I am using my Digitakt as a MIDI sequencer for drums in a Yamaha MODX. It’s working great, but there’s one thing I’d like to do, and haven’t figured out if the Digitakt is capable of this.
I’m playing acoustic kits on the Yamaha, and I’d like to make the drums sound more realistic by varying the velocity a bit on the notes. The way I am currently doing this is to first record the pattern. Then, I go back and for each MIDI track, I’ll do a live record and tweak the velocity as the pattern is playing. It captures the changes, and it sounds nice.
The limitation with this method is that the changes repeat themselves once the 64 steps have passed.
What I’d like to do is “automate” the process, so that the velocity of the MIDI triggers is constantly changing between a pre-determined set of values (e.g., the snare drum will randomly fluctuate between a velocity value of, say, 40 and 60), so that there’s no repeating “pattern” of velocity changes. Sort of like a conditional trigger, except that the destination of the condition is not the trigger but instead is the velocity.
Is there a way to do this on the Digitakt? I’ve read the manual and done a bunch of searching online, but can’t seem to find anything.
You can send out randomised values via the DT midi track’s LFO, but it’s not possible to assign it to Velocity. What you might be able to do is set the MODX to alter its sounds via one of the available LFO destination - CCs, Pitch, MW, AT, Breath etc, but i don’t have a MODX so that’s all i can suggest!
Thanks. I’m thinking the LFO option is the only way this will work. I read somewhere on this forum that the CC for Trig Velo on the Digitakt is #4. If I set the destination on the LFO to CC#4, would that do the trick, or does the CC# need to correspond to whatever the trig velo cc# on the MODX is?
There is unlikely to be a “trig velo cc#” on the MODX because velocity is part of a MIDI note message, not a separate CC.
What you probably need is to assign (on the Digitakt) an LFO to an outgoing CC number, and choose the CC number to correspond with something in the MODX’s parameters like level, amplitude decay time, or filter cut-off frequency: whatever you think what result in the feel that you want to achieve.
Thanks. Yes, I think you’re right, there doesn’t seem to be a velocity cc. I really wish the Digitakt allowed the user to route the lfo to velocity – that would seem 1000% times more useful than allowing users to route it to “Breath Control.”
I could route it to a cc that controls another parameter such as amplitude, decay time, etc. But velocity would be ideal because the drums I’m triggering are velocity sensitive, so a snare drum sounds completely different when triggered with a soft velocity versus a hard velocity – it’s not just a volume difference, it changes the entire character of the sound, just like on a real acoustic drum. But unless I can figure out some hack, I don’t think my preferred way is possible.
It should be possible with the MIDI loopback, you could get an LFO from another MIDI track to modulate the velocity of the MIDI track that control the MODX.
But you won’t be able to use the Digitakt MIDI input anymore!
Re the loopback suggestion: I’m fine with not having MIDI in functionality. But how would the loopback function be able to do this? Wouldn’t I need an option to select velocity as a destination for the LFO? That appears to be the key missing link here, so I’m not sure how using MIDI loopback from another midi track would get me around this. But maybe I’m missing something?
I just tried it and it seems to work! I don’t have a velocity-sensitive synth to test the whole setup but I can get my velocity to be randomly modulated by a LFO.
That’s actually one of the main advantages of the MIDI loopback, you can modulate almost anything with a LFO providing the parameters can be controlled via CC message, and velocity can be controlled with the CC#4.
To make this work, you have to go to MIDI Config > Channel and select a MIDI channel for the track that will control the MODX. Next go to a MIDI track, set it to send MIDI on the channel you just choose. On the Amp page select the CC#4 and activate the corresponding CC value in the Filter page. Lastly you just have to choose the CC1 (or the one you used) as your LFO destination. If it doesn’t work right away, press the trig key and it should send a first MIDI message that will “open the path”. Be aware that now the Velocity value cannot be changed with the dedicated encoder on the Trig page, its value is overridden by the CC value from the Filter page (so that’s the one you want to mess with).
I actually have a MIDI loopback tutorial if that’s still unclear! :
Just be careful not to double-tap the STOP button, or the Digitakt will freeze 99% of the time (you can restore everything by turning it off and on again but that’s always a bit scary).
Well, I sort of got this working last night, but after some initial success, one of two things would happen. Either (1) my MODX would randomly just stop making any sound at all until I re-started it, or (2) my Digitakt would repeatedly freeze up. I also tried this on an Alesis SR-16, and the Digitakt ended up randomly changing the midi input channel on the Alesis to channels I didn’t even know existed! For example, after trying this, the Alesis said it was on MIDI channel D#! So something is getting scrambled somewhere. But I think this is definitely the right track, I just need to work out the stability issue. Thanks again for the input.
Can’t believe it - when I went to do this with my new DRM1-MK4 - Electron PLEASE ADD VELOCITY as an LFO destination for the midi tracks! pretty please!
