Anyone else feels a natural bump in the high frequencies from the Digitakt?

OP-1 Comp is magic!

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Sorry, thought you were talking to me. I like the Focusrite Compounder more; it sounds great on 909 kicks, and it likes to be overdriven a bit. I found a mint one a few months ago for under $150. I also really like the MXR 136 dual limiter, which can be found for about $200. Both these compressors are nice for a bit more character.

For the inverted polarity / phase issue , has anyone submitted a support ticket on this?

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@man909

Thanks for your analysis here. In my own subjective experience, it seemed my DT recordings sparkle a little more in the high end, but I always assumed it was poor mixing on my part :slight_smile: . Always good to be aware of a piece of gear’s natural bias.

I’ve noticed that the DT will flip the phase of samples as well, though I haven’t done a DAW vs DT comparison like you posted above.

If anyone’s interested, I can take some photos as well.

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tl;dr: Yup, the DT playback isn’t flat. But it is only a very subtle (≤1db) bump at 5kHz, and a more pronounced roll off above 12.5kHz.

I did some white noise spectrum analysis:

I generated a 30s white noise file. Here’s a spectrum analysis of it:

Then just to calibrate my set up, I played that out my audio interface and recorded it back in:

These are flat well within a db, so we can assume the set up is good.

Now I transferred the same white noise file to the DT. Set it on a default pattern, default track, adjusting only the amplitude to have infinite decay. Now, I played that back on the DT, and recorded it through the same interface, set the same:

There is slight 1 db roll off down from 5kHz, then flat until a gentle roll-off starting at 12.5kHz.

This tiny (≤1db) ramp down below 5kHz might account for what people are hearing. I imagine the high end (12.5kHz and above) roll off contributes more to the character of the DT sound.

Finally, to see if the recording side of the DT had any effect, I played the sample into the DT and recorded it there, then played it back into the test set up:

Pretty much the same, though you can see the effect of the essential sampling filter (at Nyquist) at the very high end. We can conclude that the sampling side of DT has no significant coloring.

Updated: I redid the DT transfer portion with a white noise sample generated at 48kHz.

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This method is better. Thanks for taking the time! Man909 as well of course. It’s an interesting topic.

Maybe interesting to see how it looks with pink noise as well :slight_smile:

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I’m confused by the two different test results @man909 @mzero did …

Doesn’t the first show MORE sparkle and the second shows LESS sparkle?

Educate me peeps - am I reading the results wrong ?

The problem with “nulling” signals, is that it doesn’t tell you much if you use two different recording methods. Tiny differences during recording can result in it showing leftovers even if there’s factually no difference. It’s also unclear if the left overs are from the digitakt signal, or the original sample. Seeing the results of the noise method I think the latter.

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Thanks claro!

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I redid the test with a 48k based white noise sample rate. The post above has been updated.

The steep filtering at the high end is due to the resampling of the transfer application. This is normal, expected, and like any digital resampling. And at 21.5kHz will have no audible effect.

44.1kHz sample transferred:

48kHz sample transferred:

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Seeing how the phase reversal of samples in the DT is most likely unintentional, I wonder if this high frequency bump was intentional or not. Could it very well just be some sort of miscalibration?

I’d assume these characteristics of the output circuit of DT are completely intentional.

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Yes, its known that the Digitakt normalizes the samples automatically. That might the key to its sound.

Hmm interesting stuff… kind of hope its not unintentional as I really like the way the digitakt sounds and a fix could potentially split a user base off who and to keep it the way it is although I dunno if I could live with the current midi bugs if I knew the could be fixed in an update even if I liked the sound less. Are you guys fully turning off the filter type before testing this? I guess maybe that wont have anything to do with it but I often find on gear that even a fully open LPF will have some sort of coloring effect on the sound.

The frequency manipulation issue is not uncommon in samplers. I remember doing a similar test many years ago with all my samplers at the time:

Akai S1100 - High frequency bump
Akai MPC 2000 XL - High frequency cut (low passed)
Akai MPC 1000, MPC 25000, S6000 - Flat frequencies (what goes in comes out)

S1100 was known to have superior quality converters at the time (very low noise). The reason they designed the high freqiency bump may have been to give it a more high fidelity feel, while still keeping it low noise due to the quality sound engine.

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I posted this at the beginning of the thread but it’s now buried:
This is from the DT manual:

To me this says it all, it’s not saying the DT has a very transparent sound, it’s claiming “big” and “almost 3D”, which to me definitely suggests some dsp or eq, especially when claiming “3d” for a mono sound…

Since the DT came out, people keep claiming that it sounds really good, I believe the engine is tweaked for some special DT flavor and not designed to be transparent…

Of course again it’s just my speculative opinion, but why would they say “big” and “3d” if it was designed to be transparent? Or for that matter why even put a special section in the manual claiming characteristics of its sound if it were designed to be transparent?

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Yeah, some people seem to think that because they care or don’t care about something, everyone else should care or not care in the same way…

We’re all different, and have completely different sets of what matters or doesn’t matter, what we like or don’t like, what gear is “better”, etc., etc…

It gets goofy when someone wants to make sure other people agree with them, which then goes beyond the topic being discussed and into the “I am right about this” ego based debate conundrum. Especially for things such as “does reverse phase matter for you”, for some it does, for some it doesn’t…

Anyway, back to topic, and feel free to completely disagree this or anything else I’ve ever said… :wink:

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If I didn’t care about you, I wouldn’t yell at you. I just want everyone to be as right as me.

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thanks for sharing that. For me this background information is interesting because… Have you guys noticed how little information are the producers willing to share about the bits and bolts of their electronic instruments? It’s usually only some vague marketing vocabulary about the ‘innovative design’ or ‘user friendly interface’ that I don’t find useful at all. Now compare that with for example the guitar makers, who are walking you trough all the details: the timber used, the electronics, the strings, the neck design etc. Is it made in China or is it made in Mexico. I find this approach way more useful, but you don’t get that with synthesisers. Of course, everyone has their trade secrets and they don’t want to give away their edge on the market, but at the same time, I feel like missing out something. Maybe the users are considered to be too ignorant to share the technical information but it’s difficult for me to be smart if the producers wont share the information. How can I learn?
Sorry for the rant, it’s little off-topic but explains why for me is interesting to read the thread like this. :joy:

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