Digitakt II Tips & Tricks

Elektron Gear Digitakt
358

The best tip I can give anyone new to DT2, as I was just a month ago is:

  1. dive in
  2. have fun
  3. Turn, tap, press, hold EVERYTHING
  4. Don’t read or watch anything until after your first intensive session(s). For me, the manual and videos made more sense when I’d already explored my way and gotten to a groove I dug.

My workflow a month in is still the same (my own). I just know exactly what I’m doing and how to skip around intentionally now that I’ve also rtfm and watched how a few others do things.

Essentially, Elektron hasn’t changed how I create it just eliminated a lot of latency in my process and turnt up the fun dramatically.

4 Likes
359

The problem is that even if I max out my prepared samples I record at 0db in my daw they are not as loud as the factory ones I think there is some kind of normalization going on in transfer itself. When I record samples directly into the DT2 they are much louder. I take my kick as a baseline

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360

Ah interesting - that makes sense why it seemed I needed to push my imported samples a bit.

361

And how to you level your Pattern Volumes? (At 100, 127, or different?)

And your individual Track Levels? Set and forget at 100/110/127 or do you use them to mix?

362

I have my track levels always maxed out analog to my daw workflow and use the vol and sample vol to balance things out. I don’t look at the values at all

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363

I max out my track levels and set the sample and amp volume to balance things too. For me it’s more for live use, I know I can always turn up the track volume on everything to max to get back to my original “mix down”.

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364

@OldmanChompski Yeah, It used to work with a depth of 0.5, but now it needs to 1 or higher. I did the original video btw :slight_smile:

Can you confirm that when you’re doing the ping pong trick and the sample is playing in reverse (REV.L) and play head hits the start, the sample jumps to the end mark and continues to play backward, then when the LFO changes the direction to FWD.L it plays forward until it hits the end marker and again wraps to the start marker? That is the bit that is broken for now on DT1.
Although if just using FWD.L or REV.L on its own (without LFO), then looping in just 1 direction works as expected.

365

If I’m understanding this right, it should make long loops/pads on DT2 a lot smoother right ? Reduce pops and clicks ?

366

Yeah this makes sense to me too - think I’ll go for this approach :slight_smile:

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368

Ahhh I see now… yeah it doesn’t loop back from the start all the way to the end.

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369

We don’t like synthesis here! Only samples!

:slight_smile:

370

Haha I need reading glasses. :sob::joy: Sorry!

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371

I really miss the global mixer ! I could easily turn down some channels that were too loud on the PA in the venue. Hope Elektron will bringt it back soon

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372

Maybe I’m not understanding, but there’s a mixer view in the DT2. Though sadly you can only see and control up to 8 tracks at a time.

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373

On the DT1 you have you can have your track levels globally for all patterns so you can turn down the kick or hi hats and stuff during soundcheck. And it’s a convenient way to make transitions from one pattern to another. I always used my PC4 for doing this kind of stuff.

374

Note that sample level influences the filters behavior and sound, just something to keep in mind while gain staging on DT.

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375

I’ve been working on transitions in a little set, and

Playing Sounds Through Pattern Changes

works quite well, letting 1 last trig per track ring out into a new pattern, with these things in mind:

  1. AHD, not ADSR envelopes—the sustain on the trig stops at pattern change, but a NOTE (max) hold will go the specified length on that track until another trig is played on that audio track.
  2. It’s one trig that will play over the pattern change, so LAST and resampling phrases both help, p-locking LFOs works and is great.
  3. Sounds playing with WERP, REPITCH, and STRETCH will all adopt the new pattern’s tempo.
  4. Best of all, you can tweak parameters on the new track, say, to filter out the old sound. It shows the parameters on the new pattern’s track, and touched parameters will “jump” to the value displayed on the new track’s screen, but if the settings are similar pattern-to-pattern it works well enough.

All this to say, the LAST triggers and these default pattern change behaviors make interesting transitions simple and powerful…

7 Likes
376

Thanks for that. I never owned the DT1, surprised it’s so much different than the DT2 on that front.

377

There were many DT1 owners who were also very surprised. My guess is it is one of the many bug-fixes coming in the next firmware release. :crossed_fingers:

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378

The sound of the two devices is fairly different two. I waited to sell my Digitakt 1 because I knew it was a race to the bottom as far as pricing goes… I was right it did bounce back up a little on reverb.

Anyways, just before that I exported all my Digitakt tracks and loaded them up on my Digitakt II and there’s definitely a difference. I’d say basically every single one of my songs sounded better on the Digitakt 1 but I think a lot of it had to do with it being colored in some way. I’m sure if I cranked up the master overdrive it might get more similar. They sounded a bit “flat” or “transparent” on Digitakt II.

Of course, the songs I made on the Digitakt II sound very good and I think it’s just something happening on the master of the Digitakt 1 tbh. I know people did tests in the past and found the Digitakt 1 was coloring samples a bit. I think the Digitakt 2 doesn’t do that without the master overdrive.

I could be also just talking out of my ass too though lol.

1 Like