An idea for kits on the DT

Elektron Gear Digitakt
#1

I had a genius idea for implementing a kit like function on the DT while driving to work this morning before the sun came up. It’s inspired by the way I use my DT. I tend to have my kicks and snares the same throughout the majority of a song, which is usually multiple patterns in a single bank. Other sounds get changed per pattern, though, so the regular KIT idea from the A4 may be a bit of a pain. Unfortunately, without any KIT functionality, when making a change to the kick/snare/etc sounds that are in multiple patterns, I then have to go and change them in ALL the patterns. It’s a time wasting activity that distracts from the fun of the DT.

Here’s the idea: You save your track as a SOUND. Then, in the DT settings somewhere, you could set it so that if that specific sound is on the same track as previous patterns, changing it in one pattern would change it in all the other patterns! So if you wanted T1KICK to always have the same settings, you could save it to your sound pool and all the settings (MIX LEVEL included) would stay consistent for any instance of that sound on that track in all patterns. If you wanted a different kick in a pattern, you just change the assigned sound.

I hope this makes sense. I think it’d be an awesome way to implement kits in a way that would allow for a lot of flexibility.

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It's unlikely that we'll ever get kits on the Dark Trio, but I had an idea
#2

I truly hope this never comes to pass.

Not having kits/parts is why I prefer starting composing on the DT and why I will never get an A4. I like how each pattern is like a page in a sketchbook. Everything is intuitive and immediate as it currently is. I kind of wish the octatrack worked the same way as the digitakt because despite how powerful parts are, I still have a tendency to accidentally change arrangements I was happy with and have to go back and fix.

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#3

I too wished the digitakt (and digitone…) would have kits.
But they don’t.

It’s for most people more convenient the way they work. Casual beatmaking, you know!
I wished there would be an option you can activate, but no. They do not have that.

Those boxes aren’t ment to have kits. But you can sequence those boxes with external gear and look at the pattern (without trigs) as kits.

It is the way it is, and after years I do not think kits will come to those boxes.

#4

Right, but you don’t NEED to use the kits. This would allow for people to have them or not. If you don’t want them, don’t use them!

@gerkinear “meant” to have kits? I mean, I think that’s kind of a silly thing to say. They most certainly could still do the exact same things with a kit as an option. On top of that, while we can sequence with external gear, you lose parameter locks unless you take the time to manually map things from the other gear, which is also a hassle.

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#5

You think it’s silly if I say if something do not has kits… it’s not ment to have it?

I’m out, this discussion is worthless.

#6

Because I think your comment is silly, the conversation is over? That seems a bit excessive, no? Haha. Yeesh. I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings!

1 Like
#7

That’s not a way to discuss. You do not hurt my feelings. I do not know you, and I can’t think of any way that will change :wink:

I just do not think this here makes any sense at all.
Kits on Digitakt or Digitone were discussed a myriad of times.

Bye!

#8

We can disagree on that, it’s alright. I’m glad I didn’t upset ya! I don’t know why it wouldn’t make sense to have the option of kits, though. Unless people are only making 1 pattern songs. I’m 7 songs deep into a full set using the DN/DT/OT. Trying to keep levels and settings the same across multiple patterns in one song is a headache, hassle, and frustrating. It’d be nice to have the option to make the workflow quicker and more interconnected.

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#9

If you replace the default 8 sounds with your own I think that’s basically making your own kit ( though parameters are still default )

In general I’ve never needed kits or sounds on Dt.

Mixer wise there’s a setting for a global mix rather than using pattern mixer settings , it’s a fairly recent firmware update ( last six months )
It’ll be in the manual.
Or
Assume it’ll never happen and sell digitakt for AR

#10

I don’t believe you can do that, but even if so, that would mean you could only have 1 song per project. Either way, the settings don’t transfer through patterns, which is the whole purpose of my idea.

#11

I don’t think this would work or even should be implemented.

So you pick a sound for a track in one pattern, go to a different pattern, load that same sound into a track. Then if you make some changes to either one and save your modifed version back to that sound and it goes and reloads that sound to any other patterns that had that sound set as well?

That could be an absolute nightmare, especially if users didn’t know about it - suddenly old patterns start changing because you forgot they used a sound you changed elsewhere.
Would it still overwrite if you had changed any sound parameters in the pattern?
Would you be able to turn it off?

I believe/assume all data for a pattern is stored for that pattern, then when you load a sound for a track, it is a one time operation that just lays that over the top of whatever is in your pattern. After you have done that, there is no connection back to the sound.

Is it really too hard to just reselect your sounds from the sound pool in your other patterns? Sure it might be a bit of hassle, but the device wasn’t designed to work that way.
Alternatively, the RYTM has kits, the OT sort of has kits (parts) - get one of those instead? They were designed to work that way.

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#12

Again, it should be an OPTIONAL feature that can be turned on or off, which I said in the original post - “You save your track as a SOUND. Then, in the DT settings somewhere, you could set it so that if that specific sound is on the same track as previous patterns,”

Here’s how I envision it working (in my perfect implementation):

  1. You create a kick for your song and put it on track 1. You save it as a SOUND titled T1Kick.
  2. In the DT settings somewhere, you can have a few options:
  • All T1Kick instances on any track in any pattern/bank will always be effected by changes in any other pattern/bank.
  • Only T1Kick instances on T1 will be effected by changes in any pattern/bank.
  • Same as the first 2, but per bank (for people that do 1 song per bank).
  • Original mode - changes are only per pattern.

This would give insane amounts of flexibility for multiple different work flows.

It’s not a nightmare on the OT or A4 once you get used to it, so why would it be a nightmare here? Not everyone uses their devices the same way. Some of us, as has been discussed in the feature request thread, would find something of this nature to be insanely useful for the way in which they work. Some, such as yourself, would not. My idea allows for individual tracks to be linked throughout patterns or not, user’s choice.

Also, I have the OT, DN, and Rytm, and I’ve had the A4, Machinedrum, and Monomachine. None of my remaining Elektron boxes fit the particular role that the DT does in my setup. If they did, this wouldn’t have even been an issue for me.

Why is the idea of giving people more flexibility so opposed here?

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#13

Why is the idea of using a device as it is, rather than always requesting new features/changes so opposed here? :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

Edit: I have totally been guilty of this in the past FYI

#14

Are you telling me that you haven’t updated your DT since you got it to use the new features that have been implemented that were not on the device “as-is” when it was first released?

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#15

Edited my post above and created a new topic so I don’t sidetrack this one: Do we all complain too much?

Totally not having a go or directing it all at you fyi, as I’ve requested plenty of new features/changes in the past.

#16

It’s all good! You know, as well as I do, that the kits in any way will almost never come to pass, but we can all hope!

1 Like
#17

I consider the sounds on the banks of Drive+ as a kind of cross project usable micro ‘kits’.
I’m wondering why almost no youtuber talks about sounds concept on DT. Maybe only few people understand it’s benefits (which could be due to a non ideal manual) or - in comparison to AR user - they actually don’t need it in their workflow.

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#18

Indeed, I think the sounds system on the drive+ are as close as you need to get for kits. If you have a sound that you like and want to reuse all the time, you can load it up with little to no hassle.

Also agree that there has yet to be an focused video on the topic.

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#19

Right, but that still, to my knowledge, doesn’t apply to the track levels, so mixing is still hard. It also means that doing live tweaking from pattern to pattern doesn’t follow.

#20

The DT and DN were designed because everybody using the OT, A4, AR with “Kits” (yeah, OT is kind of kit-style only I know) are the first year confused why their sounds change when they edit pattern A16 and a week later they try to continue with A1 and wonder WHY THE HELL it suddenly sounds like sh*t :sweat_smile: (true story, it happened like 100 times to me). Soooo… I can understand why you want it but I can understand why it’ll never be implemented… it was a day-0 decision due to the fatal userexperience beginner people had with their Kit-devices.

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