Thanks man this will bring live Performance a step ahead awesome
1 Like
Tip for longer phrases with higher resolutions.
So this morning I wanted to record a bassline but it needed to be 128 steps long, however reducing the track scale to 1/2 was not providing a high enough resolution to have the notes where I needed them. Thinking of solutions, I did this…
- Record 1st half of sequence on track 1 and set all notes to trig condition 1/2 (64 step pattern)
- Record 2nd half of sequence on track 2 and set all notes to trig condition 2/2 (64 step pattern)
The downside is you are going to sacrifice a synth track or midi track to gain the extra steps and retain the high resolution. This idea was one of those “aha moments” in that it was so simple, but overlooked for so long.
Bonus - you can add some random notes on track 1 with a trig condition 3/4 and on track 2 with trig condition 4/4. Now you have quite the varied sequence.
33 Likes
Clever, simple (once it is pointed out) and easy to remember.
I will definitely be using this trick. 
2 Likes
Are you the type of person that loves recording jams and muting / un-muting on the fly? Do you sometimes miss that perfect mute and lose sleep over it? Are you limiting yourself to just 1 or 2 patterns for your jam? Check it out…
Just copy the main pattern you’re working with and strip back parts among many more patterns. Now you can just worry about pattern changes and not muting / un-muting, this leaves the ability to tweak knobs throughout your jam (free up your hands). Add some conditional trigs throughout and switch up some notes among patterns for more variation.
This isn’t a new idea, it’s been discussed a bit throughout many forums. Wanted to discuss here in case anybody has missed this idea.
13 Likes
I’ve been doing this but If you’re messing with knobs and parameters, they’ll reset when the pattern changes unless I’m missing something.
2 Likes
Yes, you are correct. The parameters will revert back to what the next pattern is programmed with. This can actually be good for transitions, such as opening up a filter before the next pattern, so it acts as a riser and it reverts back to a closed filter on the next pattern. On the other hand, yes it could be to the song’s detriment depending on what you’re doing.
I suppose I don’t notice these changes as much due to using external gear sequenced from the DN. My external synths parameters won’t reset, unless I’m using midi cc.
4 Likes
That makes sense, I’m primarily working with the DN or supplementing lightly with another synth.
1 Like
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.
13 Likes
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.
22 Likes
Sweet !
1 Like
Wow ! 
Thank’s a lot to share this usefull tips.
1 Like
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.
2 Likes
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
— > 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
6 Likes
Ess is doing another stream tonight at 8 CET with Digitone tricks.
5 Likes
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
17 Likes
@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.
2 Likes
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
2 Likes