Digitakt into Octatrack

Elektron Gear Digitakt
#1

Hey there,

I just acquired an Octatrack MKI to accompany my Digitakt and OP-1. My goal is to play live techno with a friend of mine who will use her laptop with Ableton Live. She would create ambient textures and melodies while I would use the Digitakt for drums, the OP-1 for backing harmonics and the Octatrack as a mixer.

I have one issue though: the amount of inputs on the Octatrack. I would connect the OP-1 as a mono signal and Ableton as a stereo signal, but this only leaves 1 mono input for the Digitakt. Has anyone here used the Digitakt as a mono device or will that completely mess up it’s own FX usage?

I could ofcourse use the FX on the Octatrack for the Digitakt, but I’d like to separate each machine as much as possible. Any thoughts?

#2

I own the DT. I personally would not run it in mono, as all the samples are in mono I use the FX and amp page to get a good stereo field. Once you run it into the OT you can only do that to the master level, not to each individual track.

I see two obvious compromises:

  1. run the OP-1 through the DT, you would lose the ability to mix on the OT.
  2. run Ableton separately through another mixer.
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#3

You can do a lot of that on the OT. If you can drop one of your peripherals then you can free up some inputs. Remember that you can slice on the OT, meaning you can squeeze a lot more drum sounds easily into a track.

Also consider getting a mixer, this is probably the long term solution if you want to keep adding gear. Nothing wrong with hauling around a mixer.

mono DT sounds fine, you just can’t pan or use pingpong delay, which is off by default.

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#4

You can plock pan (or use an lfo) with OT’s Thru machine, its delay will alternate pan depending on pan settings. It doesn’t behave like DT’s delay. No width setting. If the signal is mono, the delay is mono.

Delay > X sets if the delay will act as a ping-pong delay or not.

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#5

I’ve ran my DT and DN both in mono throughout last six months. Like you, because of the channel limits of the OT. I thought it was perfectly fine. Especially for live stuff, instead of sonically perfected studio stuff, I think it works fine. I’m not one to focus too much in stereo anyways, might be different for you. Two points to be made pro mono:

First, the argument that’s sometimes made that many techno basements run mono anyways; or if they run stereo it’s debatable that you wouldn’t hear the stereo that well anyways; standing left or right.

Second, especially for regular drums sounds, they’re nice and defined in the middle when ran mono. In this sense I missed the stereo effects more on my Digitone then the Digitakt.

Finally, you can add some stereo effects on the Thru channel of the Octa to add sĂłme depth.

I think it depends on how important stereo is in your music. If not too much, or just average, I think it shouldn’t be too big of a deal to run the DT mono.

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#6

Hi,

This is exactly what i was looking for but i still don’t get it.

Can someone help me, i just got DT and i’m trying to route main outs into OT. Obviously i’ve done it orthodox way and went from DT - LR Out into OT inputs. But like the author of this thread, i’m trying to save up inputs in ot so this is what im wondering

  1. running mono from DT - L out into OT In.
    How much quality and db do i lose by doing so?
  2. what are downsides in general by running DT - L out “mono” into OT? Besides DT fx obviously being mono

Thanks in advance

#7

If you have both units, can’t you try it out and see if anything is lost quality-wise when everything is planned left? Then compare it to a regular stereo recording of the same pattern/track. Only you can tell if the compromise is worth it to get an extra input on the OT.

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#8

this! i thought about it, i actually tested it too and it’s not worth it. fx from DT is really good and it was kinda lost and some other minor stuff too. so yeah, it’s actually for me not worth it. thanks btw! :slight_smile: it was good too hear that perspective and think about it.

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#9

Glad you tested it fully to make an informed decision. You can get lots of different opinions about gear and how to use it on here. But nothing beats sitting down and testing it out :slightly_smiling_face:

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