Digitakt Sample Tune vs. Octatrack Pitch

Elektron Gear Digitakt
#1

Hi there, I have a quick question for DT users. I have an OT mkII and one of my main gripes is the fact that you can’t tune the sample separately from playing in chromatic mode. For example, if I load up a sample in the note E, when I press “C” in chromatic mode it will play E and there’s no way to change that as the trig information is recorded as a pitch p-lock.

I saw in the DT manual that there’s Trig - Note but also Sample - Tune parameters. Does this mean that if I loaded a sample in the note E, I could set Sample - Tune to -4 and then play it in chromatic mode with “C” playing C?

If the DT can do this, together with the limitations on amount of samples and more straight forward workflow, I might honestly get one :slight_smile:

#2

Yup, the sample tuning is just a semitone adjuster separate from MIDI note. I use it all of the time to drop down high pitch sample to get neat low-fi sounds. Another idea is that you could use a MIDI controller with the Octatrack that would give you easier access to lower notes.

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#3

Thanks! The issue with the Octatrack is that you only get 2 octaves of MIDI control/pitching. Good to hear that the Digitakt has a separate tune adjustments!

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#4

I’ve had a Digitakt for over a year and recently got an Octatrack. I feel the same! I make melodies by literally dialing in the correct pitch then p-locking it to a step. This works great on the Digitakt, but the Octatrack has both pitch and “fine” tune both in one knob spanning only 2 octaves.

One thing to keep in mind on the Digitakt is that the range is 4 octaves in total. Playing the lowest note possible and then turning the tune knob down doesn’t make it go any lower.

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#5

I wonder if Elektron could implement a tune function in the audio editor menus of the Octatrack, so that you can pitch a sample to C and save that setting with the sample, and then use the existing pitch in the SRC page to use for playing. That would save so much time and headache honestly.

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#6

Yeah, it’s the main reason I don’t compose on the Octatrack, but instead do that elsewhere and then sampling or putting it on the Octatrack afterwards.

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#7

Yeah the tune range limit on elektron samplers has always been a bit confusing to me… it does sound good but also sometimes you want to destroy a sample by pitching it way way down, its never been clear to me if the limit is put in to keep things sounding nicer or there is some actual reason they need to limit it. Sometimes I resample into my cheapo akai s20 because it gives a full midi range to a sample so I can really brutalize a sound and sample it back into the digitakt. Would love to hear someone who worked at elektron chime in on why they limit the tuning/pitch range.

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#8

Good idea, and I guess you would be able to do the same via internal sampling on Elektron devices. Using repeated AD conversions with other samplers would help add more of the lo-fi vibe.

#9

Don’t forget you can get another additional few octaves down using rate if TS is off and in SRC/Playback setup you set rate to pitch.
64 is standard, 32 is -1, 16 is -2, 8 is -4 octaves.

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#10

Yeah, definitely… there is definitely something interesting going on with akais lower bitrate conversion algorithms too. For what ever reason it always feels like a little special sauce to me, especially when comparing it to internal resample. I feel like biggest annoyance though is when you set up a sound you like and you have an LFO modulating tune and then when you play chromatic you hit the range cap earlier, but I suppose you can resample that aswell and just roll with how a sampled modulation changes with pitch.

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#11

On the Digitakt, can you tune a sample by semitones? By holding function or pressing down on the knob? I can’t seem to find this info in the manual.

On the TRIG page there is a note value but this is to P-lock different notes into the sequencer I think, yes? And I assume, because the keyboard overrides this value, the sequencer will too

#12

The manual states:

-24.00–+24.00, equivalent to four octaves

So changing it by 1.0 in any direction is a semitone.

Or do you mean changing only in semitones?

#13

Yes. In increments of half steps / semitones

#14

Exactly what I would like !

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#15

The new 1.4 update has gotten me using my OT way more now, but I’m still really missing this feature on it!

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#16

Still confusing…
Can you tune samples by ”jumps” of half steps? Or only finetune with the tune knob?
You know, transpose a sound by half steps with a transpose parameter, like pretty much any sampler can.
Because there is nothing about it in the manual. And IIRC, the Octatrack mk1 had similar tuning quirks. It was a pain in the butt to tune samples. I only had it for a few months without using it much so I might have missed it

#17

Without messing with RATE, there is only one pitch paramter PTCH. It can go from -12 to +12 (down one octave, up one octave). The resolution is in steps of 0.2. If you press the knob down and turn PTCH it will go up and down in increments of 1.0 (i.e. half steps/semitones). Does that answer your question?

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#18

Yes! Thanks a lot :wink:

#19

If you hold function while you tune it will jump to octaves (12 and 24) which can be useful.

#20

So when recreating DT trigs in OT, what would the OT pitch level be to recreate a DT trig which is set to -4 in tune parameter on src page? (time stretching needs to be deactivated I assume?)

Also, values for note length are far more incremental on DT than on OT, which only has full numbers. So how would I recreate a note length of .563 or something like that on the OT?