Digitone Arp + Soundlock bugs and crashes

Elektron Gear Digitone/Digitone Keys
#41

@Prof_lofi yeah it’s a bummer, did you find out how to avoid it before you sold it? (Btw have you communicated this to elektron?)

@garf That I was in contact with them about this issue, was indeed back in June 2021.

Back then they simply confirmed the bugs, and said they were able to recreate the simpler bugs I described, but not the actual crash. However I did send them a project file that has a pattern that always crashes regardless of the physical machine it’s loaded on (I tried 3), so I don’t know how accurate I would rate the statement that they are unable to recreate the crash😂 (and it wasn’t a corrupted project file either because I recreated the pattern in an empty project that exhibits the same behavior)

There were at least two other users I remember, that reported back at a later stage than june 21, with something along the lines of “that they were aware of a bug that affected a very small group of users, but didn’t know what was causing it”
That’s the last update I’m aware of, but I haven’t been to active on the forum the last year or so :slight_smile:

Edit: reading your post again: I would find it concerning if this is no longer on their radar as a bug.

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#42

I did communicate it to them but afaicr it was the same, can’t quite recreate it thing…it was early days though and the arp connection hadn’t quite been discovered.

I just lost confidence in it, even though I love the DN, but didn’t want any gear I couldn’t rely on so sold it.

It did seem connected to the arp though.

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#43

Yeah if I hadn’t figured out how to avoid it, I would have probably sold it as well. That’s unworkable, especially in an improvisational context (which is a massive part of the draw to Elektron boxes in the first place) The AR mk2 was in that state for many months, until they finally discovered the source and patched it and it really fucks with how you relate to an instrument.

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#44

Yep, this exactly. They were really cool to talk to but at that point it wasn’t clear really if it was the gear, the os or me. I’m remembering more now and it was shortly after that someone made the link to the arp.

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#45

Ah ok, I was talking about the arp+soundlocks issue (where soundlocks sound wrong) – as per my video (and yours).
I don’t know about crashes, luckily not had those.

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#46

Check. The original reason for starting this thread was bug 1, the crash bug. I had noticed the effects of bug2&3 while performing live but always played it of as user error. I realized they were actually machine errors through my investigation of what triggers the crash.

I highly expect these three bugs to be related since the non crashing bugs are the “building blocks” for creating a crashing pattern. Basically keep stacking the problem you discovered in the same pattern/track and eventually you will find a pattern configuration that wil crash the machine. What we don’t know is what the exact commonality is between those crashing pattern “configurations”, (if that makes any sense😂)

Btw. had you noticed bug 2? Or only bug 3?

Bug 2 is also easy to recreate btw.

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#47

I see now that I never shared a video of bug 1, probably because crashes always sound the same. And in the beginning I thought that was all it did. I did however record a video at a later time. So for completion’s sake:

The high pitched whine has been edited out to protect unsuspecting headphones users.

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#48

Only bug 3, where arp and soundlocks exist on same track, which I came across while learning the DN (still a newish machine for me) - I searched for posts about it and found this thread.

Not sure if it’s already mentioned here, but adjusting the arp’s params affects soundlocks even when the arp is set to OFF (locks play an octave lower when adjusting LEN, RANGE, SPEED…)

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#49

I wouldn’t let it take away from enjoying the machine too much; because this needs to be fixed but the machine itself is fucking awesome.

And no I don’t think you mentioned it before. I wasn’t aware that this also happens when the arp that has its values tweaked is off. Again nice find! Good to have some new eyes on the matter. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to examine your other discovery yet, will definitely try to look into both this weekend.

Another observation that I think I haven’t shared shared here yet. There might be a relationship with these arp bugs and the moment a pattern/track repeats. My memory is a bit fuzzy on this but either all or almost all crashing patterns crash at a pattern/track loop-point. Bug 2 also only starts to go haywire after it’s first track repetition.

#50

I noticed that the arp doesn’t spread its voices when outputting the same repeated notes (although it does work with trig+yes, oddly). Check the vid below.

So if you have a track with 2-voice allocation, with soundlocks in the seq, plus an arp over the top firing single notes with a long trig time, your soundlocks get gobbled up. You can see the single-note arp stay on one voice in the voice menu to confirm this.

But if you use arp’s note offsets (or give a trig multiple notes), the voices alternate as expected, and then your soundlocks play alongside the arp.

Is this working as expected? Feels like voice allocation is broken here, leading to soundlocks getting pushed out or mangled.

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#51

Hah… just realised that these broken soundlocks only occur when both the arp trig and the soundlocks have the same ROOT note (e.g. C5 60). Changing one or the other stops the glitchy playback of soundlocks :skull:

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#52

Yeah this is actually working as intended, the digitone doesn’t do same note polyphony. There is a few topics about it, I remember some people had strong feelings about it because cutting of a voice can potentially create a click/pop of course.

#53

Same-note poly works when you audition the trig though. You can see it working in the vid when I trig+yes the first step (15secs in - the two voices can be seen to alternate). It just fails to work when ‘in sequence’

Seems that the DN breaks its own rules :metal:

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#54

It’s about the sameness of the trig notes, not the arp notes if I’m not mistaken. so same note between trigs. Been a while since I have had my DN running.

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#55

Ughh this stuff is messy :sob:

#56

Got a Digitone recently and nearly spewed when this happened to me a short while ago. It wouldn’t power up properly afterwards either. Managed to run it and trying to ad notes in record did the same thing a few times. Shame as 3 arps running was sounding pretty cool.

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#57

He :wave:t2: yeah they do sound really nice overlaying :joy:

Not sure how much of that☝🏻 you read, but as far as we know you can safely run 4 simultaneously arps. And don’t worry about the machine not instantly booting, sometimes it takes a while for the machine to fully discharge its capacitors.

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#58

bug confirmed:
track with ARP + SOUNDLOCK/S
randomly freeze with hi pitch noise.
Had to power unplug and wait 15 sec b4 power up again…

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#59

Thx for confirming :pray:t2:

(And please send a ticket to elektron if you haven’t already done so^*^)

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#60

Hi there! Yesterday my new Digitone which i bought less than 14th days ago, unexpectedly for me, did that strange high pithed noise and freeze… It has never happened to my Digitakt which I own almost 2 years. so that’s how I found this thread ) So my question : is this issue belongs to all Digitones or only to some individual boxes ? Should I try to return it to the shop and exchange it to a new one ? Or with the same settings I will get the same bug on the other box as well?

The OS was updated to 1.40 B from the first day.