Just dropping by to say all the best to you and loads of fun with your new gear, too.
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just echoing the others who have said just focus on one piece of gear for now. If you already know maschine, spend a few weeks just focused on Digitakt, standalone, not integrated into ableton. once youre familiar wtih it, its going to be a lot easier to make sense of why you would even want to integrate it into your DAW for hybrid workflow. I’d do:
- just learn the digitakt on its own
- get the digitakt in sync with ableton so you can get, say, digitakt drums playing in sync with some soft synths in ableton
- try out the full on hybrid setup with digitakt USB overbridge multitrack into ableton
Don’t go straight to step 3 just yet.
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Thanks to everyone in this thread for being so awesome and giving me such great advice!
What I should have done from the very start is just RTFM, which is often the solution with things such as this. I was very confused and overwhelmed. After reading both manuals, reading over everyone’s comments in here, watching several YouTube videos, making a quick reference cheat sheet, etc. I have finally become a bit less confused and overwhelmed.
I put the DN to the side and decided to learn about the DT first. (Thank you all for advising me to learn one at a time. These machines are very complex and deep especially for someone who doesn’t actually know what he is doing, and now I can’t imagine trying to learn them both at once!) I still haven’t gotten very far but I’m loving the DT!
Does anyone here know of some books or websites that could act as a central repository for definitions and detailed explanations of some of the lingo and terms used in sampling, sequencing, synthesis, etc? Remember, this is mostly new to me, and there are several terms that I am only marginally familiar with. If anyone knows books or a website that would be helpful!
Thanks again!
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Go to soundonsound.com and look up ‘synth secrets’, which is a ~30 part series of short digestible articles programming electronic instruments from first principles. It’s really well written and accessible and not specific to any particular gear.
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Mixing Secrets by Mike Senior is also a good book to understand how to mix in a small studio.
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Thanks to @Anigbrowl and @LyingDalai and also to everyone else who has posted here offering me really solid advice!
Now, I am back with a follow up question. I thought it might be a better idea to just post my new question in here as opposed to creating a new thread.
When I finally set everything up, the first few things that I did were a factory reset, a firmware update, and put both machines into “Test Mode” or whatever it is called. The systems on both showed no errors. When I was performing the test on the buttons, knobs and encoders, I did notice that the Level/Data/Sound Browser knob on the Digitakt was pushed into the machine a few millimeters, and extruding from the housing at an odd angle as opposed to coming straight out at 90°. Surprisingly, this doesn’t affect the rotary function of the knob at all, but it does cause the knob to be difficult to press and it is an eyesore as well. More importantly, I worry that using it as it currently is may somehow actually be damaging the Digitakt, so I want to repair it or replace it if repair is not possible.
Has anyone else experienced anything similar to what I am describing? I am not very adept with electronics, but I can’t imagine that it would be very difficult to open up the machine, make my way to the area that is affected, and attempt to reseat the knob correctly. But, there have been many, many times where I thought something would be simple and it turned into something that I didn’t expect and it either took me forever to accomplish or I had to get help.
Can anyone try and tell me the approximate difficulty level of doing something like this? Do you think I should attempt this myself or should I take it to an electronics repair shop and have someone else do it?
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Please provide a picture 
I replaced faulty encoders on an Analog 4 ans on a Machinedrum, it is not beginner level because unlike regular pots there are some fragile parts that are soldered as well for when the encoder is pressed. Right tools and some experience with desoldering / resoldering are required to do this properly.
But you don’t need to be an expert either.
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hello , if you have not experience with repairing electronic do not attempt yourself, by puuting some pressure on the encoder shaft you could put pressure on the control board, this is a simple job for a technician i advise you find some repair guy in your area. or your could create a support ticket on elektron website to send it repair there
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Also, it’s good to know that Elektron has excellent customer service. You can always send in a repair request and they’ll tell you what it would cost. Depending on shipping costs / where you live it might not be much. If still in warranty then they’ll do it free. They’ll ask you first to register your device via their website.
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Also curious: have you got the devices’ audio working into Ableton?
I copy the rest that getting it àll working into Ableton at once might be overwhelming. But you could try and first connect DT alone to Ableton - have you got that working already? Overbridge is great for multitracking, but you could also try to just use the “class compliant” audio over usb mode, which just gives you the stereo master output over usb without having to use OB.
That will then lead you to the rabbit hole of compensating latency in Ableton, which you might already know or not. It’s not too difficult but when I first got into Ableton that aspect was a bit of a buzzkill and head scratcher for me.
One step at a time we learn best!
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Watch a one hour Cuckoo tutorial on DT or DN and then just start making patterns for a few months. With headphones plugged into the Elektron, maybe MIDI keys hooked up for playing notes. I think the best way to learn to make your own music is to make music, and these machines will get you there faster because they limit you to essentials. At least for me that was a lot more educating and enabling than watching tutorials or stumbling around in a DAW. This will most likely get you to learn about lots of things that are not really making music at its core. Save that for later once you made some tracks out of your patterns.
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Once again, thanks to you all. I will have it professionally repaired at a local electronics shop!
@lesstalkmoredisco Yes i got them both connected to my PC and running through Ableton via OB, sound works 100%. It was much, much simpler than I actually thought it would be. That being said, I only really set them up that way as part of a function test that I performed on both boxes, to see if anything was damaged or broken.
In realistic everyday usage, I am focusing on the Digitakt standalone and not firing up Overbridge or anything. Once I learn that, I will move onto the Digitone, and then I will worry about integrating them into Ableton, even though I already have it all set up correctly. I’m following the advice of basically everyone, and only trying to learn one device at a time because that seemed like very solid advice.
Oh and PS, here is a photo. It doesn’t really show what is going on with it very well because the angle is only slightly off. Maybe 87 or 88° as opposed to 90.
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It’s generally good advice, but don’t be too strict about that. I’m not a sample person so just a DT won’t cut it for me, but DN solo was too limiting with four tracks if you want to make a whole track with it. I found the combo of both ideal, because the workflow is pretty similar. I could then just make beats on DT and melodies on DN instead of spending lots of time on cramming a whole beat into one DN track or trying to make DT a synth. If you’re like this, you could still focus on one device and eg first make beats on DT and only later bring in DN for synths.
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Yeah, I’ve actually never used a sampler whatsoever, so I am kinda lost and figuring things out as I go, reading the manual, picking up techniques and tips from this forum and watching youtube videos, lol. I’m also at work or in transit for 14 to 15 hours per day Mon - Thurs, so I don’t really get a whole lot of time with the DT or DN. I’m really enjoying them when I do have a moment to sit down with them though!
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That’s the only thing that’s really important for now! It helps to use them semi regularly in the beginning if you can somehow manage to make that happen, even if it’s just 15 minutes a day. Building that muscle memory so you don’t have to read any manuals or the text on the device anymore.
I can see it. If it feels wrong it’s wrong, but it should be an easy and affordable repair. This kind of thing is usually from something getting dropped, Elektron gear is generally pretty robust for normal use.
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@Azzarole mentioned it earlier. Curiously, I watched these with a friend who got his DT before I bought mine. IMHO the video was so good I was ready to go when I got mine. Just looked into the manual later for specific stuff:
Not a tutorial or advertisment for his channel, but since I stumbled over this some time ago. This dude has some nice performance videos with DT or DN only, DT or DN plus Machine, Machine + Machine, etc. Sometimes mixing the machines like turntables. Maybe as an inspiration that you can do lots of different stuff with different approaches with your setup.
I think OP doesn’t have the II versions, but cuckoo has tutorials on these as well. Oscillator sink also has some basic ones on DT, in case you need to know more about something like LFOs.
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