Digitone Tips and Tricks

That makes sense, I’m primarily working with the DN or supplementing lightly with another synth.

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Just discovered an interesting trick with your ratio offset values. The best way to hear this effect is to start with a new patch to create sounds with and set the algorithm to 4 because it will exaggerate this effect. May work with other algorithms. Adjusting the C value for example, ALL you do is very, very gently adjust the knob until you see the “ratio C offset” pop-down text and you should hear a very slow detuning against the other operators. This is an even slower effect than just setting it to .001 which means that between each value there is actually a hidden, much more fine tuned value you can set your offsets to. This only seems to work on positive values, not negative ones. For example there is a much longer delay between 0.000 and 0.001 than there is between 0.000 and -0.001 when gently adjusting your knob.

This can be annoying however, because you may adjust your offsets and decide to set them back to 0 manually, however there is a chance you’re actually setting a value between 0 and .001 which may produce this effect when its not desired. If you ever set your offsets back to 0, be sure to use the function button to default the offset to exactly zero. I wonder if @Ess could eventually update the pop-down notification to show the fine-tuned long value when making these tiny, micro adjustments.

I am going to experiment with this functionality in an attempt to build very slow evolving pads that you couldn’t normally get with an offset value of .001 and see what happens. Really cool little trick anyways.

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Really enjoying using the Conditional Trig “1st” false (the one with the line on top) for pattern transitions. Therefore when your pattern goes from A -> B , you can have Conditional Trigs on any sound now on pattern B so for the first 4 measures they’re muted and will unmute when it completes the loop. Frees you from having to mute / unmute manually.

I also did this really glitchy / arpeggiator patch by doing this…

  • Track 1 was a 1/16th ARP enabled patch.
  • Track 2 was pad sound, but I imagine anything will work.

Had track 1 playing track 2 at same time through voice menu. Now depending on how you have voices allocated, when you start playing the Arp patch, you’ll have a really cool rhythmic patch with tons of voice stealing going on. The voice steal makes it great. Add some movement through lfos and other means and you’ll have some pretty busy stuff going on. Especially with higher tempos.

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Sweet !

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Wow ! :grin: Thank’s a lot to share this usefull tips.

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Actually you do not have to be in multimap mode if you force range on a target track (not auto). You can then use midi tracks to loopback on the multimap channel.

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Even better : when using midi tracks looping back to trigger multimap channel you can send cc over multimap if its channel is the same as the target track of the range you’re triggering !

Summary with examples :

  • put some sounds in sound pool - eg in this order : 10 kicks, 10 snares, 10 hats, 10 percs

  • edit multimap with 4 ranges all with track 4 as target track - first range using sound slot note inc : c0-to… : 10 kicks with c5 as note input , then the same : second range 10 snares as c#5 (note
    changes because if you do not increment these will choke)

  • change the multimap channel to 4 (midi config) - meaning : the same as the 4th DN track which is the target track of all ranges of multimap

  • then put midi tracks on channel 4 and use first 40 notes as you please

  • add cc knobs (for instance cc14 for delay) and parameter lock it on the triggered note

  • you can even use pitch bend / mod depth / etc. which mean macro controls of the sound triggered from sound pool

  • downsides are :
    – if you want to live record for some reason, track 4 will record triggers from midi input
    — > workaround is to mute DN track 4 and never use it, you still have 7 to play with :slight_smile:
    — > or mute midi tracks while live recording
    – if you play a melody on track 4 using c5 as note : there will be choke with your kicks so keep that in mind
    – parameter locks on cc will be shared across midi tracks by step : if you have a kick on midi track 1 and snare on the same step but midi track 2 and want delay only on snare : not possible (or play with microtiming)
    — > in a way that adds some cool variations when muting / unmuting or with different track lengths

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Ess is doing another stream tonight at 8 CET with Digitone tricks.

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It may be already known but here is random melody generator trick example :

  • track 1 : bass patch with 16 C5 steps
  • midi track 1 set to loopback on track 1 with a random “one” trig mode LFO on CC1 knob set to target midi cc : 3 (rootnote)
  • put midi knob 1 around 63
  • at least a few trigless steps on midi track 1
  • as soon as you launch live recording : the melody evolves as if there were a “sample and hold melody generator”
  • stop the live recording and voilà you now have your new techno bassline randomly generated

I got the idea while watching this video of Surgeon playing with a Leploop synth : The Art Of Production: Surgeon’s techno live setup

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@DJSpacePI Thanks for the great tip, I followed it to the letter but this part I quoted doesn’t work for me … I cannot have layered drum sound on one track, even when assigned different notes … Is there any other params I could check. I also verified if there was a regression in the firmware cos’ I have 1.30A installed, so I downgraded to 1.21 and it’s the same behavior. I would love to have some help on this.

I actually have a workaround for my issue: if I program the drum sounds myself from scratch instead of using the factory presets sounds the polyphony works well. I quite don’t understand why for now (playmode poly is activated for all of them) but I’m happy with what I have.

Pretty nice demo of “looping” the delay.

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Something I’m struggling with…
When doing “whole-pattern + or - semitones” (PTN and Up / Down), is there a way to exclude a track?

Context:
I use the Nord Drum 2 global MIDI channel with Digitone, where 6 notes on 1 MIDI track correspond to the 6 drum instruments.
But the pattern shift affects that too, so I lose e.g. bass drum.

just press the tracks you want to shift and up / down? ah… or do you want to have MIDI affected as well… hm

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Change globally, and and change tracks after?

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Is there a trick or tip for copying to a non-active pattern? Only just started using Digitone’s own sequencer again and remembered that this drives me crazy. Especially if using tempo-per-pattern. Last thing you want to do is swap to a new one, have your tempo go haywire, then do the paste. There’s a solution, right?

You mean copying a pattern to a non active pattern?
You can press PTN + the pattern you want to copy from + REC (copy) and then PTN + the pattern you want to copy to + STOP (paste) for a few seconds.
That way everything happens while staying in the same pattern.

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THANKS!!! I was sure there must be a way. The manual seemed to say there wasn’t and I just accepted it like the quitter I am!

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Happy to help!

Sent a suggested manual tweak over - might help other old timers in the future. :wink: