Hi. It seems all my recordings with the Digitakt are kind of shitty. They sound good when I’m playing them from the machine but when I record it to Ableton or the Zoom H4n there’s lots of distortion and blow out. Anyone have any tips or recommendations? I’m gonna try running the recording through a limiter in Ableton, but I would often prefer to use the H4n for these recordings.
Are you keeping the master volume cranked all the way? When I record my sets I keep the master dial a titch past noon, no further. Also on your H4 check to make sure the recording level is not clipping on it’s way in. I also believe the H4 has a built in compressor/limiter you could fiddle with to keep the tracks from clipping on their way in.
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You are clipping the inputs of your recorder.
Turn down the master volume knob on the Digitakt. It has a very hot output.
A limiter in Ableton is only going to limit the audio after it has come through those inputs, and won’t do you any good.
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Thanks for the replies. I really haven’t had the volume up that high. Maybe 8. I’ll just experiment and fine tune. I have a Digitone also and was finding that if I linked them and turned up the DT enough to be balanced with the DN the DT would sound shitty in the recording so… I’ll just keep experimenting.
Check the input levels with the track meters. If they are red, you are clipping the inputs.
Setting the master volume of DT at noon is step one. But also make sure you don’t crank the input gain on your mixer or audio interface too high. Every audio interface has a clip led, make sure it doesn’t blink. If the problem still percists, you might have a blown out input on your audio interface. Try the one you connect the DN on to me sure.
Hope this helps 
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The Zoom has recording level buttons on the right hand side if I’m not mistaken. Play whatever you plan to record and turn them down until there’s ample room below the peak.
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