter/overdrive are improved on DT. No trig conditions on OT either. That’s a pretty big deal and main reason I’m interested in DT in spite of owning OT (Along with the granular loop points stuff on DT… Not automatable/assignable to LFO in OT. Can only do that stuff by hand… Tho the scene fader can do a lot for granular vibes)… If you can only grab one unit theres quite a lot to weigh up between them. They’re actually not very similar at all apart from p-locks…
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Thanks. With AR it is simple to understand.
I had an answer, apparently if you press the knob, increments are 4.
0.00, 4.00, 8.00, etc…
Still don’t know with FN + Knob, and what you can do with the lfo to precisely control 12 000 possibilities…
That means you should be able to have Fake Timestretch with lfo and retrigs…
What i thought was they were assigned to different buttons so i could just test them out in different combos, guess thats another thing to do in the OT other than the slice mode/slicing?
Yeah, its quite hard to choose from these two machines, and i quite dig the new oled screen too! I might just keep the DT and prepare samples in the digitakt or slice them by transients in ableton.
Slicing on the OT is an 8-9 step process. You have to get into Audio Editor, slice, assign trigs to slices, etc. It’s pretty much a studio-only thing - a long process that’s awkward to do live unless you plan in advance. I did it by recording loops w/ Pickup Machine and letting them run, while I did the slicing stuff on a Flex machine track. It would help if the slicing operations could be accessed by MIDI - we’ve asked Elektron for it for years, but nothing has been done. The OctaEdit software by Rusty might be helpful but I haven’t gotten it yet - guessing it’s more helpful for studio than live work.
The Yellofier IOS app gives you a much faster process than that - auto-slices the sample and assigns slices to pads in one step.
I think keeping the DT and using an external app like Ableton to prepare slices is the way to go.
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OT takes approx 8 seconds to set up>playing slices (using the auto slice grid option). Obvs slice markers would need adjusting accordingly if you don’t want the slices on grid. I can’t really think of many alternatives that are significantly quicker (except transient recognition would help out with fast off-grid slice placement). 8 seconds is nothing and wouldnt put me off using it in a live environment… 9 times out of 10 I’d have slices and settings etc already in place before shows anyway unless I was doing live looping/Rec buffer stuff that I wanted to slice… YMMV but OT slicing seems perfectly useable to me?
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Yeah, 8-10 sec. is about the typical time for me when using the slice stuff live.
I didn’t say it’s not usable - I said you have to plan around it if you want to use it live, unless you’ve got 8-10 sec. of silence built into your set.
I’m just saying for the sake of 2 or 3 extra button pushes that equal a couple extra seconds I’d rather slice internally and have all the OT weirdness available to use on the slices, than use ipad. + I’d rather have my ipad screen open on an app for something ‘performance’ based as default. So if I used an ipad I’d have to switch apps to slice (I’m guessing? Maybe midi fixes that?), which loses the extra seconds gained from not sampling internally on OT anyway. Each to their own though, all depends on individual requirements/workflow…
I forgot to tell you that when I replied to you elsewhere 
FN + Knob goes to zero, and extreme values.
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Look, I’m talking about playing live, with an audience. Those 8-10 seconds of slicing operations can be 8-10 seconds of dead silence in front of an audience, unless you plan for it.
I already mentioned one strategy I employed - using the OT - no other synth/sequencer - to avoid dead silence if you want to re-read my earlier post. You should definitely re-read if you think I called the OT or its slicing functions “useless”.
It may not be ideal but I’ve used two OTs simultaneously for this very purpose. “Play” one into the other, catch audio and slice it and output it using the cue sends through FX. Works great but isn’t cost effective.
And naturally, you can always slice live on a single unit as it plays.
I never said you said it was ‘useless’. But you did imply it was lacking, calling it ‘pretty much a studio only process’ and recommend alternatives, while I said it seemed perfectly useable for shows ‘to me’. Different points of view/workflows, no big deal mate 
when I play shows again I’ll definitely be using OT and a bunch of slicing, for what I do there’ll be no issues there at all. The opposite in fact
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You can pre-slice a record. So in live condition, it can be done before recording.