Digitone - Hard to find good sounds to use?

Elektron Gear Digitone/Digitone Keys
#1

Hey everyone,

I’ve owned a Digitone for quite a while now, and for some reason I’m not finding any good sounds to use. Am I doing something wrong? I mainly produce trap and house/techno music. For trap and house I try to find some mellow sounds (i.e. pads, soft piano keys, guitars, etc) but I really can’t find a selection of good ones, even after purchasing almost every sound pack.
As regards techno, I do find some really dark sounds to use, but for house and trap I feel really limited.

Are these sounds possible on the Digitone, or am I using the wrong synth to get these kind of sounds?

Thank you in advance for your help!

Have a great day. :slight_smile:

#2

For mellow you need simple sine like the default sound, maybe with a very slight LFO on pitch.
Otherwise, you need to tame the FM harmonics either with the operators envelopes, or more simply the filter.
Of course an FM synth shines with harsh/metallic/weird sounds, but Digitone really can do mellow as well.
My favorite demo track is “Vanta Black”. Try to find this track in the Presets project and save the sound, then tweak it and make it your own.

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#3

Thank you very much for your reply!

I see, so you recommend I start by only a simple wave and only tweaking it a little bit? Because mainly I want to get maybe a ‘piano-ish’ sound. Would that be maybe in the Digitone Keys sound pack? Because I haven’t had time to look through it yet.

Exactly, I listened to that track and it’s amazing! It is the main reason why I got the Digitone in the first place. :slight_smile:

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#4

my favorite mellow sounds

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#5

Indeed. I got that pack. Maybe I need to spend time looking through it more. The thing that doesn’t motivate me is that I need to spend a lot of time searching for a sound. Meanwhile when I use other synths I just get them.

#6

I don‘t know if you like sound design, but the easiest way to get the sounds you like would be creating them yourself.
You could focus on learning the synth architecture instead of browsing sound packs. But not sure everyone enjoys that, I know. I can totally see that some people prefer just making music.
I get good results on the DN very quickly, I always feel that this synth is incredibly rich in sweetspots. But maybe the sound of it is just not your taste. Some people don‘t like fm sounds at all.

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#7

So could it be that FM sounds cannot cater for my taste in music? For example if I want a piano sounding sound, is it possible on the Digitone?

#8

could be.
But fm is usually one of the better synthesis methods to imitate the vibe of acoustic instruments. In the 80s when the came out, they were mainly used for that purpose.
But it depends how real you want your piano or guitar patches to sound.
At some point it would be easier too use the real thing. Or get some good piano and guitar libraries for Kontakt or the like

#9

I see. What I’ll do is try and make some sound design myself, as I currently use Electra 2 from Tone 2 as a soft synth to create FM patches and for some reason I get results quickly when I use it. I need to try to apply my knowledge from that into the Digitone.

Thank you very much for your help today! Hope you have a great day.

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#10

I really wish DN wouldn’t have forced fixed ratio for it’s operators. I understand the reasoning behind it but it limits the possibilities somewhat

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#11

The videos from Red Means Recording really helped me to see the sound design possibilities on the DN

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#12

Definitely. To reach your sound, there is no better way than learn about synthesis. Dig in this forum, you should quickly find some references.

My favorite being the SOS series.

It’s a whole passionate world to discover, that will change the way you perceive music :slight_smile:

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#13

agree…one of the best and my fave crafter that Jogging House…understated but effective synthesis

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#14

My biggest tip for FM is to apply very light modulation. It’s so easily overdone, and you usally need much less than you think to introduce some nice timbral quality. It’s easy to end up in bell-hell or super typical 90s sounds if you apply too much modulation. Also, remember that feedback is scalable and useful, try applying a lot of feedback and little modulation for example.

For softer sounds, you typically don’t want to modulate that much, and also think about keeping the envelope a bit soft too - softness is not just a purely harmonic quality. Also, using the LP4 filter on the Digitone will soften things up a lot.

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#15

Doubtful, but you’d do best for learning your tool to where YOU create the sounds you want for your taste in music! You know best, spend some time learning how to craft a patch.

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#16

of the different types of synthesis out there, FM synthesis is probably the best approach for the sort of sounds you’re after.

To me it’s also one of the toughest/non-linear synthesis engines to program though. the digitone makes that task a bit easier/more manageable, as it limits the ratios in which the operators can be set to one another.

If I understood correctly, you say you work with FM synthesis in software? do those VSTs produce the sounds you’re after? If so, you may just not vibe with the Digitone’s sound (although it’s excellent for an FM synth!). If not, you may want to explore eg sampled instruments (in software) or get a sampler and load that up with the sounds you dig.

what exactly is it that you don’t like about the sounds you’re getting? I understand you wish for something mellow and pianoish…where do you see the biggest issue currently? timbre? attack of the sound? release? aliveness/dynamism/overtones of the sound?

#17

This stood out instantly for me too, great little pattern!

#18

I have been making Digitone sound packs that are influenced by my 10 years of patching modular synthesizers. I also have a few Digitone patch design tutorials on my youtube channel to assist in helping Digitone users on how to create their own sounds:

If you want to save time and back to creating I also have 2 sound packs available.

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