Digitone feature requests!

I have a small ‘hack’ for drum sound macros. It does involve creating a decent percussive ‘something’ (or just snag a preset you like) at first with all envelopes, LFO’s doing pitch mod etc. set, which you’ll use as a template sound. After that it’s just a case of hammering Syn1 + Yes (both main page and offsets) to get infinite sound variations which you then can tweak a bit. Hi-pass everything for a hat sound, low pass for kick/tom etc. Works wonders for me.

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INSTANT SWITCHING OF PTNs

’FREESTYLE’ or 'FILL MODE’

Another little silly feature request that would really be nice to have on ALL Elektron machines (wink wink) could be:

One being able to instantly switch between patterns (like a performance mode in the Polyend Tracker, or resembling Ableton Live) Playing a pattern and instantly switching to the next / between, while the playhead continues playing on the same or next step in order of the newly selected PTN?

! BUT more importantly !

Like performance mode in ABL Live, where one can also write/record the ‘Jam’ !

Like: you select an empty pattern up front, or multiple (like daisy chaining before there was ‘Song-Mode’) as the PTN slot target

And then in 'Freestyle / Performance’ mode jam along until you think you discovered something nice, then hit the REC button to start Writing it on the next time around the sequence loops (on step 1) and automaticly stops the recording process after the end of the selected empty PTN slot(s) is/are reached. Like Frankensteining PTN snippets into a brand new PTN for further abusive micro editing and mangling.

Thanks :metal: cheers

Yes, I guess.
I’ve thought an interface/macro close to syntakt engine interface. It would simply the creation of drums imho.

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To some extent yes, but largely no – the Digitone and Cycles differ a lot although they are based on the same underlying architecture. You can approximate a lot of Cycles stuff on the Digitone but as always, the devil is in the details… Or the hidden spice as you put it. ;–)

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Didn’t want to make a whole thread about this but I have a question for the real FM heads:

I’ve noticed that when using the “folded keyboard” on the digitone that often many patches will be in tune if they are a 5th above or below the tonic (so if my track is in D, I will need to tune to A for some patches to match.

Just curious about what setting/parameter makes that happen? Its seems very unique to FM synthesis.

Maybe something about the ratios. Surely offsets or non integer ratios on careers.

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OT FM ramblings

Summary

I like to think of FM as “batch additive”. You start with a sine and add more sine harmonics in bunches (remember that all sound can be broken down into sinewaves). What harmonics you are adding depends on the frequencies of the carrier and modulator and how much modulation you’re applying. The calculation to find out what harmonics you get is really simple but easier to explain with an example than an equation for us mere mortals:

For a carrier at 100Hz and modulator at 100Hz (ratio of 1.0) you will get frequencies like:
100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, etc.

For a carrier at 100Hz and modulator at 200Hz (ratio of 2.0) you will get frequencies like:
100, 300, 500, 700, 900, etc.

For a carrier at 100Hz and a modulator at 50Hz (ratio of 0.5) you will get frequencies like:
50, 100, 150, 200, 250, 300, 350, etc.

Notice in the third example that the added frequencies (sidebands) go both positive and negative from the carrier! I believe this could be the answer to your question because 50 and 150 are a 5th below and above 100Hz so if you’re using a ratio of 0.5 you might perceive the lower sideband to be the root frequency rather than the real root.

Make sense? I’d love to hear back if the patches you were describing match my theory.

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This makes sense and thank you for taking the time to explain. I think its a cool wrinkle to the sound design in FM

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Another thing to keep in mind is that an “in tune” fifth is either 3:2 (just intonation) or 2^(7/12) (equal temperament).

Digitone steers you to pure intervals, western ears are more used to equal temperament.

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sometimes i just feel like performing/recording with 2 patches at once. Top row of trigs is one track, bottom is another track, both in their respective scale/transpose and are in keyboard fold.

im going to research how to set up a multimap later, but it would be nice to just have that on quick access, to not lose the ideas.


EDIT: i tried and couldnt get multimap to do that.

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A peak filter so we don’t have to cut off all the low frequencies with a high pass filter’s peak (resonance) to get crisp and metallic percussive sounds like hihats.

Edit: Other Elektron boxes have it :wink:

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I use the base width filter for this. Works exceptionally well.

That’s the opposite of my feature request :wink:

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I know Im super helpful :stuck_out_tongue:

(Edit: band reject filter would be the opposite)

Ive been requesting slide trigs since forever, what did we get? Silver boxes.
Pfffff.

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You brought this on yourself.

My feature request is a way to emphasise high frequencies without removing low or high frequencies. You recommended the base width filter, which removes low and high frequencies without emphasising any.

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We’re saying the same thing. Just expressing it differently.

Pick a band , boost it = peak filter.
Pick a band, attenuate, = reject filter.

(Or an OT style parametric EQ, which does both, would be far more useful, in my opinion)

Either way, selecting frequency range and boosting it can be done already on the digitone as it is. Just a bit of creative DIY is needed.

Low frequencies in hihats sounds awful to me. But Im a drummer.

For example, I want to boost above ~10000 Hz, because in this area Digitone sounds notoriously dull (contrary to any of my other synths when using no filter). But then, at around 2500 Hz is already nothing anymore, making a very thin sound. Thinking about that, a high shelf with peak would be even better, but contrary to a peak filter that is something no Digibox has.

For comparison, a 909 hihat still has content even at 250 Hz.

December - the month of bare nerves and too long conversations! Hereby I withdraw my vote for your slide trigs and nobody wins!

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Peak and notch would be very useful as an alternative to base/width on filter page 2.
That’s one of my favourite features on Machinedrum. I hope we’ll see this in an update.

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It sounds like some folks want more of an EQ stage added with various types: shelving, bell/peak, Baxandall etc.

All would be welcome but unlikely.

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Syntakt has 5 peak (positive values)/notch (negative values) variants per digital voice - and it’s awesome - so it is not that unlikely :wink:

Edit: Almost forgot, Digitakt has it, too.

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