Digitakt II Tips & Tricks

Elektron Gear Digitakt
#22

Drastically improved pitch range as well, which is helpful for a lot of tonal stuff.

+4 -5 octaves I heard.

5 Likes
#23

5 octaves up and down! Really nice for some gnarly FM Techno sounds :wink:

1 Like
#24

Sample chains as presets

A thing I like to do is to collect 16 or 32 samples of similar type and assemble them as a chain of mono samples.
Once imported, I save them as a Preset.
This way, I have my favorite samples under the hand, easy to reach.

Long chains are not necessarily the best.
Better get 16 mono sample chain that you know well than a do it all that you can’t learn.
Plus it’s faster to load.

Save your favorite Kit

Once you have a few of your favorite Presets, it’s nice to assemble them in a Kit that you save for future recall

Default samples

As samples 1-16 are the one loaded by default on every new Pattern in your Project, it’s a thing I did during the tests to populate slots 1-16 with my favorite samples.
Works best for One Shot samples though.

15 Likes
#25

I think the preset pool trig mode can basically now give a more MPC like work flow if you just utilise sample start and copy over a few tracks, to make ‘chops’.

With synced resampling, you can then start to lineup chops to work in grid-mode. A dirty method of getting around the lack of moveable slice points.

This realisation tipped me over the edge…

(I think the above post hints at the potential without explicitly going into this particular application)

9 Likes
#26

Thanks for the Tup but DT2 is kinda slow in comparison to the OG when loading samples and slices when changing patterns. The OG had no Problems even with longer 64 slices Sample chains!

1 Like
#27

I’ve do not have DTII , but this trick used to work on the OG DT, but got broke in V1.50, I’ve reported the bug many months ago. I’m wondering if it works on the DT II ?

2 Likes
#28

Velocity as a macro control:
The velocity dial on the trig page can be used as a macro control for multiple parameters. Velocity to volume should be set to “off” in the track setup menu. Up to four track parameters can then be set up to be controlled by the velocity mod page, e.g. open the filter, increase amp decay, send to delay, and reduce LFO1 depth. This can then be played dynamically with the velocity trig mode, p-locked using the velocity knob on the trig page, or even controlled for multiple tracks using CTRL all.
This works nicely with sample chains that have been set up with multi-sampled drums, for example 16 hihat hits that increase in volume, so that dynamics are still possible by p-locking different slices (or assigning an LFO to the slice number).

17 Likes
#29

This is awesome.

#30

Sidechain compression

Digitakt II compressor is nicely implemented:

  • add and remove compressor targets with FUNC+FLTR (Setup menu) then pressing trigs
  • you can use the arrows (or Func+double tap menu button) to access another screen where you can add FX or the inputs to this selection
  • in compressor page, choose the source for compression: this can be /COMP (the tracks that were not selected above) or even the input signal!
12 Likes
Why has Elektron avoided a good sidechain compressor setup?
#31

Secondary menus

  • When on a secondary menus (e.g. mixer menus) you can quickly navigate from one to another with up/down arrows.
  • This behavior can be disabled if you prefer up/down to be used as octave up/down for the keyboard. If it’s enabled, you can still use Octave up/down by entering the keyboard setup menu (FUNK+KEYB)
5 Likes
#32

Secondary menu part 2

  • When you’re on the FLTR menu, pressing FUNC+SRC opens the filter type selection menu
  • When on SRC menu, FUNC+SRC let you access the machines menu (one dhot/weep/grid, etc)
  • When in such menus, you can use left/right arrow to switch from one to the other.
5 Likes
#33

Pattern selection

You can now just press (without holding) PTN button to choose bank with left/right arrows, or do fast copy/paste on patterns (hold a trig, copy, release, hold a new trig, paste)

When in such display, hold PTN and this menu stays on.

2 Likes
#34

Factory samples

It’s good to know that

1 Like
#35

“Sounds” + “MIDI conf” = “Presets”

On DT2, you can save a MIDI configurations, the same as you would save a “Sound” in Anaolg series and other Digi series including DT1.
That’s why now it’s called “Preset” and not just “Sound”.

When you load a Preset, it is copied into the current track parameters, so to say, but the link towards the +Drive Preset is lost.

How do Kits work on DT2?

On A4/AR, different patterns can be linked to the same Kit.
Say patterns A01 and A02 are affected the same Kit.
If you change e.g. the Kick sound when in pattern A01, it is change as well for pattern A02.

On DT2 Kits it doesn’t work the same!
Kits are indeed are treated same as Presets. When you load a Kit, you don’t affect it to the current pattern, you copy it to the pattern Kit: the link towards the saved Kit in +Drive is lost!

Do the test: on pattern A01, set e.g. a Kick on track 1. Save the kit as “TEST”.
Load this Kit on pattern A02, change track 1 sample as e.g. a snare.
Check A01: nothing has changed.
Get back to A02, save the Kit as TEST again.
Check A01: nothing has changed.

Why bother saving/loading Kits? What’s the use of it?

Well, same as Presets, it makes it possible to get your bread and butter kit all ready for later recall.
Say you are always using tracks 13-16 to control external gear, want to have a bunch of parameters such as CTRL-SEL and Compressor settings that should be the same: well first thing when you start a new pattern, you will most likely load your own default Kit, or the most appropriate Kit for the objective you have in mind (e.g; chords Kit, dub Kit, dnb Kit, etc.)

So yeah, it’s pretty useful once you have a clear idea what it does.

15 Likes
Digitakt II kits question
Introducing Digitakt II
Digitakt II kits question
#36

CTRL-AL / CTRL-SEL

For those that are new with the concept, go to e.g. SRC menu, hold TRK and turn the Tune parameter (or any): you’ve broken everything at the same time! Works with any parameter

Now if you are still holding TRK button, just press NO to come back to the initial state before you were messing with CTRL-SEL.

It can be good to save before starting to messing things up this way, otherwise if you release the TRK button you can’t go back.

This functionality is a very easy way to create fills, but also to explore some more experimental settings.

I’m saying CTRL-SEL instead of CTRL-AL because unlike on Machinedrum and other Digi including DT1, you can now select which tracks are affected by “CTRL-AL” (FUNC+FLTR ⇒ CONTROL ALL CONFIG).

6 Likes
#37

can go back ? or can’t go back ?

EDIT: I suspect from reading this that you must have meant can’t go back.

#38

“It can be good to save, …because if you release the TRK button you can go back.”

#39

You’re right … I didn’t read it fully. Bit confusing way of expressing it though. It’s easy to mistakenly read it as “Just release the button and it will then go back”.

My bad, I guess.

#40

Looking forward to using kits when I finally get my hands on a DT2. It’s a great addition, makes it so much easier to dial up combinations of samples that I use frequently.

Now please Elektron bring the same thing to Syntakt…. would be so good.

1 Like
#41

The real deal is to map your MIDI controller to cc 1-4 and build macros on the DT like on the ST per KIT. Really opens up the device for live performance! Missed this in the OG

6 Likes